Getting better before we get bigger

I just gave a talk at the Ontario Sheep Marketing Agency with the 10 lessons learned as a beginning shepherd. One of the lessons was to get better before we get bigger .... and we better practice what we preach.

Bob just did a summary of the feed costs for the lambs. Despite higher grain costs we have been able to cut our grain costs per lamb by $10 and by keeping the lambs on pasture for a month longer than last year we were able to cut our hay costs by a significant amount as well ($11 per lamb if we sold the hay on the open market). That was all accomplished by improving the quality of our pasture and our pasture rotation. Those cost savings are huge in one year for an operation as small as ours. What was also good is we were able to do this without losing anything in our average daily gain.

We still have room for improvement but sure good to see some progress in efficiency.

TTFN,
Laurie

Tunis wins again

It is hard to believe that the summer is gone, fall is quickly passing and we are heading into winter. Yikes, I haven't even stacked my wood yet.

The first of our lambs has been shipped and we have two more batches to go at the beginning of November and December respectively.

Unfortunately the formal lamb tasting that we had scheduled for October 23rd had to be cancelled because we could not find a chef that was able or willing to take it on. So we hosted a smaller lamb tasting here at the farm: 16 people; and three breeds of lamb. Well the results were interesting. Our Tunis took last place for smell, not sure about the reason for that because it overwhelmingly took first place for both taste and texture. There is so much correlation between aroma and taste I am surprised that they disconnected. While I certainly would not turn up my nose at any of the lamb cooked up yesterday, I am glad that we have chosen to raise Tunis and so do our clients.

I am heading to Guelph at the end of the week and making a presentation at the Ontario Sheep Marketing Agency Annual General Meeting. It should be interested trying to make something new for long time shepherds with tons more experience than me.

TTFN,
Laurie

Yoda grows up

We would like to introduce Yoda. He is a North Country Cheviot/Hampshire cross ram that was born on this farm May 15th, 2011. Yoda was one of a set of twins along with his sister "Little Girl" and is the son of Winston, our purebred Hampshire ram and Rough, our purebred North Country Cheviot. (btw - this shot is courtesy of Sandra Croft)

Yoda was a last ditch effort to save some of Winston's genetics. Winston had a respiratory problem last winter that was really resistant to treatment and despite all our efforts we lost him in the middle of January. Necropsy results showed that he had a massive lung abcess that was resistant to all the antibiotic treatment because it effectively was sealed off. Fortunately it was not communicable but unfortunately it occurred right at breeding season. Winston was able to breed one ewe before he died, Rough. We despirately waited to see what she would have and thankfully she had a stunning ram lamb who weighed 16 lbs at birth.

Rough and her two daughters have routinely produced wonderful lambs that grow rapidly and dress out well. The stats from the mother's side and superb stats from the sire's side were enough for us to decide to keep Yoda as a terminal sire replacement... at least for a few years.

Yoda has continued to thrive, tipping the scale at 70 lbs at 50 days of age with an average daily gain of over a pound a day. Gotta love those genetics.

Why Yoda...first it is a 'Y' year for registrations of purebreds. No Yoda is not purebred but we use the same numbering for all our flock regardless if they are pure or not; second, with those ears could it be anything other than Yoda.

Keep posted in the future for Yoda babies... probably not next year but the year following.

TTFN,
Laurie

New Hawks at Hawk Hill

When we first moved to this farm we took some time to decide on at name for the farm. However several walks to the back of the farm gave us the obvious name for the farm.

First we live on a hill and in this area there are not too many of them. From the very top of our hill we can see the hills of Quebec to the north and those of New York to the south. We really are wedged into that top eastern corner of Ontario.

Second, there was at least one pair of red tailed hawks nesting on our property; one at the top of the hill and one in the woodlot partway down to the back. Over the years those birds have moved on but we have had marsh hawks, sharp shinned hawks and others for the summer.

This year we saw a Kestrel for the first time in years... and she has taken up residence at the end of our barn, nesting in a pocket between the ceiling of the stable and the floor of the hay loft. We have 4 very determined chicks staring at us out of the hole between the boards.

We used to have starlings nesting in the same area but I think they became "Take out".

We have deer in the backyard, turkeys in the pasture and the occasional skunk chowing down on the cat food in the garage.

Check out the babes and their next door neighbours, a nest crammed with barn swallows.

As an aside we just took our 50 day weights on our lambs. They ranged from 32 lbs for a ewe lamb in a set of triplets to a 70 lb ram lamb (one of a set of twins). Our daily average gain is 0.83 lbs.

TTFN,

Laurie

Moms and Babes are out on pasture

Summer finally appears to be here though it seems like just a short time ago I was bundled in my winter gear. OK so it was just a short time ago I was bundled in my winter gear. There were a few nights in the barn during lambing when I had a few layers on to keep warm.

Our ewes had their lambs between May 6th and May 23rd. We have 24 healthy lambs who are growing like weeds. Lesson learned this year; don't feed the ewes as much protein before lambing. Some of our lambs were huge... like 14 lb twins and a 17 lb single. All arrived safely save one but I spent much more time with my arm up the back end of a ewe than I would like either for my sake and for the sake of the ewes.

We had our first set of triplets this year and while the mom is handling them well, I am just as happy with a set of healthy twins. I am not interested in sheep that produce litters since I figure that bottle feeding just about kills my profit on a lamb, plus it is hard not to get attached to the little lambs if you are hand feeding them three to four times a day.

We are bottle feeding a single ewe lamb.... Little Girl. She is still with her mom but because of past problems with mastitis, the ewe does not produce enough milk for the two lambs. She knows her name and will come running out of the flock for her bottle.

We are heading into haying season and somewhere in between I need to plant my veggy garden. WHAT HAPPENED TO SPRING?

TTFN
Laurie

Scent of a ....ram

Well the robins and red wing blackbirds are here, the geese are overhead and the sap is getting close to the end (8 litres of syrup and counting). It was time for the sheep to get naked. Our shearer was here on Monday and 2 huge bags later everyone is shorn. It is amazing what is hidden under those fleeces. Our mature ram was half the size I thought he was and our junior ram needs a few pounds.

The sheep will be heading back outside for another couple of weeks and then coming in for lambing. It is hard to imagine how quickly the time has passed. We bred 15 ewes last fall so I am hoping all of them caught. Most are very obviously pregnant but some of them that were bred at the end of the season are not so obviously pregnant.

A couple of days after shearing our mature ram came up lame in his back right foot. This is one case where I really had to dig deep for information. We do not and never have had foot rot on the farm... thank goodness. His hooves looked good, maybe a touch long so I trimmed him but it looked like the scent gland in between the cloves of his hoof was plugged. I scrubbed out his feet, trimmed them and cleaned out what appeared to be a blockage in the scent gland and 24 hours later he seems to be fine. NONE of the sheep vet manuals mention the scent gland. It was just a fluke that I found out that they exist and if they plug you will end up with and " unexplained" lameness. Fortunately I knew about the scent gland a couple of years ago and knew what to do.

We have a few lambing jugs to build. And so it begins.

TTFN

Laurie

The Sap is running

Ever since we have moved to Hawk Hill Farm ...getting to be 14 years now... I have wanted to make maple syrup. We have several large maples around the house so it seemed an obvious thing to try. This year we were in the hardware store and supplies were on sale. Bob suggested maybe next year but he turned his back and I bought enough to set up three buckets. Well that got us started and we now have a grand total of 6 collection buckets and are boiling down sap. After less than a week we have 2 and a bit litres of amber syrup made and the sap is running really well. We just want to make enough for ourselves so about 5 litres in all will be more than enough. Because we can collect the sap on the way back from the barn, it is a very painless way to make syrup. And we are doing a big " no no" in everyone's opinion. We are boiling it off on the woodstove in the house but in our defense it will be this year only.

We have a refractometer that we use for testing the brix (sugar) level of grasses for making hay. We are using this to test the brix level of both the sap and the syrup as it is being boiled off. Surprisingly the sap from one sugar maple is testing at about 6°Brix coming out of the tree compared to the normal 2°brix. That makes it a whole lot better for boiling off since we have about a 20 to 1 ratio of sap to syrup rather than the typical 40 to 1 ratio. The other two trees are testing at about 3° brix. We are partially freezing the sap to concentrate the sugars before we start boiling so the maximum ratio we are dealing with is 20 litres sap to 1 litre syrup. We remove the frozen (for the most part) water from the container and the remaining sap has a higher concentration of sugars than before freezing. It is the same principle that works for production of ice wine. It saves us a lot of time and fuel for boiling off the sap.

With the weather forecast for this week ie cold nights and bright sunny days we should be finished making our syrup for this year by the end of the week. Dream number 534 accomplished.

TTFN,
Laurie