Beekissed

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Got sheep again, so thought I'd start a thread for sheep...we don't have many on here and none that are new.

I got a few Katahdin ewes, one 7 yrs and the other 3 yrs. Will be getting a ram lamb from Farmfresh, which a good friend will be transporting for me. He will arrive mid August and I can't wait to have some of her stock here in WV!

Still working on the sheep shelters and pens, as well as fencing for paddocks. This weekend we transported some HUGE free pallets from a sheet metal place, to use for some of the paddock fencing.

Here's a pic of a few of those....they are all 10-12 ft. long and 4-5 ft wide with 4x4 or 3x3 bones and 1/2 to 1 in. "skin" boards. Read HEAVY and bulky. Had to rent two trailers from Uhaul to transport them and made 3 trips with two trailers, so got 6 lg stacks of pallets plus a tiny stack I had tried to haul in my 4x8 utility trailer...prayed all the way home with those in a toad strangler rain.

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...and the sheep, Shine and Rose. Shine is the dominant sheep and quite wild and bossy. Rose is slowly getting more tame and will even let me brush her now while she's eating.
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These were bargain basement sheep, so not as large as I would have liked nor with the greatest of conformation, but they are the sheep God brought to me and so I thank Him for them! They are starting to grow on me, as sheep tend to do...lots of intelligence and a truckload of personality wrapped up on sheepskin.

Will be building on their sheep shed today and also outfitting a couple of stanchions, as I intend to milk these ewes. They won't yield much, but that's all I need to make a little cheese.

Right now I have a temporary hoop shelter and also am utilizing a spare chicken pen for two different shelters and pens that are divided by a pallet fence. It ain't pretty but it will do until my son and I can do a pole sheep barn next spring of a more permanent nature.

Sheep!! My most favorite of all livestock....I praise God for His provision for and of the sheep. :celebrate :weee
 
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wyoDreamer

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Yay for your sheep! They are pretty.
And that free pallet/wood for fencing, that is some nice stuff to have on hand.
 

Mini Horses

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Love your girls! Congrats on having some back in your life again.

B -- you know God didn't make everything perfect but, everything had a purpose. So these ladies will provide lambs for meat, milk for drinking, cheese, butter, etc. Really -- what else could you want?

My goats have been good to me. They live with purpose and are personality plus. I do not dwell on their tiny imperfections but, improve with next generations. Their milk is lovely, welcome and so nutritious. I praise God for them!! Just as you do your sheep. :hugs Everyone, everything needs a home & love.
 

Beekissed

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Love your girls! Congrats on having some back in your life again.

B -- you know God didn't make everything perfect but, everything had a purpose. So these ladies will provide lambs for meat, milk for drinking, cheese, butter, etc. Really -- what else could you want?

My goats have been good to me. They live with purpose and are personality plus. I do not dwell on their tiny imperfections but, improve with next generations. Their milk is lovely, welcome and so nutritious. I praise God for them!! Just as you do your sheep. :hugs Everyone, everything needs a home & love.

Amen to all of that!!! At first I was a little disappointed, as I had wanted Kats that looked like my last one, very fat and of great confirmation. But, then I realized what you have said here....every one of us has a purpose and God directs our paths, both mine and the sheep. They came here for a reason and I'm going to have fun discovering what that reason is. I wasn't even prepared to get sheep but God had other plans...and His plans are always, always better than my own, so I'm for it now. :woot

My little grandgirls already love them, especially Aliza...and the sheep reacted to her like they've always known her. She has a way with animals, that one. I figure I'll have a very hard time selling and butchering lambs with those little girls coming and going here.
 

wyoDreamer

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Make sure to name them lambs after your favorite supper dishes, lol.

Yah, that don't work. A friend bought 2 bucket calves and named them Roast Beef and Sir Loin. Just so his city-girl wife would NOT forget that they were for the freezer. No luck, by the time they went to the butcher, she cried for 2 days; he had to sell both of them - we bought a 1/2 from him; AND he had to buy a steer that someone else had raised for their freezer. He raised his Wisconsin style - on good, managed grassy pasture and a little grain. What he got in his freezer ate Colorado native grass for graze - and no grain at all. Pretty strong tasting beef with not much fat.
 

Beekissed

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Make sure to name them lambs after your favorite supper dishes, lol.

Yah, that don't work. A friend bought 2 bucket calves and named them Roast Beef and Sir Loin. Just so his city-girl wife would NOT forget that they were for the freezer. No luck, by the time they went to the butcher, she cried for 2 days; he had to sell both of them - we bought a 1/2 from him; AND he had to buy a steer that someone else had raised for their freezer. He raised his Wisconsin style - on good, managed grassy pasture and a little grain. What he got in his freezer ate Colorado native grass for graze - and no grain at all. Pretty strong tasting beef with not much fat.

Yeah...I can't say that I like grass fed beef all that much unless it's finished a bit on grain. My sister gave us some of her grass fed beef and even the dogs wouldn't eat it! And they would eat anything. Tasted like nothing, tough as old shoe leather, no fat to be found.

Around here it's raised on grass, finished on grain and it's the best meat you'll put in your mouth besides deer tenderloin.
 

wyoDreamer

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We bought a cross-bow so I can go bow hunting for deer this fall, I am so excited. We didn't think my 30+ year old compound bow was really safe anymore.
 

Beekissed

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We bought a cross-bow so I can go bow hunting for deer this fall, I am so excited. We didn't think my 30+ year old compound bow was really safe anymore.

I was going to try to go bowhunting this fall, but things snowballed around here and I've not even got a bow yet that I can pull back or practice with, so it could be next year before I can do that. Meanwhile, the boys will be bowhunting.

If they fail on any given year to get one(our population here is mighty thin...too, too many hunters in this neighborhood) , I should have a nice, fat lamb to butcher.
 

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Here -- deer are PLENTIFUL!!! Well fed, too. There are fields and fields of corn, peanuts, soybeans, cotton and hay all around. The farmer with the alfalfa fields joke that he "planted it for the deer". Well, there's 12-15 in there each night. They graze & go back into the woods.

Hunting is good in this area. :idunno
 

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