Aching

Winter is here.  It was 25 degrees this morning when I went to work.  Why do I live in the Northeast again?  Every year seems harder and harder.  But I am slowly moving south - VT to MA to NY.  Maybe I'll just make a leap and head to the Carolinas.  

Today I spent about 3 hours bent over shearing sheep hooves.  I'm pretty sore, but most of it probably has to do with P90X...  

We picked out 70 ewes for our new breeding stock.  Woo woo!  Now, don't ask me what kind of sheep we have.  There are so many types in our herd - Romneys, Suffolks, Texels, Tunis.  I'm sure there are others but I wouldn't know them.  This is my first time really working with sheep, and I am starting to really enjoy them.  Learning a new animal has been very exciting.  

When we picked the 70 sheep, we looked at weight - are they over or underweight?  How is their top line - does her back bow in one way or another?  Does she stand square?  How are her hips? Is she short or tall? What do her feet look like?  When I came to Thanksgiving Farm (that is they name of the farm I work on, I don't think I have said it yet), there was absolutely no information on the sheep.  So since we don't have any records, specifically lambing records, we are starting from stratch.  Which is always a good thing I believe!  It's exciting!  With the help of Lakes, we are creating a whole new herd.  We will have a lot of first time ewes in this group, so I am a little nervous.  Starting in April it's going to be a few weeks of long nights...

I'm really excited about the sheep operation, and making it a more sustainable, efficient system.  I bought a marker to put on our Dorper Ram (who we have yet to name, so suggestions welcome) so we will know who he bred when resulting in the knowledge of when the ewe will be due (their gestation is about 5 months).  He's very excited to work.  Hopefully him being around the ladies for 3 hours today have gotten the ladies ovulating.  The sight and smell of the ram will increase the number of eggs the ewe ovulates.  We are also going to build jugs, which are basically pens for the ewe to lamb in.  That way we know which baby belongs to which momma, and be able to closely observe for any difficulties the mom might have.  Which is always possible because they have 2 or 3 lambs at a time.  

Well, I'm off to panic over this election.  I hope you voted today!