My Aching Back!
Oh man, do I need a massage today! More on that in a minute...
It has been fairly quiet around here since my last farm update, but here's a quick photo of some of my big pregnant girls!
You can see Umbra, the big black ewe to the left, who I showed you last time with the beginnings of her baby belly. Beside her is my East Friesian/Finnsheep cross ewe. Both of her parent breeds are highly prolific breeds. She is due February 28th... I suspect she's carrying at least quadruplets!
Now, for that backrub thing.
Yesterday and today I was off to a farm about 1.5 hours from home to help shear 400 sheep!
That's just one mob.
Thursday started early. I was up at 5:30 and on the road an hour later. Thank goodness for a breakfast stop along the way!
"Sheila" the GPS tells us how to get where we have to go (sorry for the blur!!)
We get everything set up after arriving (this usually takes about an hour)
And then the sheep start arriving for their haircut!
There were four of us shearing the first day (I'm in the orange shirt, you get to know everybody by their backside on the shearing crew, since we're bent over most of the time XD).
Here's Lorrie, my shearing teacher/mentor/employer, clearing the first hip on a ewe.
My standing record was 34 sheep sheared in one day. This was sheep 35 on Thursday!
I made it all the way to a whopping FORTY-ONE that day. The second day I sheared 21, as there were not very many left. Also, my muscles are like large bundles of overcooked spaghetti, so that was about all I could manage anyway.
The wool gets packed into large bags using a nifty machine. My brother came to help out today (Friday) and is an old pro at running it.
So that's my busy couple days! I'm not sure I'll be moving very fast tomorrow, I definitely won't need to hit the gym for a few days!
Thanks for dropping in! This is just a taste of the excitement of shearing time, I'll be spending about two months shearing around Saskatchewan in the early spring. Talk to y'all again soon!
I LOVE seeing these photos! Animals always make me happy. I raised goats, miniature cows, turkeys, guinneas, and chickens. But, I could never talk my husband into sheep. I can see why! They look like a lot of work!! But, they are so dang adorable!!!
They can definitely be a more intensive variety of livestock. Some farmers raise breeds that either don't grow a fleece at all (in warmer climates) or breeds that naturally shed their fuzz in the spring, much like a horse or dog would, so that removes the need for shearing from their program. But all the rest is the same! Fencing, lambing, feeding, protecting from predators, routine and emergency medical care, its all there, haha. Thanks for the visit :)
WOW! You really had a rough day!
Tell hubby... back rub please!!!
She doesn’t look very comfortable. I didn’t realize sheep had mire than 1 at a time. Love seeing all the pictures. Rest up!
It depends a lot on the breed then on the individual sheep. Some tend to singles, some to twins, some to triplets, and some to what seem like whole litters. For larger scale production, it isn't unusual to cull those who only produce singles or those who are poor mothers. It depends a lot on what they're being used for.
What Bex said. With the production model I'm using, and the current prices for lamb here, the first lamb pays for its mother's annual upkeep (feed, meds, facilities, etc) and I don't start making a profit until the second lamb. So my ewes need to raise two lambs every year to be profitable for me. I don't ask them to raise more than two, however, so the "bonus" triplets, quads, quints, etc are raised on a bottle, and occassionally adopted onto a ewe who has lost her natural offspring to birth troubles. I choose my ewes accordingly! The ones who only bear singles don't fit with my program and are sold to others who don't mind the lower birthrate orthey wind up in our freezer!
Wowza! I'm curious what the other folks think of your picture taking.
When I should be working, you mean? My boss took half of these pictures and texted them to me XD. If you mean the utter lack of focus in most of them, I think it's because my hands were shaking from exhaustion hahaha
I am surprised at sheering at this time of year. Are they inside for the winter or something?
They do have plenty of barn space at this particular location, and we used winter combs which leave behind a short bit of fuzz, regular combs clear them right to the skin. It's also been unseasonably warm here this winter so far, so they will have a week or two of growth to put back on before temperatures drop again, which will help them stay warmer. Most shearing takes place in March/April around here, with the rest in June. There's only a few producers to shear this early, but they have the facilities to otherwise protect the sheep from the cold!
Oh, good. I grew up with shearing in the late spring only in PA.
I knew you must've been pretty busy and these photos prove it!! Looks like they don't mind it at all?!
Handled correctly, the sheep are calm and relaxed for the shearing process. When they're calm, we can shear them quickly and without injury. They tend to struggle a bit the very first time because they aren't sure what's happening to them, so we have to wrestle a bit and go a little more slowly, but they remember year to year after that. Some even seem eager to lose that extra weight and warmth off their backs when we're shearing later in the spring. It's their day at the salon!! XD
They definitely looked like they didn't mind it..lol!!
Shearing sheep is real; hard work thats pretty impressive the numbers you did and I can understand the achy back I hope its better tomorrow for you
A quick 'memo' to say this post has been featured in the latest issue of 'Notes', do stop in and see what else #thealliance has been up to. Some really good content out there!
Thanks for letting me know, @thealliance! I'll definitely be checking out what everyone else has been up to!
Sweet, and you're welcome :)
noticed you havnt posted for a few days i guess your still resting that back, looks like very hard work! i watched a program about sheep shearing its shocking how little money you get for the wool these days!
My back is pretty much back to normal now, haha, still a few muscle aches in my arms and shoulders yet! Should hopefully be posting again later today or tomorrow; gotta find something interesting to talk about first!
I bet your back does hurt, I hope its better now.
Whoops, super late reply, my back is definitely all better now, lol!!