Saturday, May 10, 2014

We have been busy in the lambing barn.  We have been lambing for about two weeks and are now about half done.  The last days of April we finally got some moisture.  It came in the form of rain with some snow.  The first evening it rained about an inch then it rain or drizzled for three more days with the wind blowing forty to fifty miles an hour.  So we had mud and needed to keep the sheep inside as much as we could.


We number the ewes and their lambs with the same number on the same side.  We do a hundred with one color of paint either black or red on the left side then the right side.  This helps us keep track of lambs and which mother they belong to.



Then when it dried up a little we squeezed a branding in one day.  Our son Ryan got everything ready to brand.  He needed to move his cows so he could quit feeding hay.  So he got enough crew together to get his branded in the morning and we got our calves branded and vaccinated in the afternoon.


The cows that we have here just started calving April 18, so after the rain storm got over I turned them out in the big pasture.  I only had three bales left and it was too muddy to get more bales in so I turned them out to graze.  I take the four wheeler out and drive around and check to see what has been born in the last 24 hours and write them in my book.

Yesterday Marshall and I took two four wheelers and rounded up our yearling heifers and moved them two miles to a pasture.  They had been working the fence trying to reach green grass and sometimes getting out.  This time of year they just don't like hay anymore.  They were good girls and just trotted down the road.


After two mile of a pretty brisk pace we arrived at their new home for the next month or two.


The pasture don't look very green but most of the grey looking hills are mostly old grass from last year, so it is better than it looks.  The weather remains unsettled.  We are predicted to get snow showers for Mother's Day.