It's that time of year!

There have been no new additions. The tiny lamb has the looks of a premature lamb (body size and head shape), has muscle spasms, and cannot stand on its own. There is not much we can do for it.

So far 69 ewes have lambed out of the 75 turned out with the rams. We did not breed 8 of our ewes because we required their services for something else:
Grant (1 year old) in training

Two new sets of twins this afternoon. One set is doing well; in the other set there was a stillborn underdeveloped lamb and a tiny lamb that is not vigours enough to hold its head up.

8 sets of triplets
40 sets of twins
20 singles
10 died at birth or within a week
1 ewe and her twins died due to birthing issues

There has been no additions to our lamb crop lately. There are a few remaining first time moms that look like they are carrying; there are only about 15 ewes left that have not lambed and were out with the rams last fall. Based upon when we pulled the rams out last fall we could have lambs up through May.

This weekend I installed the electric fence energizer for the new fence (partially paid for by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation); we have been waiting for Sam and the sheep to learn about the new fence.

There is now a forest of flags in the tree/shrub planting area where holes will be dug (some by hand some using an auger). The planting will occur in early April: Tree Planting - Catoctin Creek Watershed (MD).

aaww what a cutie

Here is the stunning single that was born yesterday.

Our nutrient management plan is based upon the number of animal units (i.e. Weight of sheep) we keep and how we plan on managing the manure they produce which is based upon an amount if manure per animal unit (number determined by ag dept). Our plan is for self spread (sheep fertilizing the field) and incidental manure from the barn to be used on our gardens.

This year we made a change on how we are feeding the sheep over the winter. When the weather has permitted we have spread flakes of the square bales on different locations in our fields instead of feeding everything in the barn. This has greatly reduced our incidental manure in the barn.

What I was talking about was the likelihood what the state will allow farmers to do with the manure will change.

Mark - will your rules change due to the number of sheep you have? One of the things that helped my quest to clean up the little polluted stream was one farmer had grown enough to progress from a "large dairy farm" (for about a decade, he always had about 10 cows less than the 800-cow threshold (wink!)) to a CAFO; and now is bound by stricter rules regarding manure disposal, etc.

But Michigan has some dumb (IMO) rules: the one that naturally makes me crazy is that even though our Dep't of Enviro Quality "strongly suggests" that farmers leave a 35' natural-growth berm between planted fields and a waterway/drain; in truth, if a farmer wants to plant right to the lip of a creek/drain - he can. Granted, planting is a minor (erosion) problem; but when the manure spreader comes out - guess what ends up in the water, simply because it's too close?

It is a lot like the problem of trash pollution; people don't think their little bit tossed out of the car will amount to much. The problem is how many people there are tossing just a little bit.

We have an old silage pit on our farm that we are not using; but we will be keeping it just in case our incidental manure that collects in the barn (not an issue with the current rules) eventually becomes an issue under new rules. The silage pit could then be repurposed into a manure pit.

BCSnob wrote:


Home owner associations are starting to complain about proposed rules to limit fertilizer and herbicide use even though they are probably all for making ag cut back.

But of course ;-) After all, dog poo from a thousand lawns washing into the water never creates a problem, either.....LOL!

I've already gotten on my soapbox, and preached to the residents along my creek/Ag Drain that if they allowed their lawn clippings or leaves to blow into the channel they live along, not to mention using fertilizers and weed killers - that they are guilty of creating a problem, too. But it's SOOOO much easier to point to a 40,000 gallon tanker spreader and declare "THAT is the problem!"

On other news....

My wife was picking up a load of grain for our sheep and was told that a dead deer was found by her pond likely killed by a bear. They are around MD but their population seems to be moving closer to civilization. Sam should still be able to make our sheep less appealing to take simply due to his presence.