All Together Now: "Awwwww . . ."

Don't you wish you had a bed this cozy? I wonder whether this lamb will keep doing this when she's twice as big, and mom is sheared at the end of the month?

Ted Working Videos - Ewes and Lambs

Video of Ted working our ewe and lamb flock. It was super hard to see with the sun so low! I was trying to practice getting Ted to tuck in the sides, hold this entire group together. Umm, we kinda did.

What I didn't realize was that the lambs were starting to react to Ted for the first time, instead of just following their mamas. And Ted did realize this.

He kept looking around at me to see whether I wanted the lambs tucked in, too. He decided to do it anyway, if you look carefully - I thought he kept flanking slightly off contact but I didn't, fortunately, touch that, because I felt he was stressing and couldn't figure out why.

The dog barking frantically is our neighbor's dog, who runs the fence and presents a bit of a challenge working in our tiny space. The sheep are used to her now somewhat, but she still keeps them jumpy if we are close to that fenceline to the left. On the other side of the yard, there are dogs on the other side of that fence, too. The sheep hate standing in that corner because of that, and desperately want to bolt diagonally down to the right to their Zen Place in the back of the house.

I Love This Dog

Shh. Don't tell the Border Collies. But Lulu is my favorite.

Is it any wonder?
I had a WW non-scale victory last night. I threw away pizza. Vinnie's pizza. It's a milestone in my life.

Just Figured It Out

In a previous post I puzzled over the meaning of the zillions of ewe lambs we've been blessed with this year. Over Valentine's Day dinner it hit me. We are ready for the next step in our three tier program - we now have a nice flock of mules - my dream, "Southeastern mules" - version 1.0. Probably then I will only breed our Blue Face Leicester ram to a few of these older ewes this upcoming fall, and instead find a terminal sire sometime over the summer. If I don't find anything really outstanding (I'd like to find a production Columbia or British-style Suffolk from a Southeastern flock), I'll simply use my first tier ram on his half-sisters and aunts.

That solves the population problem and it's very exciting. My three tier program's been ten years in the making. It will be nice to start judging the merits of these young mules and planning what steps to take to improve on them. I've already got some ideas . . .

I'm very excited.

Today we started work on our first official pasture at this new farm. Patrick cut down the small trees that were in the way, and pruned the Giant Cedar Tree. I learned to use a chain saw, too! It wasn't too bad, really - I definitely need to start lifting my weights again, though - I've gotten to be such a wimp since the whole surgery thing last fall.

You might think a one-acre paddock is nothing to write home about (write in the blog about?). But, when the new paddock is in use, we'll be back in business as a real farm - with the land growing the sheep and the sheep improving the land. Until then, we're basically a petting zoo. A petting zoo with really cute lambs.

We had one set of triplets born last week. The smallest lamb was a bit weak at the start and took a couple of tube feedings to get going. They all are from a North Country/Border Cheviot cross and are just the cutest things. The smallest especially looks like a toy lamb. I'm used to our ten to fourteen pound baby "ponies" now, so this little guy at about two pounds, is hilarious in comparison. He is very alert and has a look like he finds everything absolutely amazing, so I named him "Shaun the Sheep." His brother is Sam and his sister is Shortly. Their mother is Snorty. The name of the sister, Shortly, is a sort of complicated inside joke. Since I have an order for three wethers and other than Shaun, that's all I have right now, it looks like Shaun the Sheep will have a good long chance to catch up growing. Realistically, I don't see him at 90 pounds in August. So he may end up someone's pet once he's weaned.

Ted's driving continues to improve. It's probably the Worst Idea Ever to practice on a bunch of ewes with newborn lambs, but that's all we can manage right now. It's a real testament to how good this youngster is, that not only his driving is improving, but my handling is improving too. Plus, the sheep are settling much better for us in what may be the most awful training situation possible.

We've found quite a few lines now where we can set up a straight drive away, and cross drive, working various draws. Ted reallyreallyreallyreally enjoys driving now - it's hard to remember now that we had such a time getting him started. It's hard to get him to stop now!

Plus, now the trees are down in the new paddock and I can let out a few lambs from the feed lot, and drive them up and down the back lot. That's about 100 yards, we figured out today. And, the people next door said they didn't mind my coming over with a few lambs and practicing on the small area right next to their house (as long as the lambs go back when we are done!).

Another fun thing we are practicing is shedding. This is kind of a no-brainer on these ewes and lambs. All we have to do is let them settle for a minute and they'll let Ted come right through with hardly a blink - and it's super easy to pick off basically any group and just go with them - the ewes only care about their lambs, not each other, so Ted's main job once we've got control of a cut, is keeping them together.

So I'm taking advantage of this time to let Ted feel out this job with a view to more challenging training to come. It's already paid off - a couple days ago I let out all the sheep together, then had to split them up again.

Gate sorting in our current setup is nearly impossible and dangerous for the last couple of pregnant ewes, plus all the newborn lambs. So I left the gate wide open and we stood int he middle of the feed lot. I used Ted to "be a gate" and we sorted off the mamas between us and allowed them to go out the gate, while keeping the rest in the feed lot.

Ted was fantastic. After a while he figured out the job and could anticipate from my body language whether a ewe/lamb was a "keeper" (requiring him to make a move in and turn her off) or a "leaver" (requiring him to do nothing). That was pretty cool.

The only thing is, he's getting a bit big for his britches with all the control I'm encouraging him to take, so I'm going to need to set up a better controlled situation soon where we can have a little chat about who's ultimately in charge! :)

I sold off all but nine of my adult ewes this year. The idea was, that we weren't going to have much pasture so I wanted to keep flock growth to a minimum.

A little sheepy math here:

Normally, my lambing rate is about 110%.

I usually have about 50% ewe lambs (females, the "keepers").

I usually lose, to old age or the occasional accident or disease, or culling (selling off ewes that don't meet my breeding standards), about 25% of my grown up ewes, each year.

I normally grow out my ewe lambs and keep from 10 to 25% of them, depending on how many I need.

This year, for some reason, my ewes are lambing at 214% now. That means seven ewes (so far, two more to go) had 15 babies.

Of those, ELEVEN are girls (ewes).

I could have a bomb blow up every adult ewe I own (God forbid) and I'd still have nearly twice as many ewes as I had a month ago.

Do these girls know something I don't? I'm hoping they know that someone nice is planning to purchase the 30 acres next door and let us lease it. Otherwise I'll either be culling a lot of really super lambs , or else looking for a remote lease somewhere.

I'm not COMPLAINING. I'm just amazed and wondering what's in store here.

Useful Dog

Today Ted earned his dog food. Pretty much all of it.

I was briefly tempted to call this "Ewesful Dog" but then I'd have to put out my eyes with forks. I'm very annoyed by sheep puns. Wether they are good or baaad.

Well anyway.

Today I looked out and in the "nursery" pen a storm had broken loose. One of the ewes who lambed first was trying to steal the lambs of the latest ewe to lamb. The two ewes were going at it hammer and tongs and not only their lambs, but also other lambs were getting knocked over and trampled in the melee.

The "nursery" pen is just getting too crowded. Normally I pasture lamb and the ewes are used to having plenty of space to give themselves a few days of privacy before rejoining the group. But, I also don't have the space here yet to jug more than one ewe at a time (jugging is putting the ewe in a small pen with her lambs).

I had a simple answer though. Just push them out in the house yard. No problem, right?

Well, I'm kinda slow sometimes. What I hadn't realized was that we'd changed the configuration of the area around the gate so that we forced the sheep to go right past where our neighbors' dog amuses herself by barking at the sheep through the fence. I love our new place and I really love our neighbors and the dog's okay, but she has a pretty sad boring life and this was a really exciting event for her.

So I'd get the ewes out the gate, past the dog, tough but not too bad - Ted handled it well. But then the lambs would see that dog and bounce back the way they came. Then the mamas would run back too.

Eventually we just sort of got the mamas going so fast that they left the lambs behind long before they got to the gate. That took some cowboying on Ted's part. I was really proud of the way he would gee up on them, but also turn it off just as quick as he turned it on, when I asked him.

We got everyone through but the oldest ewe, who stopped cold in the gate. She's a wise old thing - the saying about ewes not knowing that lambs fly doesn't apply to her - she always knows where her lambs are, whether up or down, under something, through a fence. She's been a real dog buster in the past but only if she thinks she can get away with it. As it happens, she was the single we worked the other day (Groucho).

So the most she did was make feints at Ted, who held her nicely and didn't break one way or another. Best of all, he didn't get drawn off balance - I only gave him a couple "hints" and he took them nicely. The more he worked the pressure point, the more he was liking it!

Finally he "broke" her and she turned and went through the gate. I shut it and started gathering lambs up and returning them to their frantic mothers.

This made me really glad I'd spent the time doing our "homework." There are people who scoff at "trial training" and certainly training without the natural power and instincts Ted has, wouldn't have fed the bulldog in that situation. But by the same token, Ted as he was just six months ago, with only a so-so stop and flanks that only happened if he agreed they should happen, Ted would have been a little flat black dog pancake in that nursery paddock before he got those ewes out of there.

Speaking of nursery, we are really close to taking the plunge, I think. We've just got to get out and practice my driving, which always was terribly rough and now I seem back to square one. We also need to get whistles on him (more than the stop, I mean). I think that would help both of us.

Ewes and Lambs

Ted and I had a good lesson with Robin, Saturday. I saw where I hadn't been doing Ted any favors (um, not to mention all the rest of my dogs), with my habit of letting the dog overflank. Over. And over. And Over.

Someone may correct me if I'm wrong, but it suddenly occurred to me that Jack Knox using repetitive flanks to open up the flanks, get the dog to release pressure. Yeah, great, and I tend to do it when the dog needs forward strength and power most.

Isn't that brilliant of me?

It happens because I get focused on what the dog is doing and forget to watch the sheep. Until they are pretty much facing at 90 degrees to me.

Yesterday I needed to get a single ewe with twins up to a corner of the yard that was directly opposite the pen where they feed, and the rest of the flock. She parked herself by a large tree got her back to it, and wouldn't move off unless Ted was exactly right. I'd get him there, then he'd weave a bit and let her start back, I'd try to correct this, and then we'd have her doing flips back and forth at my feet again while Ted got more and more off contact.

I stayed calm (an improvement on previous similar situations), but I will freely admit that I felt like sitting on the ground and crying. My frustration was largely in that, I needed to learn the thing that would stop all this, but I always got to this point so fast and ran out of dog. My sheep aren't particularly forgiving, particularly in this situation right now where they can easily take advantage of things being not quite spot on.

Ted gave me the answer (or reminded me of the answer). He finally decided to try something different and made a flying leap at the ewe's nose. He came down and held her eye but wouldn't take a step forward. It was like he was saying, "I've got her now, if only someone who knows what they are doing will tell me what to do next!"

I realized we needed to "reset to zero", let him take some control back, for a bit. I have a bad habit of training with the idea that we've got to get one particular thing accomplished, rather than going with the flow. I need to work on my flanks, sure, but Ted needs to go that next step in confidence.

So we wore that ewe around as fast as her lambs allowed, let Ted really push her around. Gradually, I started throwing in stops and tiny flanks (mostly correct, wow!), then worked up to driving past that same place (we did some driving in easier places first to get me "in the zone"). Much better! Then we turned at the corner and drove about half the fence line at right angles to the hard draw. Finally, I walked around the corner of the house and I had him drive the last fenceline, where the end of the line brought him to the fence where the sheep were. I was really thrill with how calm and "in charge" he was.

Yes Robin, ;) I was able to see where I needed to bring him around - we got to practice that several times and then he was able to do it on his own for most of these lines.

It probably would have been better not to do this on a ewe with lambs ("probably"? Um, duh?), but we've had to keep the mamas in the yard until I figure out how to keep the guard dogs from breaking down the electronet. Or until I put up permanent fencing back there.

We also practiced working a small group of ewes doing fussy stuff. He already can work them sort of pushing them generally in one direction, but it's a different matter to work them into a 10 foot wide lean to, or through a small gate, or through a chute where the lambs can get out one side. We also did a short easy assisted drive on that same path away from the corner that keeps booting me in the rear end. Short flanks. Keep them straight. Watch the sheep. OK, we're getting there.

We've made a feed discovery that thrills my heart. A couple of months ago I noticed our feed store had something called "breeder cubes" out and a really good price on them. Curious, I looked at it. No added copper. Check. 20% protein, whoa! They are not really "cubes" but cylindrical things that are about the size of a lighter. They are made so you can just feed off the ground if you want. They are formulated so the sheep self-regulate their intake, nibbling through the day instead of gorging in one feeding.

The sheep have done wonderfully on these this year. I also added a rice based supplement that ups their calcium and vitamin E intake. You can play like this when you've only got twenty sheep!

As I suspected, we've had a wet cold winter. The grass is going to be very lively in the spring! I'd better figure out how to tune up a lawnmower because ours is going to be working hard, I can see. I put grass out front - the soil is very thin and barren looking so I may end up bringing in some topsoil, later.

I got some flowers for the front but not sure where I'm going to put them. I think I'll do one bed, with some annuals around the rest of the house, so that I'm not overwhelmed trying to keep up with weeding.