Shearing Day

Tuesday was shearing day for the sheep at Sand Holler. This was my first experience with sheep shearing and I was surprised to learn how difficult it can be to find an experienced shearer. The shearer that we found doesn’t live in Texas, but travels through a few times a year going from farm to farm. I also learned that the quality of the fleece you get depends, in part, on the skills of the shearer. A good shearer doesn’t make “second cuts” – that is, they clip the whole length of the fiber off in one go and don’t have to clip the same spot twice. When the fiber is processed, the shorter pieces are often discarded because they are not suitable for spinning. Now that we have all this nice fiber the question is…what’s next? With any luck, we’ll be able to post a photo of a Sand Holler wool rug before the next shearing. Marissa - Do you still have that drop spindle?

Linden was ready for his haircut! Being a sheep in central Texas gets hot.

Two minutes later..."Whoa, what happened?!"

Who knew Morus looked like a Dalmation under all that fleece?

Desi, our ram, doesn't look nearly as intimidating without his wooly coat.

Bags of fleece ready for processing!

Sping Baby Update

With all the troubles on the farm this spring, I just wanted to update everyone on all the wonderful successes!

Chicory, the little premature goatling born to Rabbit whose triplet siblings were stillborn, is a complete toot. It took him over a week to assure us he was going to live. I guess that makes sense - that would have been his original due date, so his development must have finally caught up with the fact that he was outside instead of inside momma. He is a lean little scraper and loves to torment all the other goatlings. When feeding time comes, he is always willing to throw you for a loop. He either sprints right over and downs his milk without needing help...or he decides that a little game of chase is what's called for before having a civilized meal. You just never know with that guy.

Tiger Lily, our bow legged munchkin from Shelli, has made leaps and bounds of improvement. It was quite nerve wracking when her contracted tendons began to stretch, but her muscles weren't yet strong enough to hold her up. It appeared she was getting worse for a number of days. And then...she was just simply better. Woke up one morning and you could no longer pick her out of the crowd by her stance! She still has a funny little gait and tends to hop like a bunny when she wants to move somewhere quickly, but she is getting better and stronger every day. Whew.

Dandelion, the HUGE boy from Maxie who was passing blood on the second day of his life, is simply still a beast. He picked up on the bottle feedings faster than any of the other goats and has just not skipped a beat since his miraculous recovery. You really would never know anything had ever been wrong with him!

We are still brooding some 60 baby poultry. After the initial heavy losses, we have kept the others healthy and strong. We do have one chick that is a bit wobbly on the legs but I think she'll be fine, or perhaps we are just going to have a replacement yard chicken who spends her time around the house instead of foraging far and wide with the flock. I'm sure we won't mind that! And the ducklings are HUGE. I can't believe how fast they grow.

But the young poultry has once again suffered the consequences of tenacious raccoons. The ducks have a fully wire enclosed pen to spend the night, safe from predators...or so we thought. But apparently a raccoon was able to sneak up on them and grabbed one through the wire before she woke up and was able to run. But we quickly solved the problem by putting a layer of tiny mesh around the bottom 2 feet of the enclosure so no naughty hands can be thrust through the openings. I hate lessons like that. But the coons had the taste of a fresh meal so they have probably been back checking the defenses each night. All was safe for a few days. Then they discovered that they could dig under the chick brooder house - which we thought would be ok since the entire floor is wire mesh with several inches of dirt over it. But the coon kept digging until all the dirt from the floor fell through. And then must have just waited until a hapless chick or two wandered too close and pulled them through the wire. ARG! More security has been added and hopefully we've got the place locked down now!

And of course Ace and Mac, the spring lambs, are doing great. They have grown enormously but have unfortunately picked up more of their mother's traits than their uncle Linden's. They are skittish and we plan on working on that in the weeks to come. I still want to milk the sheep, so I will be giving the little boys a bottle every once in awhile. That's what made Linden the friendliest sheep on the block!

We still have more babies to come. Savannah and Elise are due this weekend. They are both absurdly huge and I fear they are going to have triplets! Hopefully they just have big twins, or at least all the triplets have had plenty of room to grow in there. And Miranda, our youngest bred doe, is due in May. And then the spring baby season will finally be over!

Shearing Day!

Yesterday was quite an exciting day. Our spring lambs from last year were shorn for the first time. It was an adventure!

No more wooly coats for these guys!


Last summer, the sheep were quite easy to move from one temporary pasture to the next. I just grabbed a handful of grain and they followed me around like...well, like sheep! But over the winter, they stayed in the same pasture and got out of the habit. Now they would much prefer to explore the green pastures they are walking by instead of keeping their eye on the goal! So it's been a bit of a fiasco moving them. Yesterday, there were myself, Mom, Pops, Jascha, Chad, his brother and girlfriend, Dale (on his day off!) and Loretta. I didn't think it would take 9 of us to get 5 sheep into a new paddock, but I sure was glad everyone was there!

Once the sheep were securely in the smaller fenced area, the real fun began. A woman from down the road brought her clippers over and one by one the sheep were transformed. First up, Linden. He tolerated the process rather well. Dale and I held the sheep in position while the shearer and her husband got the wool off.



Afterward, Linden was hardly recognizable! He went from a huge fuzzy puff ball to a scrawny, rather absurd looking naked critter.



He was pretty unsure of the change at first, but soon forgot how silly he looked and went back to his regular nosy behavior. I trimmed hooves while the shearer worked...and Linden needed to inspect each and every subsequent sheep while they were being held down to make sure they were getting the same treatment he had!



Meanwhile, Mac and Ace lounged about and played while their elders were being "tortured". They had nothing to fear...but just wait until next year! Well, maybe Ace did get a little startled when Percy roamed a bit close, but other than that, it was just a fun adventure for the lambs!

Move over Ace!

Ace is no longer the cutest thing on the block. Well, to be fair, they are both absurdly adorable but new babies always seem to win out!

Sunday seems to be lambing day at Sand Holler. Woke up this morning to do the chores as usual...and there was a new farm member! Cat decided she didn't like all the attention Maggie received during birthing, so she went for the middle of the night routine. I think the births fit Cat and Maggie's personality quite well - Maggie is loud and demanding, Cat is quiet and shy.

So no fun birthing story, we just know the little guy was born just a few hours before dawn and everybody made it through just fine. He still doesn't have a name as nothing has quite stuck yet. Any suggestions...remember that they all are named for trees!

March came in like a lamb...

Er, is that supposed to be lion? Anyway, I'm glad it wasn't REALLY a lion. Ahem, let me explain.

Sunday started out just like any other day on the farm. Up in the cold morning to take care of the animals. Of course, it got much colder than expected (you'd think that in this day and age they could predict the weather to within 10 degrees!) and water lines were frozen. I didn't discover this until I had already dumped over the sheep trough to clean it and refill it. Doh! So I made the mental note to come back in a hour or so once things warmed up and the pipes got moving. Thank goodness it wasn't like the REALLY cold days of winter when I hauled buckets of hot water all over the farm!

It turns out that the frozen pipes were a bit serendipitous. They forced me to go back to the sheep pasture much earlier than I might have that day. When I got there, Maggie was pawing the ground. Sounds pretty innocuous huh? Ah, that's because you must not know that is one of the first signs of labor!!! We didn't have any due dates on the sheep (we let the ram run with them instead of doing planned breeding) and I thought I had at least 2 more weeks. Obviously, Maggie had other plans. I bustled around the farm collecting the strewn birthing supplies and set up camp in the Mootel (the sheep barn is a pre-fabricated hutch for calfs!) with Maggie and locked the 'peanut gallery' on the other side to give us some privacy.

Shortly after 10:00, Maggie began pushing in earnest. I was really excited. Maggie, probably not so much. I'm currently attended Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth classes. Dr. Bradley based his method on observations of farm animals growing up and was sure that women could also have peaceful, natural, non-distressful, unassisted births just like animals on the farm. If Dr. Bradley had witnessed Maggie laboring, it might be called the Bradley Method of Completely Medicated Childbirth. She was not a happy camper. Every bellow rattled me to the bones and made me cringe.

A full hour into hard pushing and Maggie had not made much progress. That doesn't sound so bad but one thing Dr. Bradley did get right was that livestock typically have much shorter labors. If sheep have not progressed in 30 minutes, it's wise to intervene. I was reluctant to jump in too quickly as she was making small progress, but I also noticed that her efforts were lessening. I knew that if I needed to help her, I also needed her to be able to help me. It needed to be teamwork.

On her next contraction, I grabbed hold of the tiny hooves that protruded and pulled gently. Wow, I was going to have to pull harder than I thought! It took me about 5 contractions to finally pull hard enough to make any progress. Together, we finally got the head out! It was nerve-wracking and I was so glad it was all over. I figured the head must have been the difficult part so I would let her finish the labor. Well, I was wrong. Turns out, it's typically the shoulders that are stuck. So after a few more contractions that got her no where, I jumped in again. A few more good pushes and pulls and out came the lamb! I'm not usually terribly sentimental, but I will admit to tearing up just a tad at that moment.

I cleared the lamb's mouth as Maggie was quite exhausted at this point. Made sure he was breathing and then this time I was able to step back and let Maggie take over with mothering. She did wonderfully! Got him all cleaned up and on his feet with in a short period of time. Boy, is he just the cutest thing you've ever seen! Here's the 13 pounder, Ace!