All Hot and Flushed

We're in another dry spell as rain (and petrol) goes but the pasture is doing better this time around. Everyone is healthy and filling out in time for breeding season approaching. The days are noticeably getting shorter -- and cooler, too. The zinnias and cosmos are setting seed and we are getting some late blueberries setting fruit.

Flicker's doeling is starting to get her cashmere in and it looks to be a lovely brown color. Unfortunately she loves to stick her head through the woven wire because, as you know, the grass is always greener on the other side. Her dam tried it twice but seems to have learned her lesson. The bucklings are strutting their stuff and contributing greatly to the Eau de Ranch. The grey buckling is nicely enhanced with peppered markings while the white buckling has a lovely pouf of exquisitely styled hair that amazingly always stays put.

Eve is wearing her black eyeliner and best pink lipstick in preparation for breeding season. Kayla and her little wether lamb, Valentino, are now with the rest of the flock and have adjusted nicely. Martina seems to have taken to him and seems to have an air of regality to her now that she is not on the bottom of the pecking order.

The Highland steer is doing quite nicely and seems to have weaned himself already. We gradually reduced the ratio of milk replacer to warm water and I guess he wasn't liking what the bottle bar was serving lately. He still nurses Lil Hot Shot for whatever he can get.

Bottles, Bucklings and Babies

It's been kind of interesting having the little bull calf wandering the yard alongside the dogs. He couldn't seem to find the teats on mom which were very low and pendulous so we began bottle feeding. He is beginning to eat his calf starter now and chew a bit of grass so once he starts really coming for the bottle we'll turn him out to pasture with the others. We'll bottle feed him for 2 full months and then wean during the 3rd month. Since he is being bottle fed and will lose fear of us, he'll be made into a steer soon.









The cashmere bucklings are putting on their fuzz quite nicely now. They are being separated for breeding. The grey buckling is in the front pasture with Flicker, the multi-colored doe. The white buckling will be bred to the 2 white does in the back paddock.













The sheep are also separated at this point as Kayla just had her first lamb. The little ram lamb is quite handsome. They are keeping company with Martina, a moorit ewe lamb purchased around Father's Day, in the back paddock. Andes and Eve are out in the front pasture.

Highland Happy Hour

Yesterday, we noticed that Hot Shot had sunk in around the base of her tail and would be calving soon. Last night the cows spent the evening down in the front field instead of in the woods as they usually do. No calf at 8 am this morning but by 9:30-10:00 a.m. there was a new bull calf in the field. Munro, the sire, seemed proud and protective of his new progeny. He will be made a steer.

How Refreshing

So finally, here are some pics of the Shetlands the same day after being shorn. Kayla is chocolate, Eve is white, and Andes is very light grey. Below are photos of them in full fleece. The shearer seemed very pleased with Kayla's fleece in particular.

Lil Hot Shot Is Not So Little

Well, it's official. Hot Shot is going to calve soon. Sunday morning while we were going down to the mailbox for the paper, I noticed that she had developed her udder. We figured she was pregnant due to sheer size and the fact that she had been in with the Bull, Munro, for a couple of months prior to our acquiring the fold at the end of October. Gestation is 9 months so she was bred sometime in mid to late September.

Merry Kait delivered a heifer calf around July last year so she should be bred by now, too and could deliver as soon as mid-July. We'll be watching her for udder development.

Oh, What a Morning

The shearer arrived at 8:30 this morning to take the wool off the sheep. After all was done and cleaned up, and one of the twins put down for a nap, I fed the goats and Flicker didn't come down.

Yesterday she didn't come down because she had her head stuck in the fence so after I extracted her I pulled all the goats into the front pasture for the day as we knew she was getting close to her date. After we had all the sheep caught for shearing last night we put the goats back in the woods again.

So Jeff checked on her today about 11 or so, and she had delivered a healthy baby girl. I went up and clamped the navel as it was long. Also gave the baby and mom some goat drench and mom some feed. Baby is up and wobbling around, nursing and getting cleaned off by mom. She is all black with a white top knot like her sire.

Udder Up

While visiting with the goats this evening, I was pleased to notice that Flicker, the white/black doe, had developed her udder seemingly all of a sudden. She is normally the most skittish but was wanting to be friendly this evening so we'll be starting to check her more often now and be more observant for signs of labor. Her likely breeding date was around 1/05/2008 or 1/27/2008 so at this point we're assuming she was bred around January 5th and would be due around June 3, 2008. Three more weeks.

Her sire, a 2003 VA State Fair Champion, is of similar mixed coloring but the sire of her kids is all black with a white toupe on his head and the sire's dam is all black. We are hoping Flicker gives us a nice buckling to breed to the 2 white does. If by chance she has twins, a boy and girl combo would be ideal. The farm that she came from carried a lot of black does with brown cashmere.

The 2 white does are twins from a different farm and had a black brown dam with a black maternal line. Their sire is white and has a white sire and a black with light brown dam. The twins' dam, sire, sire's sire, and sire's dam all placed as various champions at ECA shows from 2002-2006. Milly and Molly were both bred to a 2007 VA State Fair Champion that is white with silver grey streaks.

Almost as good as a box of chocolates.