More Shearing

My brother and I sheared 6 sheep yesterday and as you can see two of the sheep where very big. One was probably over two hundred and fifty pound.

The First Shearing

As some of you may know, I shear sheep kind of as a side job my dad has been shearing sheep since I have three. I had gone with him since than. Starting by trimming hooves when I was about 11 and shearing my first sheep when I was 14. The one time I got a chance to shear as many as I could in a day I did 32 which is far from what the real pros do. I can usually shear a sheep in about seven minutes. I did my first job of the year last as usual I was sore the day after even though it was just two sheep. .I hopefully will be shearing twice this coming week

It was a very busy week here at the farm. We have a new Lamancha buckling from great lines. We drove 4 hours today round trip to pick up three female heritage breed turkeys pictures to come as I get them.

Tis Chick Season

       My Americana hen's chicks have hatched Light Brahma/Americana and Delaware/Light Brahma. So far she has three but a couple more are pecking. There was some question as to whether the Americana cock we had fathered the chicks but they all have feathers on there legs, so I guess not.The Sumatra/Barred Rock chicks are growing very fast. I think most of them are probably purebred Sumatras. They are from a top show line. On a upsetting note something killed my female turkey last night so the search is on for another female heritage breed turkey

 Sumatra chick foraging

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Some Changes

     Well we have made some subtractions and additions to our farm. We sold four of our goats including two of our older ones: our buck Jasper and our first time freshener Clover. She was milking great out of one side but the other side was giving barely anything.
  We also sold our two mixed kids that were born this year, one of my Lionhead rabbits and a Light Brahma rooster. I picked up eight Sumatra and Sumatra cross chicks. I also got a Dominque cross rooster.
 Yesterday after a few months of searching I found a male Lionhead rabbit. So hopefully will have baby rabbits in a month or so.
 My Americana hen is also sitting on about 15 eggs that should hatch this weekend.

They have EARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Sugar, our registered Saanen doe, had twins a boy and a girl. They seem huge compared to our Lamancha cross kids. Yes, they are very cute but I still prefer the ones without ears. The buck is for sale if anyone is interested 50 dollars now seventy five as he gets older more if we are able to registered him. 

Duckies

The ducks I got a month ago are getting huge. They now have run of the yard and the pond. They are very spoiled and like to be fed out of your hand. We are pretty sure they are a pair. The goats stepped on ones leg and broke it, we taped it up so it couldn't use that leg and now you can hardly tell which leg it was.

New Barn

We are working on a new barn. It should be completed in the next week or so. It will probably be used as a milking and kidding barn mainly. As most of our goats stay outside all the time with little sheds in their pens. I can't wait until this is done. We also are in a process of trying to figure out what goats to keep and which to sell it looks like Jasper may be moving on in a attempt to get new blood in our herd.