Aiah has a snit

John put three big bales of hay out in the pasture so the horses and cattle are covered for the upcoming super low temps tomorrow through Friday night. The horses tucked into the first bale, so Aiah and Ludo moved away (the horses, even the minis, dominate both of them).

When John came through the gate with the second bale, Aiah (my Jersey-Holstein future riding steer) rushed up to it, obviously saying, "Stop! Stop! Put it down right here!" But John was taking it over into a more sheltered area, not leaving that one too close to the first bale. As the bale and tractor passed by, Aiah became quite frantic (keep in mind I forked about a ton of loose hay over the fence this morning—he was definitely not hungry) and started side passing alongside the bale. He side passed as beautifully as a dressage horse almost all the way across the width of the field and he'd have gone all the way had he not been purely focused on the hay bale and stumbled over a large tree branch that one of the oaks dropped last fall. I wish I'd had the camera! Anyone who thinks cattle are awkward should've been here. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it myself.

Then, when John set the bale down and Aiah caught up, he punished it for not stopping. He whipped around, repeatedly stabbing it with his horns while dancing and flinging his head. There was hay flying everywhere! John stayed on the tractor until he got over his snit. Once he'd made his point, he was fine.

Meanwhile I was minding the gate. Ludo (the water buffalo) came up and stood with me, watching this spectacle unwind (he assumed the cautious water buffalo stance with his head up and his chin raised—apparently he's never seen a thoroughly annoyed steer before either). After Aiah was through flinging hay and John got the mesh wrap off, Ludo ambled over and they both tucked in. These guys are so much fun!

The pictures of Aiah were taken a hour later, when he came up for a drink. The one of Ludo (below) was taken before it snowed. Are these cute faces or what!

Starting the new year with a bang

I’m looking forward to April and May; this year we’re having lambs! The past few years with the economy and small sheep market what it is, we’ve bred only a few of our Classic/Miniature Cheviot ewes. This year five are expecting lambs.

We have five Classic/Miniature Cheviot rams on our farm, three black rams of my own and two white boys belonging to my friend, Lori Olson of Boscobel, Wisconsin. Last year’s beautiful lambs were all by Lori’s white ram, Oran of Shepherd’s Croft, except for Smoke (Wolf Moon Smoke on the Water), who is a whoops! lamb (and now a fleece wether and pet) conceived by parties unknown through the fence (it happens more often than you probably think).

This year I wanted to give my own young rams a chance, so Maxx (Wolf Moon Fin Bheara), a spotted black ram, serviced a breeding pen of three ewes in late November and my favorite, Rumbler (Wolf Moon Rumbler, pictured with his yearling son, Baamadeus, near the top of this entry), bred Maxx’s dam, Baatiste, two weeks ago.

I also wanted Rumbler to breed Lori’s beautiful ewe, Misty Glyn Little Bear, a.k.a. Ursula (pictured below), who, like Oran and his friend Wooby (Misty Glyn Gwyn ap Nud), is staying with us for awhile. Ursula had other plans.

She appeared to be in heat, lounging by New Ramsgate (the rams’ paddock), making goo-goo eyes at the boys through the fence, so I turned her into the yard with Rumbler and Baatiste. Big mistake! She began bashing Rumbler with a purple fury. He, in turn, was focused on breeding Baatiste, so he let her smash him. I finally decided she’d hurt him if they kept it up, so sadly put her in the fold with the other sheep.

A few days later she was flirting with the boys again, so I thought I’d breed her to Oran instead.

I put her in a breeding pen and went to get Oran. Oran usually dashes through the gate when I least expect it, necessitating chasing him around the yard with a bucket of grain. But he refused to budge and I tried to pull him forward (I should’ve gotten a halter and lead but did I? Noooo), he whirled and bashed me in my bad right knee. Ow!

So I said, “THE FIRST RAM THROUGH THIS GATE GETS TO BREED URSULA!” Unfortunately that was Baama (Wolf Moon Baamadeus) and Lori doesn’t care for his very extreme head. So I had to hold Baama back until another ram stepped forward. It was Maxx.

I took him to the pen to join his lady love and she turned on him with a fury. After whacking him a half dozen times it was as though a light went on (“Oh! You’re not Rumbler!”) and she cozied up to him and they got along fine—except that she wouldn’t let him breed her.

After eight days I threw in the towel, returned Maxx to New Ramsgate and Ursula to the rest of the flock.

Ursula spent her day by the rams again yesterday, all day, so I told her, "If you're jerking my wienie again, you aren't getting bred this year!"

I put the rest of the sheep back in the fold and she followed me (and a bucket of pellets) to the breeding pen, then I went to get a ram. I thought we'd go with Oran but once again he hung back and wouldn't come through the gate. The one that DID volunteer was Rumbler. I told him, "Oh, honey, Ursula doesn't like you, she'll beat you up." But he and Baama were the only ones making an effort to comply.

I led him across, put him in with Ursula and you'd have thought he was a giant Tostito (Ursula l-o-v-e-s Tostitos). She ran to him, purring, wagging her tail ("Oh Rumbler, you are such a hunk!") and he leaped aboard and (hopefully) made lambs. They're still cuddling and giggling among themselves and he's bred her about 100 times, so it seems as though her aversion toward him has passed.

So WHY she was cooing at the rams those last two times, I have not a clue! This time she is most definitely in heat. So we're looking at May 27 babies. I put in an order for one or two ewe lambs and considering their lovely parents, they should be doozies!

It's been forever!

I apologize for not posting anything new for quite awhile. With everything going on here the past two months or so, I haven't engaged in much small ruminant training.

Sadly, I'm learning that though Mopple is a total sweetie, he is not the brightest bulb in the pack. I'm sure he'll learn to pull the wagon with no qualms but agility sheep status is probably beyond him. I have to lock our road gate every day Mopple is in the yard with the other animals because he has no concept of safety around motor vehicles. Last week the UPS truck would've hit him if the nice driver wasn't at the wheel and John nearly backed over him with the tractor. Revving engines doesn’t help. He’s too trusting and has no concept of danger; even when the other sheep and goats scatter, he stands and watches them go. Still, he's such a happy and pretty boy and pulling the wagon will be enough. I'm thinking one of the adult wethers might like to learn agility in his place.

Still, this will remain The Mopple Chronicles. He’s such a sweet, lover boy; he deserves this spotlight.

Another of our animal children in the spotlight is our Nubian buck, Martok, who blogs at the Hobby Farms Online website (www.hobbyfarms.com/hobby-farms-editorial-blogs/sue-weaver/default.aspx) and is featured on Hobby Farms’ free, downloadable “2010 Mondays with Martok calendar”. Download your copy here: www.hobbyfarms.com/hobby-farms-web-exclusives/2010-martok-calendar.aspx

It's been awhile

Sorry I’ve been neglecting my blogs. John is visiting his extended family in Indiana for the holiday and between doing the chores and everyday upkeep and chipping away at Have a Cow and my Hobby Farms assignments, blogging completely slipped my mind.

BUT, here is my big news: I got the go-ahead from Storey to submit a proposal for Feeling Sheepish! To say I’m thrilled is an understatement. I began working on the proposal yesterday and am having the time of my life.

Much as I adore goats, I honestly prefer researching sheep. It’s the history, you see. Goats were domesticated before sheep by perhaps one to two thousand years, but because humans utilized wool even before domestication (they picked shed undercoat out of bushes and such), sheep and humans go way, way back.

And, sheep are just plain interesting creatures. Studying their behavior is fascinating stuff. Take Mopple, who despite being raised with Edmund, still prefers to hang out days with the sheep.

Old Angel, who was fostered on a doe is quite the opposite; she reluctantly spends her nights in the sheep fold (we can’t let her overnight with the goats lest she ingest too much copper from their mineral tubs) but she joins the goats the moment she’s let out for the day. Last month she marched past five rams to hang out by Martok’s buck run when she was in heat. He had a visiting girlfriend and paid her no mind; as you see, she seemed quite depressed.

This proposal gives me an excuse to add items to my sheep ephemera collection too, though I already have a fat photo album of goodies if the book is a go. The picture at the top of this entry is one of my favorites, taken around the turn of the century in Burra, a former mining and pastoral town in South Australia (read about Burra here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burra,_South_Australia and here: www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/burra.htm). Don’t you wish you knew the story behind this image? I’ve tried to find out, but no luck so far.

Too many irons in the fire

Sorry I haven’t posted lately. It seems as though I’m going a dozen different directions at once these days and apart from ongoing leading lessons for Mopple and all the young goats, none of it has to do with training animals.

I did something stupid this week. With the economy so slow, I decided I’d breed only two of my little ewes this year rather than be overrun with lambs. I noticed old Rebaa (Coates Farm’s Rosy Lolita) in heat and lounging by Ramsgate 2 (that’s our rams’ pasture; Ramsgate is the pen they had when we had just three rams). So, on a whim, I asked John to help me round up Rebaa, Shebaa (Rebaa’s daughter, Wolf Moon Findabar, one of my best ewes), and Maxx (Wolf Moon Fin Bheara [pictured above], our young paint Miniature/Classic Cheviot ram) and put them in a breeding pen.

I hadn’t planned to breed Rebaa again since I thought she would be ten in March (I didn’t breed her due to her age last year either), but she’s such a wonderful producer that I thought why not? We’ll baby her a bit and she’ll be just fine. I asked her to please have two nice ewe lambs and Maxx bred her right away.

Later that evening I dug out her papers to check her age. I thought perhaps she was going to be nine instead of ten. But she’ll be eleven on March 22! I’ve really lost track of passing time. She’s in great shape but we’ll take her directly from the breeding pen to the elder sheep paddock so she gets extra TLC from start to finish.

Rebaa always has twins or triplets and for her past three lambings she’s picked out one for me to raise (the white sheep is Baa Baa Louie, the wethered son I raised in 2008). She looks them over for about an hour, decides which one is mine, then starts gently nudging it away. If I don’t take the hint and remove that lamb (which I didn’t, the first time this happened), she gets tougher until baby is bouncing off the sides of the lambing jug. Why does she do it? I honestly think she knows I love bottle lambs and wants to share. Sheep are amazingly astute!