Skip to main content

 What's New

A month has gone by and of course by now you know that had Mrs. Sheep delivered a live or dead lamb, I would have been eagerly posting the news. Well, her due date has come and is long gone and we have decided to rent a Ram from a friend to make sure the deed is done and we will be expectant farmers in just a few months. 
The Ram has indeed been delivered to the farm, today in fact. His name is Liam and he is a fine hair sheep of the breed St Croix. Looks to be at 100-125 pounds and he hit the ground ready to do his duty. Not so sure about Mrs. Sheep. While her  introduction was not so much seduction, she seemed interested though in tried and true 'hard to get' fashion, her interest was feigned with a distancing dash to the pen. Things look to be busy for the month and I am sure he will get it done. New due date will be 5 months from now or March 12 plus or minus.


Rambo of course, is totally confused as to the new occupant of the property and doesn't know what to do. They are settling in nicely, with only a few issues of dominance. Liam is the clear dominate male in the area and he knows it. 

We made arrangements for Liam to be here for a month, hitting a hopeful two heat cycles just to be sure Mrs. Sheep gets and takes the pregnancy. Last owner said she had a set of twins that didn't survive so we are at least hopeful that she can still become pregnant and carry the babies to term. Thus starts the breeding program at our JK Farm/Homestead. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

More Cute! Photo heavy...

 The Cute continues.  As promised, our flock has doubled in one shot. We responded to a post on Facebook regarding a mini flock for sale and snatched it up. The awesome people that run Kapanaia Farms in Kapaau, Hawaii put up a Ram, a ewe, and two sister offspring as a family unit and we fell in love immediately. three messages and two phone calls later and we were waiting for the day the babies could travel so we could head out to pick them up. This is Hemi. Not sure where they got the name, Sandra did speak of having a hard time coming up with 70 plus names every lambing, so she really couldn't recall where it came from. JoAnn and didn't have that problem and kept the name.  We decided that his name full name is Ernest Hemi Hemingway and Hemi's name is permanent. His lineage is out of Kapanaia's anchor stud Ram, 'Abacus'. A fine specimen that is fully spotted and has a history of black and white lambs. He is a cross of Katahdin and Dorper breeds. He has the sig...

Update

Update Chickens are growing Big news, right? Well, it has been a while since I posted here and a lot has happened. Yes, the chickens have been getting bigger; the Cornish Cross are insanely huge and the Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rock hens are now officially old enough to be called pullets.  Their Foster Moms have abandoned them, meaning they are no longer protective of them and instead are making sure they (the hens) are getting the pullets inducted into the flock's 'Pecking order'. The pullets are basically on their own, though chickens really don't need to be taught much. The pullets are finding a pecking order of their own, fussing at and with each other as it should be in the natural order of chickens. The Cornish Cross are amazing. We purchased them three weeks after the pullets and they caught up in size in just two weeks. At three weeks old, the Cross chicks were taller than the Pullets at 5 weeks. Tomorrow they will be 7 weeks old, and they are...

Coop Build Part Four

Nest Box and More Too many spaces, not enough chickens! Chalk it up to being a newbie chicken coop designer, or wanting to have the opportunity to expand the coop for more birds, or my eagerness, but I made a space of 24" x 72" to be split into two levels of six boxes per level. With the conventional chicken Math (explanation of the phenomenon of Chicken Math is coming in a future post) of 3-4 birds per nest I would have room for 48 chickens! However, this does not  jive with CMath tenet #4 which is 4 square feet per bird, or a total of 16 birds for the floor space I have right now.  I then went back to the drawing board and came up with this new plan. You can see in the photo I have 5 boxes with storage above and vertical storage next to them. Hinged lids and doors create the access to each of the three areas. Each of the nest boxes have a plastic tote for cleaning and routine sterilization. With the outer door access daily egg collection and replacement of the beddin...