This blog was actually ready in December but I never got around to posting. Therefore, better late than never.
It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything to our blog. I seem to be able to post a quick note to Facebook easier than sitting down to actually write something that makes sense. Winter is fast approaching and we’re getting ready to welcome new lambs and kids sometime around Christmas. Calves will be arriving a little after that. Before the lambs and kids start arriving I plan to get a few things done in preparation.
Quite often kidding and lambing is done in the middle of winter. In the past, here in Kentucky, lambing was scheduled to happen after all the tobacco was stripped. There was more time on the farm to devote to the lambs but the main reason was that the tobacco barns were used to house the new mommas and their babies. Though we no longer raise tobacco, we still use the tobacco barns for the sheep and goats. When new lambs or kids are born, we like to pen them in a small pen, usually a four foot by four foot area, so that the lambs or kids are close to Mom. It gives mom and babies a chance to bond and get a good imprint of each other pending being let out with the rest of the herd. It lets the yearling ewes and does that have never had babies before get a chance to figure out what they need to be doing to be good mommas and keeps the babies close by so they don’t wander off.
We’ve fresh wood chips in the lambing pens, or jugs. Not sure why they call them jugs but they do. I’ve still got to get the feed pans attached to the walls of the pens. Heat lamps need to be inspected and repaired. Cords need to be inspected and places where goats and sheep chewed repaired. Light bulbs may need replacing and it’s just better to do all this up front instead of at one o’clock in the morning when we may need a heat lamp. We use them for newborns on really cold nights. Last year during the subzero weather I made the mistake of putting two lamps side by side for the kids. Then next morning I got to the barn and the kids were all in a pile under the lamps but unfortunately the one on the bottom was dead. Smothered by the rest jockeying to get the warmth. I hate it when my learning experience brought on by something dying. I know better this year.
The ewes and does are starting to bag up. That’s a farmers term for the udder starting to fill with milk. We’re starting to watch the field during the day and check the barn before we go to bed to make sure everyone’s ok. Their job is to have babies. Our job is to help them keep those babies alive. And we take that job very seriously.
It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything to our blog. I seem to be able to post a quick note to Facebook easier than sitting down to actually write something that makes sense. Winter is fast approaching and we’re getting ready to welcome new lambs and kids sometime around Christmas. Calves will be arriving a little after that. Before the lambs and kids start arriving I plan to get a few things done in preparation.
Quite often kidding and lambing is done in the middle of winter. In the past, here in Kentucky, lambing was scheduled to happen after all the tobacco was stripped. There was more time on the farm to devote to the lambs but the main reason was that the tobacco barns were used to house the new mommas and their babies. Though we no longer raise tobacco, we still use the tobacco barns for the sheep and goats. When new lambs or kids are born, we like to pen them in a small pen, usually a four foot by four foot area, so that the lambs or kids are close to Mom. It gives mom and babies a chance to bond and get a good imprint of each other pending being let out with the rest of the herd. It lets the yearling ewes and does that have never had babies before get a chance to figure out what they need to be doing to be good mommas and keeps the babies close by so they don’t wander off.
We’ve fresh wood chips in the lambing pens, or jugs. Not sure why they call them jugs but they do. I’ve still got to get the feed pans attached to the walls of the pens. Heat lamps need to be inspected and repaired. Cords need to be inspected and places where goats and sheep chewed repaired. Light bulbs may need replacing and it’s just better to do all this up front instead of at one o’clock in the morning when we may need a heat lamp. We use them for newborns on really cold nights. Last year during the subzero weather I made the mistake of putting two lamps side by side for the kids. Then next morning I got to the barn and the kids were all in a pile under the lamps but unfortunately the one on the bottom was dead. Smothered by the rest jockeying to get the warmth. I hate it when my learning experience brought on by something dying. I know better this year.
The ewes and does are starting to bag up. That’s a farmers term for the udder starting to fill with milk. We’re starting to watch the field during the day and check the barn before we go to bed to make sure everyone’s ok. Their job is to have babies. Our job is to help them keep those babies alive. And we take that job very seriously.