Where sheep may (loudly) graze

Eirene and the baby are doing well- the little one is up  and eating and bopping around, but Rene is being a very protective mom and has refused to indulge the paparazzi.  So far they've been sticking to the high grass up on the farthest pasture, always with a bull body-guarding to make sure that no adventurous farmer gets too close.  So we have to wait until she relents and moves to a pasture that has been eaten down.

In the meantime, pictures of sheep.

Last weekend we weaned Ziggy and put him over with the rams.  We also moved two CVM halfbreeds from Adam's parents' farm to ours. 

Azi is a CVM/Jacob cross

Crowley is a CVM/Shetland cross

Fans of Neil Gaiman will recognize the names from Good Omens.  Aziraphale and Crowley, an angel and a demon- which suits our opposite little lambs.  They were not very happy about leaving their farm and their mothers, so we had a Greek chorus of lamb wailing all weekend long. 

Which was disruptive to just about everyone else on the farm, especially the ewes they are penned up with.

Maiden

Dutchess

Even our super sweet Princess was desperate for them to shut up.

But they seem to have calmed down a bit, each day gets a little bit quieter, so we're hoping that the keening will stop altogether very soon.

Besides, Azi is way cuter when she's happy.

New Arrival

Adam has been doing a yak head count every morning and night for weeks.  This afternoon, the count was one higher.

Eirene has given birth to one very wee yak.

(and by wee, I mean that it is currently about the same size as our border collie)

Mom and baby are doing just fine, moving from one patch of tall grass to another.  We don't know yet whether it's a boy or girl, but hope to find out soon.  And Niobe should be next!

News

We finally got our internet back, so an update of some of the new things on the farm.

We got the squeeze chute to groom the yaks, so hopefully we will be able to get some yak fiber this year.

The yaks, meanwhile, are out on the grass.  We're pretty sure that Niobe is pregnant.

We installed some temporary solar electric fences for the sheep, so that they can eat down areas we can't mow easily.

Ziggy has gotten big!

We also had the holding tank for the water put in and the space for the business cleaned out.  Adam is leaving for Prince Edward Island next week to get trained on the machines and put in our order.  We still have a little bit of cleaning and painting to do and the plumber needs to make some changes to make everthing ready for the mill, but things are definitely moving along.

Checking In

Wow.  So I popped onto the blog this morning because I hadn't checked in for awhile and my first thought was... the last post was March 24.  Really?  Our little Ziggy Stardust is over a month old now?  And then- what on earth happened to April?  It was just... whoosh.  Gone.  How can it be May already?

Our internet is down on the farm at the moment- Verizon seems to have a great deal of difficulty grasping that spring storms = DSL issues, but hopefully we can get some pictures up really soon.  A lot of great things have been happening in the last month!


We had one sad note though- we lost Milady.  She had also gotten pregnant, like Dutchess, but had lost the lamb in utero and didn't pass it.  As she never got any bigger and her milk never dropped, we didn't realize that she had been bred, and because she had the issues with prolaspe last year, she had a lot of difficulty when she did go into labor. 



On a much happier note- Ziggy and Dutchess are doing great.  Zig loves to torment his bigger half sister- Maiden- who only barely tolerates him.  I didn't think it was possible for a sheep to flounce, but she definitely has a bit of a pissy flounce to her whenever he comes near her.  She reminds me of a teenage girl with a pesky younger brother.  I think if she could talk there would be a lot of "Moooooom, make him stop bothering me!" 

I'm hoping we can get a tech person out in the next day or two; I can't wait to post some pictures.  And for everyone waiting for a mill update- we have some progress to show off! 

Lamb Update

World:  meet Ziggy Stardust.

He was born around 12:30 Friday morning.  Around 1 am we heard him bleating and headed out to the corral to check in.  As he was getting to his feet, there were shooting stars in the sky, so we needed a pretty stellar name.  Also, I didn't know for the first several hours whether Zig was a boy or a girl.  Hence the David Bowie inspiration.  I think he'll be a rock star in his own right though.

Dutchess and Ziggy are doing really well and are together in the barn right now to get bonded and rest up a little.  We'll probably let them rejoin the flock on Monday. 

Lamb Watch

Update: 

still no lambs.



Dutchess is still as fat as ever. 

Unexpectedly Expecting

This past Fall, Adam and I decided that since the yaks would be breeding for the first time, we would take a year off of sheep.  We moved the rams to the other side of the barn, even though they were less than a year old and (we thought) not yet ready for breeding.  We planned on putting them all back together this fall, and then having lambs against next spring.

The sheep had other plans.

We apparently separated the ewes and rams too late, because Dutchess is pregnant.

Very, very pregnant.

So we will have lambs popping sometime in the very near future. 

In the meantime, Cisco is keeping a watchful border collie eye on everything sheep.

(And yes, he is sitting in the lavender boxes.  Of course.)