The Girls Just Love Him
It's the heart of hay feeding season!
First You Have to Put Up the Hay
3/11/06: Oh, Just Take A Seat Anywhere
3/14/06: A Whole New Way to Start the Day
3/26/06: I Told You They Have No Manners
3/2/08: How Do Donkeys Order Lunch?
3/7/08: Waiting for Lunch (on Top of Breakfast)
3/26/08: Donkey Dietary Habits
4/18/08: Cary is Too Hungry to Say Hi
5/7/08: Daily Dose of Cute: All Day Hay Buffet
5/28/08: Daily Dose of Cute: Back in the Hay Day
9/27/08: Sheep Gone Wild!
1/23/09: Feeding Frenzy
1/24/09: Keeping the Food Supply Safe
1/31/09: A Cold Breakfast Will Be Served in the South Pen
3/4/09: Food as Furniture
12/9/09: Eat Up, Kids!
1/12/10: You Shouldn't Take Chances with the Food Supply
1/22/10: Everybody's Safe
4/18/08: Cary is Too Hungry to Say Hi
5/7/08: Daily Dose of Cute: All Day Hay Buffet
5/28/08: Daily Dose of Cute: Back in the Hay Day
9/27/08: Sheep Gone Wild!
1/23/09: Feeding Frenzy
1/24/09: Keeping the Food Supply Safe
1/31/09: A Cold Breakfast Will Be Served in the South Pen
3/4/09: Food as Furniture
12/9/09: Eat Up, Kids!
1/12/10: You Shouldn't Take Chances with the Food Supply
1/22/10: Everybody's Safe
© Copyright 2010 FarmgirlFare.com, the eating for two (all those sheep in the pictures, silly—not me!) foodie farm blog where I don't know about you, but it sure looks to me like my hunky farmguy Joe is petting a ewe or two in that last photo—which is something he'd definitely never be caught dead doing.
Great photos! Love the story it tells.
ReplyDeleteThe utter dedication that farm life requires is truly amazing to me. I don't think I could do it but I am grateful that there are others who can.
ReplyDeleteWhat girl doesn't love a man bearing hay?
ReplyDeleteLooks to me like he has quite the fan club!
ReplyDelete(I think the truth is out. Photos don't lie :)
I wonder why some of the sheep don't have their tails docked? Maybe, if you're going to write about that, you could explain why people usually do dock sheep's tails. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAhhh.... to be adored by a flock of lovely ladies. This is the life!
ReplyDeleteSusan
oh...the old 'give me food and I'll follow you anywhere' shots....LOL....great photos - as always!!
ReplyDeleteHunky farm guy knows the way to a gal's heart - feed her.
ReplyDeleteHe looks like he is being mobbed by those ewes. I think he was whispering sweet nothings to them too.
ReplyDeleteHi Everybody,
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the fun comments. I definitely think he's busted. ; )
JuliaR,
Good question! We usually dock all the lamb tails, but we have some Katahdin hair sheep in the flock now, and because they're not all wooly, they don't need their tails docked. You'll find lots of photos of our Katahdins (which we introduced to help improve internal parasites since the breed is naturally resistant) here.
Here's a little bit about docking tails, taken from the Sheep 201: A Beginner's Guide to Raising Sheep website:
Docking is when the tail is shortened. Docking improves the health and welfare of sheep and lambs. It prevents fecal matter from accumulating on the tail and hindquarters of the animal. Research has shown that tail docking greatly reduces fly strike (wool maggots) [fly strike is really disgusting and awful], while having no ill effect on lamb mortality or production. Docking facilitates shearing. Not many professional sheep shearers want to shear sheep with long tails. Docking makes it easier to observe the ewe's udder and detect potential problems.
Some markets (lamb buyers) discriminate against tailed lambs, since having a tail lowers the dressing percent (yield) of the lamb and removal of the tail during processing requires extra labor.
Not all sheep require tail docking. Because hair sheep lambs do not have long, wooly tails, it is usually not necessary to shorten their tails. Lambs from the Northern European short-tail breeds also do not require docking. Fat-tailed sheep are usually not docked. Some producers of wooled lambs do not dock their lambs or they only dock the ewe lambs.
Like I said, we do dock our wool sheep tails when the lambs are very young, but compared to most (and especially to show sheep), we leave the tails really long. Some people literally dock the entire tail, which can lead to birthing problems for the ewe - and to me, just looks strange.
We use the banding method to dock tails and castrate males. From Sheep 201:
The easiest and most common method of tail docking is to apply a rubber ring (or band) to the tail using an elastrator tool. Banding is a bloodless method of tail docking. The band cuts off the blood supply to the tail, causing the tail to fall off in 7 to 10 days. Some producers cut the tail off before it falls off to prevent potential problems.
Banding causes some pain to the lamb, but the pain is short-lived.
You can see the banded lambs' tails in this photo.
And that's today's sheep lesson! : )
Thank you very much for such a thorough explanation!
ReplyDeleteI have been reading your blog all week. I am up to Feb. 2008 The one ? that keeps coming to mind that I have been waiting to ask just in case you all ready wrote about it is. How did you meet farmguy and how did you get from the other farm to this one?
ReplyDeleteI'll keep reading to see if you did write about this. Love the pics