Well, if you're on the Shetland list, you know all about that! UGH! If not, go take a look at my post there. UGH UGH UGH.....
Today the sheep pen got a cleaning. We have been under siege with rains since the middle of June, in a place that only gets 32 inches of precip a year. 2 months straight, it's rained, showed, the sun peaks out, goes away, and rains again. Not even 3 dry days to cut and bale hay SINCE EARLY JUNE! My poor sheep have had 3 'hills' and one dry shed to go into, but they are muddy. All of them. We have been battling the rains with our soils that don't soak in rain here, it just runs off downhill. We're on Glacial Moraine, lots of the state is, and why there are so many tiny lakes too......the ground doesn't soak up much water. So my sheep pen is no different. THANKFULLY Rick decided to bring down some old trees with the big excavator, and I talked him into removing the overburden in the sheep pen down to the sand I had trucked in for them in years past. So I just let them out and they are running in the sand and feeding at their round bale, quite happy. I don't expect them to be any less muddy, well, ok, maybe a LITTLE less, but they will be happier. And now the hayfields and pastures are full of mushrooms - good and bad mushrooms. So no pasture for the sheep! At least we can walk around the herding arena and PICK all those mushrooms and get them out of there......sigh...and no change in the forecast either. Rain and mud until freeze up ........I hope not, but it isn't looking good! Pray that we get a week's break later this month to bale hay, there's a huge shortage of it here locally since very few fields ever could get baled.
Went to the dog shows this weekend, and my blue girl Mimi took 2 3-point majors so she did well! And Roisin took the Reserves, good girl.
And Anna had her litter of puppies - 3 boys and 3 girls - starting Friday evening into yesterday. Momma and babies are all doing fine so far! But I'm pooped having stayed up all Friday night with her...phew!
About Me
- Alaska Shetland Shepherd
- Wasilla, Alaska
- I have been owned by Shetlands and Shetland crosses since 1997. The first 4 arrived to assist my AKC Australian Cattle Dogs with learning herding maneuvers. I bred to registered Shetland rams to improve them and kept good ewe lambs back each year. I slowly built up my flock and now keep 40 or so year 'round. Recently we had the flock tested for OPP and Johne's diseases also and I'm happy to say all tested negative! WOOHOO!! My interest in registered Shetlands was always there. I bought a few each year. As my registered numbers grow, my unregistered sheep numbers will dwindle except for a few old favorites who will stay. I grew up around sheep in Michigan and have been around the big wool breeds for years, but the Shetland is a far superior breed with fantastic wool and small size as well as big personalities. They do very well in Alaska! In 2007 I flew up 8 spotted Shetland lambs for my breeding plans and new genetics in Alaska, and 2 more lambs in 2008. I really look forward to the future lambs to arrive here at Silveraurora! I'm also busy with a wonderful dairy goat herd as well, so occasionally you'll see some of my beauties on this blog too!
4 comments:
I hadn't gotten my list messages on digest yet, so had to go read your message there. What a mess! I would be having my husband call that vet and pick his mind.... One sure hopes a buyer wouldn't resort to lying to get out of a purchase, but I just can't see how a vet could pronounce such a sentence on that ram lamb -- especially since it is a LAMB and not yet fully developed! Have you checked any of your other sheep for lice? If no others are infested, then maybe he did somehow get them en route.
I'm glad you have some good things happening on the dog front to help balance the sheep and weather stuff!
well it was VERY upsetting to say the least! Getting a phone call that the vet said he should be immediately wethered! Eeegads! But then again, when you compare sheep legs to dog legs or horse legs, they're not the same at all. I always thought primitive sheep are built different than the modern Suffolk for example, don't you think? My goodness that boy is wide in the rear end. I even was asked to clip a sample of his fleece and I mailed that off to her - she loved it! And I was told where to clip it from - LOL! Of course it was the very same place on the body you clip for fleece samples being sent off to micron test, so of course that was amusing at the time. I haven't heard back from Lois tho - she had sold her lambs a few years ago, so I would have thought this lady would have emailed the pics to Lois for her opinion before buying him. I'm so totally embarassed tho, my lamb being full of lice and only good for meat! My goat friends will be upset about the lice too, since they've been hard to get rid of for all the goat people up here. We've all worked hard at it! So now I have a lousy ram lamb coming back that I'm going to have to quarantine too - who knows where he was while he was there or what he could have caught. Poor thing will be off all by himself for weeks now! Sigh....
Sorry to hear you've been having a rotten time of it. Hope things improve very soon. At least you have a new litter of pups to enjoy. Photos please!!
Good heavens, some people twist things around and then get all upset about it! When I wrote August 8th:
"So now I have a lousy ram lamb coming back that I'm going to have to quarantine too - who knows where he was while he was there or what he could have caught."
I MEANT who knows where he's been, as in did he get put in a public stall at the fairgrounds or in a pen with other sheep. NOT did he get the lice from my goat friends! Johne's, OPP, things like that can be gotten from other sheep or from other pens. Once he was back I was finally told by my friends he'd never gone anywhere, onto the ground for the exam and back into his crate, which was very good news!
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