Predation of baby lambs by coyotes and dogs continues to be problematic.  I lost half of the fall 2009 crop; about a third of the spring crop this year.  I've added two donkeys, need another one or two.  

Losses to parasites have leveled off.  In other words, the ones that were going to die, have done so.  

I currently have two rams, one from Blackberry Farms in Tennessee back when Kristian Holbrook was running their dairy and the other from Larry Meiesegeir's River Ridge Stock Farm in Wisconsin.  The lambs they've put on the ground look good so far.  They are of course named Kris and Larry.

The ewes are in with the rams now, split into two groups: shedding ewes went to Kris, who doesn't shed, and non-shedding ewes went to Larry, who may or may not shed.  This is his first summer and sometimes you just can't tell until they're two.  He has a naked head, neck, belly and legs and doesn't have much wool where he does have wool.  All the yearling ewes went to Larry for the same reason- they are sired by a non-shedding heavily wooled ram so many may not shed- although several look like they will!

Rams come out end of the week, that'll be five weeks since they went in- which gives the ewes three estrus cycles to get bred.  We'll draw blood samples and send them to BioPryn Labs for preg testing- an assay for Pregnancy Specific Protein B.  Accurate down to 30 days, so it will only detect those ewes pregnant to the first possible breeding.  Any that are open we'll draw another sample mid-June and recheck; by then if they bred to the second cycle they will test positive as they will be producing enough PSPB to detect.

If the total number of ewes bred to the first two cycles is at least 45 we'll see about taking out a loan to install the Grade A facility and start making cheese this fall.  If not we'll raise all the lambs on a bucket anyway, to minimize predation losses.  This is what I don't get- the bottle lambs, completely alone on their field- no ewes, no donkeys, nothing- they've not been eaten.  No, it's the babies in the field with their moms that are disappearing!  WTF?  So either way we'll be hand rearing all the babies and milking this fall.  

Gotta go get things  ready for the guy to cut the hay- move a trailer, move the sheep, check for limbs fallen near the edges but hidden in the tall grass...

One more highlight I want to hit- went to my first Farmer's Market yesterday.  Way busier than I thought we'd be given our location and being new.  Sold lots of lamb and a couple of chickens.  We'll be at the Saturday Cheapside market in Lexington every Saturday unless it's raining.  Come on down and chat!

Got my 'custom' feed wagon from Ag Wood. That's a local farm store, agricultural supplies of all sorts including flatbed wagons. Usually used for hauling tobacco from the field in to the barn, also for hay. I had an old running gear with a gravity bin on it, had them take the bin off and put a wire panel bed on the running gear (which is the part with wheels, axles, and a pole to connect the two axles). The idea is to stack hay on the wagon and have the sheep eat through the wire panels. Works on the ground except they eat everything they can reach and then have to wait for me to shove the panels in. I am hoping the weight of the hay will cause the bales to settle down as the sheep eat.
Already see a better design, although it'll only hold half the hay: instead of a flat surface they can eat through, mount gates at a 90 degree angle so the sheep can eat from a slanted surface; would let me drop the hay a foot lower, make it possible for the sheep to eat far more easily.
 

Now to get the self feeder welded, and call the concrete guy for a bid... Rams go in three weeks from now, I am worried as they still aren't in good enough shape despite deworming with the only dewormer the Drench Rite said might still be effective. Also moved them to better pasture. Can a ram be considered facilities? They are a tangible asset to me, just like the wagon or the feeder. I am so short on time and sleep and reward lately I am afraid I am losing my heart for this.

Enter Jud (I think, I never actually got his first name) Hubbard, of Hubbard Architect, PSC, Mt Sterling KY. His wife is assistant principal at the elementary school for our district. Anyway, he's never done anything like a dairy before, so the first iteration wasn't perfect. We hashed some of that out, and we'll see what he's got later this week.

Not a week after I talked to him one of my regulars calls me about her order and mentions both her daughter and son-in-law are architects! Nice to have a back-up, but hopefully the third time's the charm.
Have an interview sometime this week with Chris Jelesky, a student majoring in Sustainable Ag at UK. Check out the program's website, http://www.ca.uky.edu/SustainableAgCurriculum/index.html. I'm excited to find out about it. Kentucky needs this. I need an intern- I have gotten to the point where I cannot manage the production and marketing by myself. We'll see what I think of Chris and he of me... Little does he know, it will be a working interview, I have to go sort a neighbor's lambs for him that afternoon.
Right before he comes I plan on attending a webinar hosted by the American Grassfed Association on meat processing. Jay Wenther, Executive Director of the American Association of Meat Processors, will be talking about how to speak the processor's language. Since communicating effectively with Boone's to get what I want is a major issue for me... I really hope it'll be useful.

Speaking of Boone's, they made me some lamb sausages last time and they are FABULOUS. A little lean, really, the chorizo and zesty italian would have melded a little better with a little more fat to carry the flavor. The breakfast links were probably the best sausage I've ever had. I also had them do a bulk sausage, a sweet italian and a bratwurst. To be honest, I am not a fan of bratwurst so I haven't tried it. The sweet italian version garnered raves from my neighbor Matt Foster; he and his family live on the next farm, he has a soup to nuts media company in Louisville, if you need any media services they'll set you right up. I've seen his place, they really can do anything; and if the rest of his staff area s talented as Tonya Laffkas, the graphic designer who came up with my logo- you can't go wrong with http://www.interactivemedialab.com/.

After the sausage (and several dark Mexican beers, Modelo Negro I think) we were all sitting around listening to our new neighbors shooting targetrs and riding dirt bikes, and we got to talkign about how to make our farms as valuable for farming as they are for housesites.

Of course the sheep dairy and cheeseplant is my idea; his is a wetland hunting reserve with a bed and breakfast. There's an old house, Klondike, in between us and them that would be perfect. Right up the driveway from where I want to put the second, demo dairy- which will be a tiny parlor surrounded by a classroom so kids can come see cows be milked. Then we'll ride them down the old railbed on a horsedrawn wagon to the cheeseplant and they can see what happens to milk once it leaves the animal. So maybe Klondike can be not only a bed and breakfast surrounded by gorgeous gardens of edibles, at the center of a locale for experiencing Kentucky's flora and fauna, but also serve as an educational center where we can show people how animals and plants live and grow and are harvested to become healthful soul and stomach satisfying meals in a sustainable fashion, in balance with the natural world.
 

Anybody got $500,000 to get it going?
No?

Guess I'll have to generate it then- which is why I am moving toward having a booth at the Lexingotn Farmers Markets. I submitted an application, once (if) we are approved I aim to be there Wednesday and Saturday downtown, and Sunday at Southland. Can't cover the Tues-Thurs markets yet- again with the need for interns. I'll have my lamb, of course, and Joe's chicken; we've started to do pork, since we ended up doing it for Debbie Puckett over at Paris Farmer's Market; Woody's got eggs, and honey, and grassfed beef. If we can find a place to get them processed Woody does rabbits, and my little girl would like to get into them too. Joe's tobacco stick crafts would fit in somewhere I imagine.

I was checking out the Farmer's Market on Southland today, and got to talking to the father of one of my husband's high school classmates, Joe McCord. They do freshwater shrimp and tilapia, and he raises quail for sport hunters. He mentioned he processes his quail, raises 17,000 of them. If he has a place that's certified to do quail it shouldn't take much to get approved to do rabbit. I'll call him and see if he's interested in loaning it out...

So I called Gary Spry, of Winchester. He's the one who drew the plans for Susan Miller over at Bluegrass Chevre. Check her out at www.bleugrasschevre.com.

And we have made the mometous decision that we are paying cash. For everything. Construction, equipment, operating expenses. Which means another momentous decision: reduce the amount we are putting into formal retirement accounts. We aren't reducing the amount we are putting away- just putting it into a different investment.

The sheep are worrying me. I think I may have to deworm them- despite being in good flesh and showing no evidence of diarrhea I have had a lamb die of (lab confirmed) parasitism. That is unacceptable to me- but how do I maintain genetic progress toward building a flock that is genetically tolerant of parasites? FAMACHA seems useless in situations like these- there isn't any detectable anemia. Not sure what to do. It has been an ung=believably rainy summer, which has surely contributed. And I still don't have my fence the way I need it, also contributing.

I'll keep you posted!

Am trying to get about half a mile of fence up so I can do a better job of controlling grazing. Thought I had it done, but it's not energized. I suspect I need a proper ground rod for the solar fence box, so I'll try to get to that this weekend. I have all the wire run, but I reused some old wire so I might have to rerun it if it still won't carry a charge after I ground it properly and check all the connections.

The upshot of which is, the ewes are stuck in a field without enough to eat and the slaughter lambs are stuck in a field with predator pressure. Ugh.

On the bright side, I have come up with an idea for cheap portable shelters for the ram and lamb pens and for mineral feeders in all the fields. Cattle panels arced in half, fastened down with bent metal rod and covered with a tarp. Should also work for the kids' rabbits they've been bugging me to get. We have an agreemement: we'll eat all the boys and not eat the girls. I just wish I could find a way to get them processed for retail sale. Long story. Involves the government.

I still need to get the gravity wagons sold, use the money to rebuild the running gears and put panels on them so I can use them as hay feeders. Also still need to get the old truck cleaned up and sold- need to do that by the end of AUgust when I'm scheduled to go to Bruce, Wisconsin and pick up my new ram from Larry Meiesegier at River Ridge Stock Farm.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Or as Scarlett O'Hara said, I'll worry about that tomorrow.

But summer is finally here, the surviving sheep are in good shape again and I can honestly say I am in better shape. I lost a lot of money and production capacity- but I am at last at a point where I can admit the knowledge of what happened without crying or being sick. So I know what has to be changed, and what it will cost to make those changes.

To some extent the changes are made; the genetic makeup of the flock as a whole has been altered by the loss of those ewes. I have daughters out of most of them, which I will better serve in the future.
I'll do that by getting a portable hay feeder, hay, a new transmission and more fence. It's worth the money to lay in several months worth of high quality forage; by the time I needed it last year there wasn't any to be bought at any price, much less one I could justify. I'll need tarps to cover it, since I don't have a barn to store it in, that way if I don't need it it won't go bad. I'm hoping not to need it, not just because maybe we'll have more rain more evenly distributed this year, but also because I've already started putting in more fence so we can rotate the sheep more often. This will result in having more stockpiled grass on hand even if it does come a drought.

The lambs I do have out of my new Blackberry ram look great. Many will have to be shorn. Hopefully I'll be able to build number back up to where I can sell those out and keep only shedding ones. Shearing is hard on me, and the heat is hard on them. Still haven't shorn the adults; hoping to get the rams done (or the lambs worked, if it's wet) next Sunday. Some of the crew at the Grasshoppers CSA  are thinking of coming to help. Anyone who wants to is welcome!
 

I'll keep you posted.

Put the ewe to sleep uyesterday. Ater three days of nursing care, antiinflammatories, everything we could do- which was not only time consuming but physically very demanding, we're talking about a 200lb invalid here- she remained unimproved, unable to coordinate her legs well enough even to support her own weight. Why is it always your best ewe?

So I'm out of milk replacer, the transmission is out of the truck, it's been raining for two days so the mud is bad again.

Finally got the ewes out on new grass. Was waiting to get them worked- didn't want to put them on the clean pasture til I had them dewormed. So they have been dewormed, the one that lost her tag is retagged, and the ones I am offering for sale have been marked. That's so I can pick them out and put them by themselves for a guy to come look at Thursday. He's thinking of getting into sheep, these should make a nice compromise between putting a lot of money at risk and buying crap at the stockyard. They are proven ewes, however they all either had singles or only claimed/raised one of twins. A 4yr old, a 2 yr old and 6 yearlings. I'll get a little more than cull ewe price and they get to go to a farm and I can keep in touch with them, so to speak. I feel responsible for them- I brought them into the world, I have to see they're cared for one way or another.

I also got the replacement ewe lambs sorted off and worked, added them back to the ewes. Hope they don't go back to nursing, some of their moms have baby lambs on them. These are full sibs to the set I jsut had such a disaster of a season with. I probably shouldn't even keep them, since odds are at least 5 of the 10 will prolapse. Prolapses are invariably fatal in my hands. Maybe a self fulfilling prophecy? But they're here, and clean, and if they don't prolapse they have some really nice fertility and maternal traits behind them. Looks like they will all shed. Plus they're nicely colored, I know that shouldn't matter!
Moved the slaughter lambs to the area the ewes were in, which let me put the bucket lambs in the field of new grass where I had been forced to let the slaughter lambs run every other day. So better for the sheep, better for the grass in both fields, and much easier on me since everyone has access to more grass, more room, more water now.

Did not get the last prolapse ewe out of the barn- died despite an epidural, Buhner (a pursestring suture to hold everything in), antiinflammatories, antibiotics, nursing care. She had prolapsed her entire rectum and colon, about 2 ft in all. I may send those replacements to slaughter after all...

Last thing I'll mention tonight, antibiotics. I treated all the breeding ewes with an injection of antibiotics when I worked them. Looking over my records I ntoiced more than a third of the ewes lambed later than they should have. When we turn the ram in he has on a harness that holds a big block of colored wax; whenever he breeds a ewe it leaves a colored mark on her rump. I wrote down who got marked every week. This gave me an idea when each ewe should lamb. Many didn't lamb to their first breeding , so I wondered if I picked up one of the breeding diseases from one of my new rams (had two last year, from different farms). Most of the diseases that cause reproduction problems in ewes are responsive to the antibiotic I used. I'll turn in blood on the rams, but may or may not be able to find it that way. I'll explain serological diagnosis in another post ;) Since many did lamb to their first breeding, and everyone lambed, I doubt it was the ram.

So now I can relax a bit, knowing the sheep are on better grass (all age groups) and the weather is supposed to be easier for a month or so. Now if only nothing eats the baby lambs, the ewes are further away from the house now...

As a farming friend says, only them that's got'em can lose'em. The flock is stronger after that, and I guess I am too. If I can come through that and still want to be in sheep- which I do, now that the sun is shining and the grass is greening-I will use it as a way to motivate mhyself to think smarter, plan ahead, run through what if scenarios and have contingency plans.

So soon, a look at the new dairy plan!

No email from Grasshoppers, the distributor in Louisville who handles my lamb, in response to my email sending them info on a new restaurant and all the upscale bed and breakfasts in Louisville. It's a neat company, they are an all local foods distributor owner by four local producers. Here's their LocalHarvest page: http://www.localharvest.org/member/M20823

Got pictures of three orphan baby goats I raised for a neighbor, I put them on craigslist and someone had emailed me wanting pics.

I took the kids to school- well, the one that goes to preschool. Next year they will both go but on alternate days, so at least I will only have one small child 'helping' me every morning.

Then the boy and I went to the plumbing inspector's office to turn in a site map, soils survey, map to the site and application fee for the intial site evaluation for the dairy. $150 bucks just for him to come look and say yea or no this spot MIGHT be suitable.

Got some rabbit feed, noticed the recycle bin at the feed store hadn't been picked up. Since I pay for it out of my pocket I called the garbage company. Recycling is included with residential service but businesses have to pay, and the feed store powers-that-be won't. So the manager said I could put a sign advertising my farm on the bin, and he'd handle putting it out on pick up day. Turns out it hadn't been put out on time- for a month. He can't get good help. None of us can.

Then I called the guy who's running the bulldozer on the tract next door that just sold for a coal mine engineer's house in the country. Yeah right; 45 acres at $9000 an acre just for a house? Wonder how long it'll be before he sells some of it off to make payments on THAT loan.

Anyway, I'm getting his dozer guy to move a shed for me so I can put electric in the barn. He didn't show. What contractor ever does? At least he called to reschedule, albeit an hour after he was already supposed to be here. Remmeber that 'can't get good help' theme?

Then I called the mower guy, BP Davis; he has sheep too, but very different from mine. He has club lambs. Oh yeah, he'll be here in an hour. And I have toys and debris and deadfall all over our 2 acre yard- and I have to leave to pick up the girl in 10 minutes.

After nap time (which did not feature an actual nap on the girl's part) we went out and I took the heaters out of the water tanks. I'm pretty sure the threat of freezing is over. Refilled the water tanks with the hose draped across the yard. Remembered I haven't called the guy who is supposed to be here mid-April to install water lines to the barn and replace the spigot at the house which is leaking into the basement and undermining the foundation.

Then a neighbor called- weather forecast has changed, it's going to rain tonight. So I have to move a portable shelter into the field where my two pet goats are. Pointless. While I had the gate to the barn lot open to move the shelter they came in and I couldn't get them back out. This is why I have sheep and not goats.

In the middle of the goat roping Kristian Holbrook from Blackberry Farms http://www.blackberryfarm.com/ called to talk about the wine and cheese party at the annual symposium put on by the Dairy Sheep Association of North America, DSANA. Yes you can milk sheep. Roquefort anyone? Check it out at www.dsana.org. It's going to be in Knoxville this year. By virtue of taking notes I appear to be chairing the Local Planning Committee. Lesson learned, I won't make that mistake again!

Both kids are now in the water trough, and the boy is naked.

So I have to catch the baby goats and convince my kids into the house to get ready for the first Legends game of the season. We split season tickets with a group of people. Don't know if the baseball is any good but it's a good time for the kids. They probably have stats at http://lexington.legends.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t495.

I am doing all this onehanded since I am still talking to Kristian. Kristian decides I should call him tomorrow. The kids decide to go along. The last baby goat decides to bite me.
I decide to practice a new vasectomy technique on him.
Vasectomized males can induce females to show signs of heat without actually inseminating them; makes it easier to breed them AI. They are called teasers.
And that's my teaser post.

Tomorrow I meet the dozer guy at 8am (yeah right!) then have a parent teacher conference, two deliveries 100 miles apart, a farm visit to a potential producer partner and a book pickup for a charity book drive http://www.godsnet.info/ so tomorrow night I will merely throw some pictures of baby lambs in a post to placate you oh Blogosphere patrons!

So far the early weaned lambs are holding their own.

I got the outlet hung, and the heaters plugged in. I can see right now I need to put in frost free drinking fountains for the sheep. They need access to water that doesn't depend on daily human intervention or electricity.

And more rock. They have to stay out of the mud. I'm also wondering if I shouldn't start my first season or two milking on a 30 day weaning system, that way if the weather is bad it's less of a stress on me and the lambs.

Off to make deliveries...

Took 13 more ewes to the stockyard today, after a whole day of slogging around in the rain trying to get them cut out and in the trailer. Five of them had lambs less than two months old, so we'll see how they do. I've got feed and a heated water bucket at the ready if they look like they need to be moved to the lambie pen.

Got a ram moved to Joe's older ewes. Puts them lambing early May. I'll be done, the flock of younger ewes at his place will be done.

Thought I had lucked up on a working BC- intact male appeared in the upper end of my sheep pasture. While he didn't go after the sheep and the other dogs didn't mind him (weird, btw), he wasn't friendly and so I was kind of glad he wasn't there today.

Now if I can just get the lambs worked, and the ewes preg tested...plus teach my last lamb cookery class, make deliveries, finish shopping and wrapping, enroll my daughter in dance and bake 4 dozen more cookies, and visit Joe in the hospital (he's back in with a recurrence of complications from surgery, which means they have to suspend chemo).

It rained most of the day, but cleared up about the time I went to the stockyards. Now we're waiting for a cold front that's supposed to be bringing an inch of ice by morning. I'm glad my father in law came over and wired an outdoor receptacle today. Wish I'd gotten around to mounting it and plugging in the water tank heater before it got dark.

We are finally getting some rain. Which means it's muddy. Sheep hate mud, and so do I. Markets have dried up. Feed is high and they're running through it faster than ever- no grass. No good way to feed hay. I've got some marginal ewes that I think will go the yard next week. I already cut 10%. I need to send another 10, maybe 20%.

I need a raised portable hay feeder. Found one on craigslist, about 3 hrs away. $1500 and a half day to go get it. I need to preg check, maybe able to cull a few on the basis of being open. $7 a head and a half day to pull blood, I'm hoping I can get it done next week when I castrate the lambs. I saw a 10 wk old ram breeding a ewe two weeks ago. That'll really screw with a breeding program.
New truck has a weird heater core plug, looks like a stereo jack. ??? So I can't get it to start- diesels rely on compression to fire, and if the fuel is too cold it just won't.

Add in the holidays- cookies to bake for the temple carnival, church cookie baskets and preschool classes, attending said events, oh yeah, and remain cheerful the whole time because it's the holidays, hooray!

It spit freezing rain all afternoon. We'll see what I get accomplished next week.

Once I have the dairy licensed we'd have access to milk, cream, butter and cheese as well. I've been playing around with rendering the tallow out of the lamb fat, for which I've never found a market. I may try my hand at making soap and candles from it this winter. Next time I shear I could take some of the wool to John and Jessica Moody, of the Whole Life Co-op in Louisville; John said Jessica would clean it, they'd like to have it to make pillows out of, as they don't want to use chemical treated or synthetic bedding for themselves or their two little ones. So I could see if she'd make pillows and dog beds for us.

The only hitch is who'd actually work the market. There's markets Friday, Saturday, Sunday and I think Tuesdayand Thursday. I work every Friday and Saturday. But I could do the weekday markets, and Sundays (although I'd have to figure out how to get the kids to and from religious school, which is of course Sunday mornings). Joe and Edna could do the Friday and maybe the Saturday markets; maybe Woody and Opal could do the Saturday one.

We'll see. It's a thought. It would tie in well schedule wise with the dairy. Who knows, I might burn myself in the eye mixing the lye for the soap making and decide I want no more part of it. Or we might make more money than I expect and I'll have to give up my paying job, as Mark calls it.

It's something to think about this winter.

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 10:00 PM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>





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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 5:09 AM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 6:27 AM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 7:46 AM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 9:46 AM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


Frank,
Thanks for working on this, and thanks for reading the blog! I can answer some of the questions before looking at the attachment, which I won't be able to do until tonight.

Measurements are exterior, may have to be modified if, as you noted, interior spaces are just too small to get the job done! We did construct several extra feet of site in all directions just in case...
Interior walls will be studded, since I am planning on reconstructing several times in (hopefully) rapid succession.
Windows- lots of them- wherever possible- also clear panels in the roof/ceiling for natural light wherever possible- but figured we could plug those in once we got a workable floor plan that allowed for succesive expansion?
Thanks!
Eden



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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:24 AM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:14 PM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:34 AM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 12:23 PM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


Can't look at teh attachment til tongiht. I figured some dimensions would have to be changed.
My point by point replies are below.


 

So the room will have to be longer. I know 2'2" is cramped, I think I'm okay with it from ahving been in other dairies.

Not really. Plus it'll be covered anyway, there's a 50x50 roofed area adjacent to the dairy so they'll have a covered place to eat ahy before and after milking.
If I can't reach it with a push broom I can hose it.
I'll ahve to look at the picture to understand that.
Probably way too big. 100gal*8lb/gal=800gal/maximum 8lb per hd=100 head. I doubt I'll be making that much milk for several years. If I am I can either fill bags during milking, or leave milk in buckets until I have a little room in the tank- or go ahead and put in a pipeline and bulk tank because if I'm making that much milkI don't want to ahve to handle it all by hand, and I'll be able to afford it!

I'd like to avoid it if I could but I'll have to look at the picture to see why I may have to do so.
Yes

 

Any other thoughts?

 

Not yet! I'll email you when I get a chance to look at the picture.
Tahnks, Eden

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 9:25 PM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 10:02 PM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 9:01 AM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 10:06 AM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 10:54 AM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 1:26 PM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 3:35 PM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 4:02 PM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 4:31 PM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 5:48 PM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 8:50 PM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 9:24 PM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 5:50 AM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


Hi Eden,

I will be on the road today and tomorrow. I hope to be back on the project and have something for you this weekend.

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 7:27 AM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 8:06 AM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

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From: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 10:53 AM
To: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>


 

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From: Frank Kipe <frank@kipe.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 12:00 PM
To: Eden Myers <m1231e@gmail.com>


 

WHAT?!?!?! I'm feeding CORN?!?!?!

Relax. They are grazing corn, the green growing plant. Very different proposition than locking them up, feeding them grain out of a trough while they stand around in their own waste. At this point it's just a big giant grass. Being silage corn it actually won't produce a great deal of grain anyway, it's probably some sort of hybrid bred for total dry matter tonnage per acre. They surely do eat it right down to the ground. I figure being big and tall it's an excellent way to prevent them from picking up parasite larvae. Anyway, they look really good.

Took off that ram lamb I missed. Bugger weighed 137 lb too. Guess the other slaughter lambs are closer to being ready to go than I thought. Which would be nice, if I could take them all out of here before I started lambing in mid-September.

Bought lambs from a new producer last week, the Morrows of Springfield KY. I market other producers' lambs along with my own, as long as they use similar genetics, feeding methods (pastured, no grain) and cultural practices (no antibiotics, steroids, added hormones). They weighed more than either one of us thought.

Got some plans back from Frank Kipe, but still pretty preliminary. Hopefully more by Monday.
There's a meeting being put on by the KY Sheep and Goat Development Center in Jessamine Co September 9th on starting a small dairy. They're going to have Giovanni Capazutto and Susan Miller talk; Susan runs Bluegrass Chevre in Lexington, and Giovanni is wanting to (or maybe has started to?) put up a cheeseplant in Nicholasville. That'd be good news for me, because he might be a potential buyer for the milk from my sheep dairy. The meeting's going to be at the Jessamine County Extension building at 6:30. If you're interested in going you should get hold of Ray Bowman of the KSGDC by email at ray@kysheepandgoat.org

Huh, and I haven't posted sooner because I thought I didn't have anything to talk about...

I have been too dispirited to post.

I have lost at least seven lambs so far. At least it seems to have stopped.

My young guard dog got killed. For all I know it was him that was killing the sheep. Or it could have been worms. David Pugh, one of the vets who taught me at Auburn, says there's only two things that kill sheep: worms and dawgs. I suspect I've had some of both.

My fences are still down. I did at least get the sheep out of James' tobacco. For those not in Kentucky, tobacco is the major cash crop around here. Having livestock in your neighbor's tobacco is the worst offense you can commit.

I don't have the plans back from Frank Kipe yet. The utility contractor (Jim Shaw) can't go forward til I get those for him to take to the power company. And the fencing contractor (Bill Hatton) can't get started til the utility contractor finishes. Looking forward I see lambing in six weeks, without fence. Fabulous.
And I'm faced with working them without fence. Makes getting them up into the barn a challenge.
I need to work them to give them all a dose of dewormer, in case it's parasites that have caused some of the recent deaths. Resistance of parasites to dewormers is a major problem for most sheep producers in the south anymore. I still use the same one I've always used, because it still works. I use it infrequently, and when I do I give a big dose of it. Mostly I cull any ewe who fails to wean a lamb, which can happen if she is heavily parasitized and subsequently having a hard time regaining weight and coming into heat. Over time you end up with a population that genetically tolerates the worms present while maintaining production.

Losing this many lambs I can't afford to cull so many ewes, so it's deworming time, fence or no fence. Unfortunately the dewormer I use also can induce birth defects in the first trimester of pregnancy. The ram's only been out five weeks; sheep pregnancy is 21 weeks so....I also need to castrate one of the ram lambs. How did I manage to miss cutting the biggest one?!? He's distinctively marked, there's no way I just overlooked him. So undoubtedly some of the ewes that lost lambs have gotten rebred- and will lose the pregnancy if the dewormer induces malformations in the developing lambs, meaning another six months of feeding her without a lamb to sell. Anything that doesn't abort- will be another round of lambs coming at odd times out of synch with the rest of the flock.

Looking forward- I'll email Frank tonight, see how he's coming on the plans. Call Chris to see when his dad might haul the last load of DGA for the road. Call Billand tell him the him the wire is here. Tomorrow I'll put a better patch over the two holes I know of in the fence. The sheep have been hanging around the barn, maybe I'll luck up and they'll go in the barn for shade tomorrow midday and I'll get them dewormed tomorrow night. I have my new ram, from Blackberry Farm in Walland. I have a new dog, Phoebe, actually a pup out of my best dog who no longer had sheep to guard where she was- so they agreed to let me have her back. And my neighbor Joe Pasley said I could have a foal out of his jenny (female donkey) if I can come up with a jack to breed her. The donkeys have worked well for him; I just never thought I'd have one. The state fair is coming up, maybe the jack and mule show will be going on the day we can go and I'll get some leads on a jack.

As my mother and grandmother used to say, Sufficient unto the day is the evil therof. So I am going to bed, so I can get up tomorrow and see what progress I can make. It's surprising how far you can get if you just keep going. Proceed, go forth, onward, advance.

The building will be 20'x50' when it's finished, with an adjacent 50'x50' sloping gravelled holding area for the sheep. The half of the holding area next to the dairy will be covered, and maybe even has curtain sidewalls so I can keep them dry and out of the wind on nasty days. In my dreams there are solar panels on the roof, which heat captured rain water which is stored in a huge above ground plastic tank. The warm water could be run through pipes in the concrete floor and under the gravel of the holding area to keep the place toasty in the winter. Plus the sheep would have warm water to drink in winter, and cool in summer (the water could be run through the pipes in the concrete to cool it in the summer). I might even be able to use that water to wash down the parlor, although not the cheese making room or milking equipment. For that I'd like to install a reverse osmosis filter, which would prevent any hard water mineral residue from accumulating. This mineral accumulation can serve as a place for biofilm to grow; biofilm can harbor truly evil bacteria that contribute to mastitis and bad cheesemaking results.

The roof of the holding area, and the dairy too if I can get it approved, has many of the panels being clear plastic rather than metal so it's bright inside.

I'm doing it in stages; this year we're doing site prep and utilities; throw in some general farm expenses like cleaning out ponds, electric to the stock barn, refencing after the dozer work, better working pens, and a road to the barn- that's 15 grand already. I did go ahead and buy a milking system (just a portable bucket milker- but there's another 2 grand) since the goats will hopefully kid this fall to provide milk for the bottle lambs as well as the house. I'd love to find someone who wanted a raw milk goat share!
Maybe we'll pour the concrete slab this fall if I can pick up some extra work. Next year will be the actual building. The building itself will also be built in stages- first 20'x20' for the parlor and milk room and a walk in freezer, then add 10ft to accomadate a processing room, then add 10' to add coolers for aging finished cheese. The way it'll be laid out if I need to expand to a double eight I can just add ten more feet and move everything down.

I am planning on milking about 80 Friesian cross ewes, 120 days, twice a year. By only milking 120 days at a time I am milking them during the highest yielding portion of the lactation curve ie the period when they give the most milk per day. This is important because I have cross bred sheep. Most ewes of non-dairy breeds will give a lot of milk- but only for a few weeks. They lack persistence. Ewes of breeds that have been selected for dairy purposes usually give not only more milk per day, but do so for many more days.

Everyone thinks I'm insane- I am crossing East Friesians with Katahdin. Friesians are the sheep equivalent of the Holstein. The straight Friesians just weren't very hardy under my management. I am almost completely pastured (I feed free choice soy hulls in the winter) and it is neither flat nor near. The Katahdins have done great for me- thrive on grass, are fantastic moms, highly fertile, breed year round, tolerate parasites and they shed. Plus I have a nationally known Katahdin breeder close by who'll trade me rams for labor.

I would lamb in March and September, which means I would finish up milking right before Christmas, huddle inside during January, go to Arizona for Cactus League spring training in February, have all the local kids out of school for Spring Break and thus available to babysit during lambing, finish up around the Fourth of July, avoid the worst of the summer heat and get the kids back in school before we started lambing again in September. If I freeze milk I could make cheese one or two days a week when I wasn't milking.

I'm hoping to be operational by the World Games in fall of 2010. We are anticipating up to half a million Europeans in central KY, people who will be much more familiar with and desirous of ewe's milk cheeses and accustomed to paying much higher food prices- thus more willing to pay what I'm going to have to charge.

It looks good on paper. Stay tuned...

 
You know how I kept thinking 40 would just turn up with a 2 day old lamb, even though logically I knew she was dead?

Let's review the evidence: late pregnant, seizing from being off feed and water for 24 hrs, over 90 degrees in the shade, in weeds over my head in a steep pasture; missing from flock for 2 days. Can't find her anywhere, but never saw any vultures...

Don't know if you can make out her tag in the photo- IT'S NOT 40!!

Here's 40 (and her 2 day old singleton ram lamb):

I just kept thinking she'd turn up. I also am thinking that brown ewe (I call her the masked ewe) peeking around the tree is very rotund. Thought the same thing about the black ewe, #265- and she turned up with a spotted black and white hair ram singleton this morning.

Trust your instincts- which are telling me I better cut my lambs at 8weeks of age rather than 12 from now on. These 'bonus babies' had to been sired by a ram lamb born no earlier than October 1 of 2007!

That's 410 (well, what's left of her) in the first picture. No idea what happened. That's the fourth big lamb I know of I've lost for no apparent reason. I've found the other three still whole. Took two into the lab- they found nothing. They've been before and after vaccinating for CDT; rams, this ewe and a wether. If anyone has any ideas please don't hesitate to post a comment.

Once all the old fence, brush and building had been shoved out into the field to become a new habitat for at least some of the critters we were displacing here (I mean really, why do people burn brush piles? Do they really need that 1/100th of an acre that badly? If it's in the way could you not shove it to the edge of the field and leave it be? I digress...) and Bobby had the topsoil stashed to the side to put back on the top when we're finished, here came the dump truck with fill dirt to build the actual site of the dairy above grade...

Meaning of course, my kids and dogs will be muddy for the rest of the summer. There was much wailing when Bobby started spreading the fill dirt, cries of 'NO! Not our big dirt pile!'. SO I had to explain that Jerry, who drives the dump truck- he's Chris' dad, Chris is actually the son of Maloney and Son- would bring more.

They are using shale from Jeffersonville, about 10 miles away. It compacts into a very tight, stable, well drained base. It also contains beautiful big flat rocks that would be perfect for flagstones, pavers, maybe a walkway or patio. So every load I would dodge out there and pick out the best ones. I've laid them along one edge of the lamb rearing pen. This will keep the lambs from shoving the bottom of the wire out, also keep dogs from digging in or out, plus make another place for displaced creatures to take refuge. And I won't have any weeds growing there. If you live near Mt Sterling and need your lawn mowed, I highly recomend BP Davis. He does a great job- sometimes a little too thorough for me, they skin the tree roots trying to mow along the edge of the pen. So maybe storing the rock along the pen will help that as well.

BP has sheep, but very different ones than I have. He does club lambs. Different breed, different goal, completely different philosophical approach. Not necessarily bad, just different. Mine wouldn't suit him, and his wouldn't suit me. Vive la difference!

BP was here to mow the morning Bobby started dozing, and I filled him in on the plan for a dairy. He asked some real sensible questions, like why? (Because I've always wanted to). Do you sell the milk? (Not unless it's to another cheesemaker, it's too high in fat and protein to drink as fluid milk). Is there a market for sheep's cheese? (Lexington is 30 minutes away, Lousiville and Cincy are within 2 hours, and I see a lot of sheep's cheeses in stores in those towns, for $12-32 a pound). How much will each ewe give? (Average 4 lb a day over the 120 days I milk her). How many are you planning to milk? (As many as I've got!)

Bobby asked some pretty fair questions too, when I told him what was going up on the site. His main question was, what's it taste like? I mentioned Roquefort and feta and Manchego, but really it tastes like whatever kind of cheese you make. Other than Roquefort it didn't help him much, turns out he rarely eats cheese of any kind. Hard for me to understand that, we go through pounds of it in any given week! Not counting cottage cheese, cream cheese, butter, milk...

So Jerry has hauled shale and Bobby has dozed it flat for three days now. It will cost at least twice what we initially figured. Although to be fair I also got two ponds cleaned out...



This one had just gradually filled in over time; you can see how shallow it had gotten- that's Saul standing in the part that hasn't been dozed yet!

This one got a leak in it last year during the drought, and never has filled back up this year. Bobby thinks he found the leak and got it repacked, that's all the bare dirt on the right side of the dam.




I don't think he got it though. I was below the dam looking for 40 and it was still running out from a spring 10 or 15 yards below the dam. We're supposed to get some rain ove rthe next week, so we'll see...


I am also upgrading the road to the barn. Since the dump truck has been over it and over it all the big rock is packed down, so now is a good time to lay down several inches of very fine rock on top and have them run over it several times with the heavy equipment to pack it down. The final result will be a road that any vehicle can go over any day of the year, rain or shine, 4 wheel drive or two. So I can quit farming through the yard, finally!

Yes I got the Iphone. Yes, Jobs announced the smaller, faster, cheaper one after I bought it. C'est la vie. I do love it. Mapquest, google, word processor, podcasts in the palm of my hand. I have not yet been able to transfer all my old phone numbers, which is a sincere pain in a certain anatomical region.
 

I have a new truck.
 

Got the same truck I got last time, just a newer model. Ford F250 V8 7.3L diesel automatic 4wd longbed extended cab. This one's an '01, the last one was a '95. This one had 70k miles when I bought it, the other one had 100k. This one has suicide doors, leather and tow package; previous one had 2 doors, cloth, bumper hitch. Yet I paid $3000 less for this one than I paid for my previous one seven years ago. They can't give these big diesels away right now. Jay Denham, chef at Park Place in Louisville, just got himself a brand new, tricked out Dodge. And a biodiesel plant, which isn't in yet. Stay tuned...

Notice the fence panel in the back? Fencing is a constant, not even worth blogging about. I like those fence panels. They are a pretty good buy, about $20 for a 16' section, sturdy enough to last 10 or so years if you take any kind of care of them, way handier to put up and take down than wire. And that is a handiest way to move them. Catches your eye, doesn't it?


Got the lambs worked and the ewes sheared. I only have 20 that I have to shear. I love my shedding sheep.

Fortunately I am a much better shepherd than a photographer.

Kay Cloyd set off a pretty good discussion of raw milk. We talked about predator control, disease control, shearing management, pasture species. I am still trying to find out what that one yellow weed is- come tomorrow I'll be dropping by the extension office to see if the ag agent knows.
The two tastings went well, orders are up. I took the first set of lambs to the new processing plant- it is SO much closer! I really hope they can make a go of it, so far it's a mixed bag but they seem willing and that's half the battle. Hopefully they can get the job done.
I now have three restaurants that want to buy rack from me, Mark Bodenstein in Florence is running through 15 racks a week, I never did find out how many Corbett's in Louisville or 222 in Georgetown thinks they'll want. I could probably market 15 lambs a week if I had them. I need to find more grassfed lamb producers, we need to similarize our breeding and feeding so we can come together to meet this demand and get into these markets.
I need a new truck, mine is terminal. I've borrowed a neighbor's Dodge and disliked it, so I guess I'm going back with another Ford F250. Another V8 longbed, only this time with four doors. Yes, a diesel. It's the only choice that makes sense, even though it currently costs way more than gas. For one, diesels get much better mileage. For another I expect gas to catch up in price. For a third- you can make diesel from used cooking oil, and I happen to know people who produce lots of used cooking oil.
I also am getting a new phone, mine is gasping it's last today. Had to do about 40 minutes of driving today that could have been avoided had my phone been working. So I went in and looked at an iPhone, and I think that's what I'm going to get. It does everything I want. Unlike the Treo and the Pearl, I can use the onscreen keyboard one handed while driving. The screen is bigger (important now that my arms seem to be so much shorter than when I was younger). Talk about gasping though- the price! Yikes! Actually, the data plan is $10 less a month with the iPhone, so the cost evens out after 2 years.
Anyway, that's what's up down home tonight. I'll pop back in tomorrow if I can find out what that little yellow flower is...

What's a vermicomposting map? Check it out at http://www.vermicomposters.com/

I have pledged to decrease our waste stream- ideally to zero. Part of this is drumming up markets for lamb cuts that would otherwise get discarded, like hooking up with the local Weston A Price Foundation, whose adherents appreciate bones and liver, and local dog breeders who want hearts and kidneys and bones. Part of it is using empty detergent buckets from the clinic as lamb feeders. Part of it is following my daughter's suggestion that instead of spending $2 each on durable plastic grocery bags we could reuse the bags they decorated at school for bringing home their Mother's Day gifts. And part of it is housing bunches of worms in big containers and throwing them anything that will rot into the worm bin rather than the landfill. Like decorated paper bags once the handles and bottoms rip out!

I will be spending all day tomorrow cooking, getting ready for my two sampling days. I'll be at Berries on Bryan Station from 4-8pm Wednesday and Good Foods Coop most of the day Thursday. Come try a cheese-stuffed ground lamb meatball and some braised lamb roast! Be sure to bring a paper bag to carry home all the lamb I'm sure you'll buy...

• First lamb came 3/3, last one 4/25; total season 53 days
• Bred 33, had 24 lamb
• 51 lambs born to 24 ewes= 2.13 lambs per ewe
• 4 dead, 7 in the reject pen, 39 in the field, 1 MIA/probably dead
• no ewes died or culled; no lambs ill (the 4 deaths were exposure-2 and predation-2)
• ram went in April 22; fall lambs will start 9/16

I had nine ewes not lamb; of these nine, five lambed last fall. The four that have not lambed in the past twelve months will be getting on a truck in about 5 weeks. I will avoid getting them up until 6 weeks after the ram has gone in. This is partly so we don't lose any early pregnancies, and partly so I don't have to handle them more times than necessary.

The ram will stay in for 6 weeks, less than this time; last year I had no place to put the ram so I ended up leaving him in a lot longer than I liked. Six weeks is 42 days, enough time for a ewe to cycle at least twice. The estrus cycle of the 'average' ewe is 17 days; even if she just went out of heat the day the ram went in she'd be back in twice before the 42 days was past.

Given this is spring, some of the ewes may take longer to cycle. Spring is not when ewes usually breed. Most ewes of most sheep breeds cycle in response to shortening daylength. Given the ewe's 21 week gestation this puts her lambing in the spring, when good weather is close and grass will soon be at hand to help feed mom so she can make lots of milk to support rapid lamb growth. In Kentucky, we have an additional flush of grass in the fall. I thought it worth while to develop my flock to turn that fall grass into money, by lambing in the fall.

Some breeds of sheep, and some individual ewes in any breed, are less sensitive to daylength and thus more likely to breed any time of year. The East Friesian and the Katahdin are two such breeds. By using these breeds, and keeping all ewes that lamb in the fall, and using rams born in the fall, I increase the percentage of my flock that will lamb any time of year.

Since most flocks haven't been selected for out of season breeding, there aren't many fall lambs born and not much fall milk. Law of supply and demand, I can fill the demand when others can't. I see it as taking advantage of an opportunity to generate additional revenue with the ewes. Since I already have incurred all the costs of keeping them whether I lamb once a year or twice a year, the additional revenue is almost pure profit. Or at least it decreases the amount of your loss!

My lamb loss this season was almost 10%, the benchmark I have set for my flock up til now. I am unhappy that I lost 4 lambs because 2 of them I could have saved. They died of starvation. Both were one of triplets; I could have saved both had I been there to see them not doing well, but I work off the farm two consecutive days a week and don't get home til after dark. When they are little it only takes one cold wet day away from mom to be too far gone to recover without help. While 4/51 is less than 10% I'd be a lot happier to get that mortality down to say, 5%.

I'd also be a lot happier and more profitable if I could get fewer rejects that have to be raised on a bottle. Milk replacer is over a dollar a pound now, which means each bottle lamb is realistically a break even proposition at best. I tolerate it because for dairy purposes I don't care if a ewe rejects a lamb; I am going to take it away when it's born anyway, and raise it on a bottle. Remember the last couple of posts, about breeding my pet dairy goats? I'm doing that so it'll be cheaper to fill those bottles!

It's still a pain, though,even aside from the cost of milk replacer. Not only do you have to fill buckets and check for scours and love on them once you get them in the reject pen- you have to make sure they get there to start with. You really have to watch them or run the risk of having the lamb be injured or die- like the two I lost.

Even if you don't lose them you have to watch them hunt their moms and listen to them cry. It's almost easier when you take them away as soon as they are born, which is something to look forward to when I finally get the dairy open. Talk about something else that seems to take forever. Lambing only takes two months, getting the dairy open is going to take two years! A dairy update post will be forthcoming.

North Island or Montgomery County? You tell me!

I did get to meet Craig Labanowich of Hall's On The River, he was the other guest on this morning. Currently the kitchen manager at Hall's, previously at Winchell's and before that at the Merrick for over a decade. He was on to talk up the renovation they're doing at Hall's- new china, new flatware, new menu- I told him they should carry my lamb. He gave me his card so I'll call him Monday. He also gave me contacts at a number of other kitchens around town, so look for Garden of Eden Farms lamb to be appearing on more Lexington menus soon!

Hall's is one of those places you have a history with, so I am excited to hear about the changes. We'll have to slip down there for dinner this summer and see how it turns out.

Another place I- and a lot of people- have a history with is the Coach House, in Lexington. I was delighted to read in Sharon Thompson's column yesterday in the Herald Leader that it is reopening! I immediately called and talked to Karen Zamareh, she and her chef husband Nasser are reopening it with all the old elegance but even more welcoming, as she put it. I can't wait!

That'll have to do for now. I had triplets yesterday, hopefully I'll get their pics up along with the goats later.

The argument is simple: Animals shouldn't suffer. Death and suffering are different. Death is not suffering to a sheep.

Everything dies. If you think you're not, you're not done living yet.

Not only does everything die, everything dies and is eaten. Be it a new lamb snatched by a vigilant coyote with new pups of her own, or a ewe dead of toxic mastitis (sorry, Joyce- I know you fought hard for her) and buried for the worms and beetles, or a human in a lead lined coffin in a concrete vault being broken down by what few bacteria survived embalming- everything dies and is eaten.

We have forgotten this fact of life, denied it, distanced ourselves from it because thinking about our own death is scary. Death is a suffering to people. Even thinking about death is a suffering for many people.
Sheep don't think about their own death.

How does the ewe think about the new lamb she lost to the coyote? Differently than than she does the grown lamb she sees get on the trailer and pull away? She has since weaned that lamb, and won't have much to do with now that she has her new lambs to nurse. Especially if it's a male; even if it's a ewe lamb she won't pay much attention to her, preferring the company of other ewes her own age. Apparently teenagers of all species are obnoxious. Putting up with them is the bargain we make in order to pass on our genes.

The bargain I make with the sheep is shelter, food, water, the opportunity for normal social structure, freedom from physical harm, freedom from fear, freedom from illness and pain in return for having some of their offspring taken not by accident or by disease or by malnutrition but by me. Gently.
I'm pretty sure the sheep think it's a good deal. The best deal? As far as a sheep can think of it, I think so. I don't think they can imagine never losing a lamb; lambs are supposed to grow up and, most of them, go away.

Sheep know their place in the food chain; they know they get eaten. We are the ones who have perverted that relationship, either by inflicting suffering on them before they are eaten or by refusing to acknowledge that we are omnivores.

I don't much mind the latter, because it has done so much to remedy the former. Vegetarianism is a healthy response to the systematic cruelty made possible by confinement animal agriculture. We want to pay as little as possible for our food, so we pay little attention to how the animals and people that produce it are treated. We are finding that carries a price, not only environmentally and morally but also medically- turns out animals fed typical corn based rations produce fats that increase our risk of obesity, heart disease and cancer.

We can fix some of what's wrong with us by fixing some of what's wrong with our food. Eat locally produced, grass fed meat and dairy products- especially sheep's milk cheeses and lamb, of course.
Not only will this decrease your risk of obesity, heart disease and cancer, it will also help fix a lot of what's wrong with animal agriculture, the environment and our national foreign policy. But it won't make teenagers less obnoxious.

Coming soon- a dairy update, and a video of a brand new lamb standing up for the first time.

My first lamb of the year.




The reject pen. Lambs whose moms can only count to one-less-than the number of lambs they had. I will spend more time and money on this handful of lambs than I will on the rest of the flock.

This post is going to look at what sheep have for dinner, and why that should change what you have for dinner. CAUTION! Science content!

So what does a sheep have for dinner? Given her druthers she'd eat leafy weedy plants growing at about thsame height as the grass in a pasture. A fair bit of brush would be welcome too, probably more so on my farm than on others. This is because when I started my flock I had two pet dairy goats (still do; you'll meet Heidi and Lucky later). Goats are browsers, preferring to nibble with their necks in neutral ie at head height. Blackberry canes, multiflora rose, honeysuckle, morning glories, ironweed, Queen Anne's lace, goldenrod, the tender tips of thistles- all favorite goat menu items. So my lambs learned to do a lot more browsing than many sheep. Your average sheep will graze rather than browse, with her head down, nosing through the sward selecting mostly broadleaf plants like young goldenrod and ironweed, pigweed, dock, chicory, plantain, lambs lettuce (it's not called that just cause it's fuzzy!) along with some grass and of course the alfalfa and clover James has planted (you'll meet James later too, he's the guy some of you probably think you hate. You shouldn't.). On our farm the grasses James has planted are fescue, rye, orchardgrass, bluegrass and timothy; there are native grasses too, like broomgrass and sedges- not as popular with the sheep set.

So why should you care what my sheep eat? Because you are what you eat, and you should be eating my lamb! Read on.

Sheep are ruminant herbivores. An herbivore is one who eats plants, you probably knew that already. Ruminants are herbivores whose stomach has become a fermentation vat where single celled organisms- bacteria, fungi, protozoa- can break down plant cell walls. The sun shines, the grass grows, the sheep graze pick out their mouthfuls of weeds, and a miracle happens. The microbes in that rumen create chemical compounds that previously did not exist.

Some of those compounds are unique fats- they have chemical bonds in different places than the fats we get from other sources like non ruminant animal fats and most plant fats. All ruminants make some of these unique fats, sheep make more and grazing makes more. So grazing sheep make the most. Doesn't happen if they're eating grain or other items people like to feed because it's cheaper or more efficient or more scientific. We think we know better than Mother Nature. Let me tell you something- Nature is a mother. Don't mess with her.

Turns out, we have healthier hearts and less cancer if we eat more of those unique fats (called omega-3 fatty acids) relative to the total amount of fat we eat.

So these unique fats are made in the rumen, then incorporated into the sheep's muscles and fat, and if she's a ewe who's recently lambed, secreted into her milk (which is then turned into either the body of the lamb who's nursing her or some yummy cheese if a human has gotten involved). By eating grassfed lamb, and cheese made from the milk of grassfed ewes, we get those better fats into our diets. Doesn't hurt that we are also putting some incredible flavor into our mouths.

If you made it this far, reward yourself with a nice slice of one of my all time favorite sheep's milk cheeses, Manchego, maybe on a bit of baguette; or perhaps a smear of Roquefort, maybe the best known shep's milk cheese worldwide, on a crispy thin cracker. Makes a nice snack to throw at the children while you throw some lamb chops on the grill.

Of course it's shameless self-promotion. It's my blog!

Next time- why it's okay to talk about feeding your children the bodies of another animal's babies. Even vegetarians may be swayed.

A quick sheep terminology primer: baby sheep is a lamb; grown up sheep is a ewe if female, a ram if intact male and a wether if neutered male. Lambs are lambs until they are a year old OR until they have a lamb themselves; many of my ewe lambs will lamb at 10-11 months of age, which then makes them ewes rather than lambs.

I raise the sheep for meat and milk- well, cheese, and not yet at that! Next fall- more about that later. I don't produce wool. My sheep are a cross between a wooled breed called East Friesian developed in Europe for dairy purposes and a haired breed called Katahdin developed in Maine for meat purposes. Many of my sheep have wool, most will shed it in the spring but I do still have to shear a few. There'll be some seriously snippy posts about that; shearing is a real pain in the neck- and back, and arms, and legs...

I intend for this blog to be mostly mundane, a daily discourse that gives you a glimpse into the life of a sheep farm in central KY. Not many people have intimate contact with farms or food production or livestock. I think you should.

Such knowledge will make you change what you eat, which will change the world.
No pressure.
Next time we'll talk about what sheep eat.