Sunday, March 27, 2016

Lambs growing and heifers calving

The weather has been warm and the lambs are growing.  We gave them an overeating shot a week ago.  The heavier lambs weighted almost 50 pounds.


The lambs have been eating the ground oats and corn that the ewes have been getting.  We add enough soy bean meal to raise the protein level to 14 to 15 per cent.

Once the lambing of those early ewes was done we started calving heifers.  They calved along good with no problems.  

Then one day it really warmed up and the calves really enjoyed the warm sun.



Here is a calf that I disturbed taking this picture.  He had to stretch as he got out of his warm bed.  Now as the calving of the heifers winds down we start getting ready to shear the big bunch of ewes so we can start lambing.  Shearing should be done by the end of the week.    Then the next week we could start getting lambs.  

If the weather holds we should get some fence built and the corrals cleaned.  Ryan has been calving the cows at his place.   With the good weather he is having good luck calving this bunch.  We haven't gone over the help him much.


I took this picture a week ago.  I was feeding the sheep hay yet, but they were leaving a lot.  The weather was just too warm.  They thought they should be grazing.  Normally in mid-March we would have some snow on the ground, but we have not had much snow all winter and we are quite dry.  We are hoping that March goes out like a lion so we get some moisture.