Just another Day on the Farm

Spring, gardens, muck and lambs..

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

What can I say, I am so busy outside on the these first days of warmer melting weather, and busy with lambing, that I am behind on my blogging..

So once again, this is a photo heavy post 🙂 but its wee lambs.. and a few other things.. lol

The main garden is still under a great deal of snow and in need of spring clean up, the only garden that didn’t get a fall clean up.. figures.. but at least as the rest are all done, it will mean more time for this one.

The current lambs are all doing great, growing like weeds and soon I will be able to start doing milk sharing, very excited about that..

My only set of wool lambs are black and White this year..so cute, this is Blackie, the ram lamb of the set, his sister has a bit more white.. love this wool coat on him, he is greatly taking after his father in wool type.

Speaking of wool, I have my March Invest in the farm coming.. (it might have something to do with sheering the sheep) because someone does not want to hand sheep if not required.. power all the way.. This weekend and over the next while, I will be practising shearing on Ice and then I have a coat on Whiskey, which I am hopeful that will have useable but I held back my old full wool lamb from last year, he will be sheared, and will be working with his wool as carefully as possible and see what I can get made out of it.

I will have white and black wool to work with this spring..

But I am so bad at just hanging with the lambs..

Having said that, I need to get more seeds started, I need to get pens ready for moving birds into breeding groups and I need to get a my spring hot box made along with a number of other spring things including grooming my mucky horses and getting my walks in..

Are you just loving spring! Are you getting busy now! or are you still in winter mode?

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Breeding Lines -Sheep

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

While this is on sheep, the truth is knowing, understanding and running female breeding lines applies to all your breed programs, everyone is always so worried about the males..

I hear it all the time.. the stud gives 50% of the genes, that is true but most new folks and even a lot of longer term folks, also change their males every year or every two or three at a max, and so that he gave 50 percent only matters in two ways..

A) did he create a issue, was something breed in that was a issue for this years lamb crop.

B) if you held something back.. if you do not like what that ram produced, its a very easy and simple answer.. make him a terminal Sire.. butcher the offspring.. and wow.. that male that everyone thinks controlled 50%.. now has O effect on the long term genes of your flock.

Now your females, that is a different matter, while they are more limited in how many babies they will produce for homestead or small flocks owners, they are the very backbone of your breeding plans.

For myself, at this time in the flock in 2016, I have Butterscotch line, Mocha Line, Stomp’s Line, and I have added in two new lines, Ice and Tess.

My Butterscotch line is over done, I need to go hard line on her line, no keep backs for three years, remove the least productive ewes from it, I need to add one more ewe from the Mocha line but I have time to make sure its a great female ewe to do so..

Below a great set of week old twin ewes, one showing my standard hair sheep color and one in white with freckled spots.

I have only one ewe left on the stomp line but I have been blessed with a set of twin ewes from her Granddaughter this year, and so I will keep back at least one of them to increase that line in the flock.

Ice was a new line added, she is a pure wool sheep and so her ewe born this year will if all works out in growth and so forth, will be a hold back to start that line in the flock, I am quite excited as it appears so far that the wee one is a polled female and she is mainly black with a bit of white trim, so that will give me Ice with a full white wool shearing and a ewe with mainly black wool to harvest. She is on the right in the photo, they are just two days old.

Tess was added in this year, she is carrying from a unrelated male, and so any females she has will be looked at, and in truth, if she has a really nice male, it is possible, I will keep him back and cross him out to my mocha and Stomp line for a single year of lambs, as it will let me create a lamb crop of pure hair to keep back from. Tess is a outstanding example of a hair sheep.

So in total, I have five female lines, and my new ram Whiskey is unrelated to any of the current females, but that will not hold for long, soon enough, in some cases, he will be both a breeder and a terminal sire when breed to his own daughters and granddaughters at some point.

I do not replace my males as often as others, as most years all my lambs are set for butcher, this does not bother me at all. having said that, this is my second year of whiskey lambs and they are outstanding, I could not be more pleased with how they nick with my girls..

Look at this huge two week old Butterscotch-Whiskey polled ram lamb.. outstanding! I used hubby as a way for you to see the size difference.

To me, three breeding lines is pretty close to being the min, I would want to work with, but for a smaller flock, five is as much as I would want to do. It takes time and effort to learn each line.

As a homesteader, do you rule female lines? how many do you work with? Do you change males every year?

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged breeding female lines, lambing, lambs, sheep | Leave a comment

After Lambing Care -Sheep Day

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

As I currently have a smaller, and slightly weaker twin lamb out of the twins born yesterday, it is with it, it is up and nursing but it’s no where near as strong as its sibling, and I am working with it today to give it a helping hand to get it a stronger start.. I will update on it..

It leads in perfectly to my notes from the seminar in regards to after lambing care..

If self-feeding, a bottle Baby, the idea is 10% of their body weight in their mothers first colostrum, to which everyone in the room looked at the vet, who raised her hands and said, I know, I know.. even if you were tub feeding the lamb, you still would not get that much into them in the first 24 hours..

But what we all agreed was a good recipes for success was that

A) ewes colostrum is #1, milk the ewe (and if your ewes have twins, they will out produce a ewe with single lamb by a extra 400 to 500 grams of colostrum in the first day) so if you are going to do a single milk out to add to your freezer, take it from your in her prime female that has twins, she in fact has more to spare then the single mom does

* (Having said that, I am milking from my single lamb mom, because she is the only other mother that lambed the same day as this female, so I know that the milk is at the perfect stage for the boost)

B) if the choice is milk to get something into the baby, vs waiting a small bit of time for the milking and getting the ewes colostrum.. its better to wait for the ewes milk, because if the lambs belly is a touch overfull, first milk and then colostrum, you can have overspill into their next stomach, which is the leading cause of fermenting milk and baby death by bloating.

c) Powdered Cow Colostrum is useless for the lamb, better to just move over to an approved Lamb Milk replacer as the cow will not help at all.

Yes, Colostrum will keep one year well done in the freezer and of course as we all know, must be thawed carefully and warmed over warm water, never heated, no microwaves.

We all believe that the ph of the milk does have a effect on if they bloat, and I will admit that I faithfully always add my pinch of soda to each fresh bottle I make.. but it would appear that temp of milk and many smaller meals have a far greater effect on the positive side.

Have your well water checked, you can have issues in regards to health if you have to high of a sulfur content. (do your own follow-up on this one)

I clearly under grain my sheep, but I am ok with that, they are in good shape and I rarely have issues, but the recommend is 1 pound of grain per lamb on the ewe. Whole Grain is always better than ground.

Wheat is a “hot” grain to feed to lambs, as its considered a flash fermentor.. They recommend corn as the coolest, safest grain for creep feeder.. Not what I feed but it’s what they recommend.

The normal accepted Ontario sheep death rate (not including wild critter kills) is 15%, I find that interesting that its lower than a number of other breeds percent.

On a side note, in the heavy feeding producers, they are wanting to have the lambs at market weight in 120 days, and the expert says that most are needing vet issued Tetracycline in their feeds to make that happen.. The interesting thing about that statement, is how are they getting the proper withdrawal time in??

I on the other hand, take about 8 months to grow them on mother’s milk, grass, hay and garden produce so as a producer, I never understood that I really sell my costs shorter.

If you are somewhat local, they recommend Snow White Limestone from Perth Ontario as the place to get your limestone supply.

http://www.doddsanderwin.com/services.asp

This is something I will be looking into for both the sheep flock and for my own farm, pasture and garden use.

If you have having any rumen issues in the 4 to 6 week old stage, thiamine at the right percents (talk to your ag rep for your feed mix) is proving to have good results.

New studies being done on adding 1g per head, per day of Epsom Salt to the routine for prenatal and post natal lambing for ewe health.

And for today, last but not least, if you are born with a number of big but lazy starting lambs, look to your Selium and give those babies their shots.

Posted in sheep | Tagged Lamb bottle babies, Lamb Care, Lamb Care 101, sheep | Leave a comment

Squash Bee’s Overview- Part 1

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

Good Day Folks, it is finally warming up above freezing

One foot in front of the other and steady as she goes 🙂

I have been off for a few days but its been so worth it, we have new lambs in the barn (three more sets of wee ones), and I have been busy at training days.. I have great sheep day training course (more on that later)

I took a day long course on seed production for small scale farmers to produce market garden quality seed for community projects or for sale. I will be working on transferring 17 pages of hand written notes into something that can be useable.

I have also started my hikes so that I am in shape for my gardening, riding and some of the other planned summer events.

However lets get on target, one of the things I learned about was squash bees, now squash bees feed on all types of Squash, Pumpkins and summer squash and melons.

The bee’s moved along with the squash as it slowly made its way from south America to Canada. Lots of folks think these bees are honey bees at first glance but they are not. They winter underground and live under ground.

Now I have without knowing it in all places but one on the farm been hindering not helping my squash bees, I tend to have my pigs or my chickens work up my beds in the squash area to help control squash bugs.. but without knowing it, I would have been working deeper in some cases then I should have for the bees.

But I do have one area on the farm that they have had squash grow for a number of years now and the area is a no till, so I am quite sure that when I check carefully this spring, that I will be able to find my own tunnels and thriving center at that place.

So this year, do consider them when doing the cleanup the ground around your squash beds and grow areas but do not till or turn them, even if you move the squash to a different area, the bees when they come out in spring, will find the plants and make new nests under the new plants, at that point, you can dig or double dig the old areas if you want for other garden use or planting.

These bees do not sting, and love that bigger squash pollen, sometimes you might even find a male sleeping in the warm sun of the afternoon in the flower itself..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged sqaush Bees | Leave a comment

Rice Water Rince – Overview

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

So while I tried to keep up on the blog during the storms, I ran out of time and the farm and the critters always need to come first, plus I lost the computer for a week and bit only having limited access to the net on hubbies in the evening. None the less, I wanted to do a overview of what happened when instead of using the rice water rinse, once a month, like I do for a deep condition..

Here is my normal hair, washed, air dried and then brushed.. this was done a two weeks before the challenge started..

P1050625

What o what happened when it became the main rinse for weeks.. the answer.. Volume.. Lots and lots of Volume! This is fresh washed, air dried and brushed.. after four weeks of only rice water or fermented rice water as my rinse. It also pretty much took out my color in a heartbeat.. Sorry for the bad photo, it was taken by the computer and it did something odd to it but it still shows what I want, which is the hair! LOL

WIN_20160303_131356

“The really hard was realizing that I am one hair wash away from being out of my favorite conditioner.. (how did that happen, why is there not any extra, because it’s not been on sale for months, or more like for at least a year plus) which let me tell you did not make me happy..”

My longer hair needs to have a softener added after being washed.. but we have eggs for a deep condition and we have lots of rice.. so I will be doing rice water rinse

Did you just go.. huh, rice water rinse? The joy of this is that you just need to soak your rice in water (which also cuts down the cooking time) and instead of putting it down the sink.. it has a job to do.. or you can make your rice with extra water just for this, either way, it’s very little extra work and because it can be stored in the fridge and or fermented to a point, it does not need to be made daily and it should be diluted

What is Rice Water?

Rice water, in its simplest form, is the water that is leftover after washing off rice in preparation for eating. It can be concentrated or diluted and even fermented to bring out most of its benefits.

Rice water contains nutrients that can fortify hair and renew skin when used as a facial wash or hair rinse, and unlike many products for skin or hair care on the commercial market, it is an easy and natural way to care for your skin and hair.

For more information, check out it all out on this link

http://www.healthyandnaturalworld.com/rice-water-for-hair-and-skin/

Posted in Life moves on daily | 6 Comments

Purple Pea Pod Jelly Recipe

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

Purple Pea Pod Jelly

4 C pea hull infusion (see below)
5 C sugar
1 package Sure Jell (or other powdered pectin)…
2 T lemon juice

For pea hull infusion: I got 4 cups of liquid from a pound of pea hulls, weighed before removing the peas, of course! Wash empty pea hulls several times; place in a large pot and add water until hulls are just covered. Boil hulls until they are tender and the liquid is a purple color. Strain liquid through damp cheesecloth, a jelly bag, or an old kitchen towel and return it to the pot.

For jelly: Add Sure Jell and lemon juice to the liquid, Bring to a rolling boil; add sugar and return to a full rolling boil. Boil per the box or until wrinkle tests Remove from heat. Skim off foam. Pour hot jelly into jars. Process them ten min waterbath

ok, so this recipe came up on my old recipe group, I tweeked it to make modern canning safe an its said to be a poor mans grape jelly for those that live where grapes will not grow but peas will. You know I love finding ways to use everything, and I am interested in seeing if different heritage pea types will make different flavoured jelly..

So tell me.. have you ever made or eaten pea pod jelly?

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged purple pea pod jelly | 2 Comments

Lamb Hide Followup

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

So from yesterdays post, the brown curly hide is the hair sheep and the fluffy white one is the wool lamb hide.

Here it is green washed and wet, ready to be scraped and salted..

Here it is dried, stretched and rolled..

Here is the mock-up of the little sheepskin cutch purse I am going to make, I think it will be lovely when finished

Posted in Carfts an Hobbies | Tagged lamb hide | 3 Comments

Lamb Pelts

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

So, this is a fast little post but I will put out a little challenge for you.. Both of these are washed, cured by me stillborn lamb hides..

One is a full hair sheep lamb and one is a wool breed lamb.. Do you think you can spot which is which??

hair sheep newborn hide

P1050942

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

No Buy Feb 2016 – Overview an final update

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

What can I say, this month has been filled with snow, rain, freezing rain, and the flu and yet another storm is coming down the pipes towards us as we speak-read. Its been a crazy winter month that’s for sure.. we have also have new chicks, new lambs and a few days of mild weather in there.

But none the less, No Buy Feb 2016 just kept trucking on.. something went really well..

While I did go out a number of times, my friends all cheated and they picked up the tab, so know I need to own up.. Gifted out meals, one breakfast, three tim’s large coffee’s, I had 9 timbits from a boxes that friends got, and it does not stop there.. my girl friend spent 3 dollars on a valentines day gift for me from church basement, and a teen friend got me, a really nice cap for 3 dollars as a thank you gift to me..
I did break my own rules once, while I did eat at the meals provided at the weekend events for breakfast, lunch for both days, I did go for supper with friends, and I paid for my own!
We missed our green food box due to bad weather and it went to the local food bank, which put me leaner then I expected..
I kept sprouts and micro-green going though-out the month, but I am craving fresh!

the rest of the month went as well as can be, and the savings added up.. between the different amounts, in the grand end of things, we finished the month 712 dollars richer then we would have if we had not done no buy feb.

712 hundred is nothing to sneeze at, its a good amount for sure, and its a good reminder that we should be able to save a bit more each month without it being to big of a hardship.

So how did you do on your no buy month? Did you see a good savings, did you find it hard, did you have a cheat..

Ps, never did make it out to that movie

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged No Buy Feb, no buy feb 2016, Saving money | 1 Comment

Lambing- Jugging

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

When it comes to lambing, there are a number of things that are important, starting with flushing the ewes, boosters, feet trimming, weight checks and so forth, and then there is lamb birthing kits, milking the mother for the important first milk and if needed raising a lamb on the bottle

But there is another thing that is huge, the jug! its just a pen, really it is that simple, but if you want your jug to do its job to its fullest, there is a few things to learn and do about it, ideally at a min you want 16 square feet per ewe but it can be bigger, but keep to the smaller size for first time ewes

it need great ventilation but it also must be draft free if at all possible at sleep height , they can be extra clean, done daily, or they can be deep packed (and turned after with the pigs-chickens) but when in use as a sheep jug, they need to be well bedded, dry on top, straw is the best, no sawdust as it can have issues for the mother.

lots of folks buy and make the movable pens that are sold for this, I use what I have in the big barn, I have two small jugs, a big jug, even bigger pen and then I have the big stalls and the huge pen, each has their own place.

its better to jug up a day or three early then have a opps, she lambed its fine to put the couple closest to lambing out into a bigger pen together for the night, as when your last feed is will effect the average lamb out time. For us, 90 present of our lambs are born between 5 to 9 am

Only give help, some moms are fast and others are not.. if the mother is not in distress, then watch, support and leave her alone, everyone is in a huge rush to pull.. stop it, you are just breeding in poor lambing ability into your flock, and you are doing it because it makes you feel better, she might want a nap between them, so be it..

Let them bond, again be there, watch, cheer, help if needed and otherwise, sit own and sit on your hands.. a good mother does not need you in there right away, the info you can learn sitting quietly is massive, watch, listen, smell, see the change in the baby, the sounds the mother makes, her breathing, the color of the after birth blood and so much more.. the more you learn the fine details, the more you know when to help and when to sit back an stay out of it.

I like to give them a warm fresh drink with a vit-mineral boost to it, a bit of grain, but increase the grain or fodder if feeding it slowly over a few days so that she increases her milk flow at a steady rate. they need 24 to 72 hours in their own jug, and then can be moved to the baby pen, where they can meet, interact and play together. I like to keep them at least a week in it, allow me to watch weight gain, mothers an so much more.