More sheep coming next week! (was: need encouragement)

FarmerDenise

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:woot That is so exciting.
I didn't know wether to get goats or sheep. I ended up with goats, because that is what I found. I love my little doelings.
 

FarmGirl

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:weee

Can't wait to see pictures of your new charges and see how you make out with the milking. I was thinking of Shetlands too, there is a breeder close to where our acreage is but we are a few years away from moving there so I'm looking forward to learning with you...
 

freemotion

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Is that IN ADDITION to the four that you posted about contracting for? Or are these the two lambs in that contract?

Just trying to wrap my brain around going from 0 to 6 in such a short time. Still trying to wrap my brain around that concept here on my farmlet, too! :lol:
 

patandchickens

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freemotion said:
Is that IN ADDITION to the four that you posted about contracting for? Or are these the two lambs in that contract?
No no, these are those 2, the lady has finally sorted out which ones she's selling :)

Wow, my husband is unhappy enough about the "4 sheep" concept, he would KILL me if I tried to get six :p

(although I did sell 5 laying hens over the weekend, for a total of the amount I'm going to be paying for the shetland ram-lamb, which I have been careful to point out loudly and repeatedly to DH, as proof that I am not *just* accumulating further animals, LOL)

Pat
 

patandchickens

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Well I am now officially a sheep owner!

The flock, all both of it, is currently cooling its heels in a roofed dogrun next to the turkeys.

Apparently they have never been outside the barn (poor things!) and so the sheep lady suggests I keep them penned and make friends with them for some days or a week before letting them out onto pasture. She didn't think there was any concern about limiting their grazing time, but I think I will anyhow, I do not want to learn about Exploding Sheep any sooner than necessary.

The kids vetoed my suggestion to name them Sheepy and Floppy, and so we went with plan B which was the 6 yr old's suggestions of Peace and Hope.

Peace is very, uh, peaceful. I like her.

Hope escaped between car and pen, and required about 15 minutes of sheep rodeo and playing "Pat, the Human Border Collie" before I could herd her into the chicken building and I shut the doors on her and wrestled a loop of baling twine back around her middle so I could get her to the pen with her sister. Mainly the problem was that the baling twine (which the sheep lady had helpfully left tied around them in the crate in the car) came off her while I was moving Peace to the pen, so that I was left with a large lamb with no way of hanging onto it. But, as far as I can tell she is also the naturally-dingy-er of the two. It was no fun having $250 of lamb bombing around sometimes just 40 feet away from a busy commuters-and-gravel-trucks road. I am glad we have a lot of fencing in various places :p

I will post pics after my husband gets home -- I am apparently not self-sufficient enough to be able to figure out how to suck the pics off the camera onto the computer without DH doing it for me :p

They are just yer basic dirty white sheep, though, nothing exciting.

I like them :)

Pics later,

Pat
 

miss_thenorth

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Yay!!!!!

I will post pics after my husband gets home -- I am apparently not self-sufficient enough to be able to figure out how to suck the pics off the camera onto the computer without DH doing it for me
This is me too, although, now my dd knows how to do it, so pics can be uploaded lot quicker than if I had to wait for hubby. :D

Can't wait to see them!!
 

patandchickens

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OK, here ya go! Hope on left, Peace on right.

They are not the cleanest sheep in the world... I don't want to try doing anything with them, though, til they have decided that I am not a major threat to their lives.

66_sheep_002.jpg


66_sheep_004.jpg


Can you think of something they might consider a nummy treat from my hand? They will sniff my hand with grain in it, but not eat. Do sheep like apple slices, or bits of carrot? I need to Befriend Them With Food :p

Pat
 

miss_thenorth

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You can try to give them grain from your hand, or if you have corn--they LOVE that. Some of my sheep like apples and beets, other not so much. We started out by hand feeding the sheep their grain. If you sit in there wil them and offer you some, they will sniff you and then try to nibble on your clothes. It's soo cute.

Congrats, they are cuties!
 
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