Well we got sheared.  Four shearers and two helpers came with a shearing trailer and wool sacker.   We lined up another three helpers to push sheep up.  It was supposed to be cold and rainy, but it was just cool and windy with no rain.  The sheep are dry and ready to be sheared.

We use a zig-zag chute to stop the sheep from backing up once they have started up the chute.  It cuts down on the stress of the sheep and stress on the handlers.  Also it take less help.  Once the sheep start up the chute into the trailer many times you just get out of the way and let them load themselves.

Once the sheep load into the trailer they are sheared.

Here is a big look of the shearing trailer and wool sacker all set up and working.  The face wool is separated from the belly wool and put in different sacks.  Just the best wool is put all together in certain sacks.  So each sack is labeled as to which kind of wool is in the sack.  Different wool has different uses so it needs to be separated and labeled.

In the middle is a wool sack that holds bellies and to the left is the closed door of the wool sacker, with a gas engine mounted on top.  There is a pile of wool in front of the sacker ready to be sacked.

Here are our sacks of wool on the trailer ready to head to Belle Fouche.

Here is a picture inside the wool warehouse in Belle Fouche.  They will take a core sample of our wool bales and send the samples to a wool lab.  Then we know what we have for a product then the manager of the wool warehouse knows which customers may be interested in our quality of wool and will offer the wool for sale.  Maybe some time in June we will get a bid and the wool shipped in July.

Then we went to get our bags of sawdust that we use for bedding.  Where we used to get it no longer did retail.  So we tried two different lumber yards and a feed store and no one had any.  The next day we found a supplier in Rapid City.  We had to take two pallets of bags as a minimum.  So we went to Rapid City and got some sawdust.  Sawdust keeps the barn cleaner and it easier to clean the pens that are bedded with sawdust as opposed to straw.  Plus the sawdust has a natural turpentine substance that helps disinfect where straw can carry molds and bacteria.

The wind blew so hard the day we brought this load home we were afraid it would blow over,  but we made it.  It is not heavy just sticks up in the air about eight feet.

Transition from calving barn to lambing barn

Well it finally has warmed up for a few days.  The calves are enjoying the warmer weather.

The mud has started to dry up.  It seemed like it would never dry out.  Tammy and I calved the first calf heifers for about five weeks.  We then hauled the last eight head over to Ryan's so he can finish calving them.  We turned the heifers and their calves out in the pasture with the cows that are not to start calving until April 20.  Then got the sheep into the close lots by the barn.  We can start feeding the sheep extra grain to get them into shape for having their babies in a couple of weeks.

The calves enjoy being out in a bigger pasture.  They are getting to be a month old and can venture away from their mothers for a short period of time.  The pasture they are in has a small dam that is running over with water.  Last year at this time it was bone dry.  We had to fill a tank with water daily last year   and now the cows can drink anytime.

The sheep are in the lot and we feed with a bale processor that grinds the hay bale as it puts it out in a windrow.

Once the animals are moved around to their new locations, then we started cleaning out the barn and moving cattle panels around and sheep panels back in.  We use a tractor and blade to drag the straw and manure out of the barn so that it can dry out.

Ryan and Shilo are providing added weight to the blade so it does not skip over the wet straw.  They ride the blade for a short time as I get a good load to pull out of the barn.

While Logan doesn't get to ride the blade he does provide push power.  So after two days of barn cleaning and the barn finally clean it was time to feed Grandma's sheep some cubes.

It is great fun to feed the sheep out the grainery door.  Next week we hope to get sheared.

In like a Lion - out like a lion.

Well the late March blizzard has arrived.  It didn't start snowing here till after 5 AM, but it really snowed at times.  Weather Service is saying gusts of wind to 62 MPH and temperature of 18 for wind chill of -4 below.
Last Saturday we had a beautiful day with a temperature of 72 degrees.

These calves are all out of our first calf heifers.  These calves are all about two weeks old.  They really enjoy the nice sunshine and warm temperatures.

Tammy and I have been calving our first calvers and have been having pretty good luck.  We have ten left to calve.   We need to send the last ones over to Ryan to finish and we need to get ready to shear the sheep.  This means we have to clean out the barn and scrape the corrals.  It has been hard to do because all the ruts in the mud have remained frozen most of the time.

The cows at Ryan's have been calving right along lately.  Yesterday ahead of the storm he had four cows calve just in the afternoon.  Our cows that are here don't start calving till around April 20.  So this date is creeping up on us.  They calve out in pasture and have to take care of themselves.  The sheep will be in the corrals and occupy the barn, so no cows allowed.

This was the scene outside the barn this morning.  This is the heifers left to calve.

Yesterday there was no snow anywhere.  These heifers had spent the night in the barn so had not been outside very long and got this much snow on their backs.

I have to include one picture of my faithful dog Peaches.  She is patiently waiting for my return to the four wheeler.

Well we had gotten 3 calves before the extremely cold weather last weekend. Luckily the heifers quit calving while the weather was the coldest.  Then they started calving again.  The weather started warming, but slowly during the week.  We plugged along at one calf a day.  With fifty heifers to calf and fifty days to do it in we would get done.  It would just be slow.

Tammy caught these heifers sleeping one night during one of her checks.

On Thursday we moved the bulls to a pasture that is their spring pasture.  There is a shed there and a small springy creek for water that flows most of the year.

The older bulls know where they are going and know it is that time of year to go there.  So they march right along to get there.  Not much fighting and sparring going on.

Then we rode with the four wheelers down to the cows and brought them home to Ryan's.  They will not start calving for two more weeks.  Usually we wait long enough that a calf is born while the cows are in winter pasture.
But this year we brought them home early enough that no calves have been born yet.  We got this done one afternoon while Tammy watched the heifers at our home.
The next day it was colder and had froze the ground and we hauled three loads of heifer calves down to where the cows had come from.  They will be locked in a small lot of about 20 acres.  Hopefully the fence will hold them until they learn their boundaries. Once they figure out where the feed and water and shelter is they will be content and not try to get out.

While I was gone moving heifer calves Tammy was home calving.  That day we had six heifers calve.  All our pens were full as we tried to keep the new mothers and their young babies separate.  Fortunately the next day was to be really nice, so we could start letting some outside.

I have a few black cows and heifers and always like it when the calf they have is red.  So I have to show this to my friends that have black cattle.

The water in the creek has come up in the last few days.  Grand kids were over and we walked down to where the creek is overflowing around the culvert.  I think the ice has plugged the culvert.  So the water is really flowing around causing a water fall.

First calf of 2014

Well I guess March is going to come in like a lion.  Supposed to be cold and windy.  The beginning of February was in the minus -23 degree range then it got mild and into the 50's, even up to 64 in Rapid city. Now we have had 2-3 inches of snow and below 0 with predictions by the end of the week to be -10 to -15.
Last week Sturgis had its Ag and home show.  They had pens of bulls and heifers on display and junior livestock judging contest.  We took some lambs up to be judged in the contest.  It snowed four inches in Strugis during the contest so the kids had to feel and judge wet sheep..  The heifers and the bulls that they judged were all wet from the snow also.  There were even a pen of four goats to judge.

Monday it snowed and the wind blew hard and we had a ground blizzard most of the day.  The temperature stayed at about 8 degrees, so it was cold.  Tammy and I sorted off about ten heifers that we thought were close to calving.  We call them the "heavys", because they are heavy with calf.  We are not supposed to start calving until March 1.  We put them in the sheep barn.  We had to move sheep panels and troughs out of the way so the cattle don't break them.

Tammy checked them before she went to bed and I checked early in the morning around 4 AM.  Lo and behold I had a little "jewel".  A little heifer calf was born in the barn.  The wind had gone down so it was somewhat warm in the barn.

She is a nice little heifer calf that weighs just 55 pounds.  Mother and daughter are doing well.

The ladys-in-waiting.  The ones that are yet to calf, the heavys.

This picture was taken just before sun down.  It shows quite a few holes in our barn. The barn is not all that drafty.  A few warm bodies take the chill off.

Another cold front

Another arctic cold front has descended upon us.  This morning it was -13 degrees. It is supposed to be colder tomorrow morning.  We fed cake to the heifers and the cows were scattered in bunches to be in the shelter and were warming themselves in the sun and didn't care if they came for cake.  Tractor didn't want to start so we went to gather eggs before they froze.  Out of four eggs, three had frozen before we got there.

Then we went to the house while the battery charged on the tractor and the engine heater had a little more time to warm the cold engine.  I tried it in an hour or so and it still didn't want to go.  So back to the house and an early lunch.  After lunch it had warmed to 3 above 0.  Then the tractor finally started.  I guess the battery is just getting weak.

Then I fed hay for the next two hours.  I fed extra bales to everything because of the cold weather and also I fed hay for tomorrow.  The tractor probably won't start and we want to go to the Stock Show in Rapid City.  Thursday is sheep day at the fairgrounds and Red Angus day at the Civic Center.  Tammy is making a ground lamb spread for people to try during the sheep shearing contest.  Last year there were shearers from the surrounding states and Canada.  Some came from Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and New York.   It is good to see the many young shearers and some old guys that just want to compete to cross of their bucket list.  There were at least two young women entered last year.

I want to watch the Red Angus show and sale and visit with breeders and meet the new ones.  We used to show down there for around twenty years.  So it is fun to go and watch.

Winter time lull

This time of the year is normally not such a busy time.  We feed and water the livestock every day.  We have to make sure the water is thawed out and working.  It has been unusually cold and and windy interspersed with windy and warm.   Last week the temperature got up to 52 degrees here and the snow and ice were melting.  The creek was flooding and it was getting muddy.  By the next evening the wind was blowing 60 MPH and the temperature had dropped to 5 degrees.  With the wind chill it was quite a dramatic drop in temperature.

The creek is flooding because the ice has stopped the water from flowing through the culvert.  As you can see we have lost most of our snow with this last warm spell.  Where the water goes around the creek crossing and has made a waterfall where it goes back in the creek.

With the wind blowing like it has for this last month the weather service has said we are going to set a record for the windiest month on record..  The average wind speed was averaged at around 14.6 MPH.  The previous monthly record was set just last April at around 13.6 MPH.

The sheep bunched up really tight when the wind was blowing soo hard.  I had  to feed in the corral several times last week to keep the wind from blowing all the hay away.

Since Tammy and I are going to be calving heifers this year in the sheep barn we decided we needed a calving pen.  So we got a calving pen and set it up.  Now we have a month to wait for the arrival of the first calf.  Since we had lost a few cows in the storm we needed to keep our numbers up so we are calving way more heifers than usual.  So rather than have Ryan calve all these by himself we decided to do it over here.  He will have is own to calve at his place.