Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Lambs Weaned

We recently weaned all the lambs off their moms.  The lambs stayed up around the barns where we fed them a little grain and during the day let them out onto pastures of Daikon radish, ryegrass and oats.  There was an overnight storm and a coyote got in, killed and ate one of the lambs.  I put up an electric net fence to close down the area that Zeus has to guard and make it more difficult for coyote entry.  No problems since then (knock on wood with fingers crossed).

The moms went out to the Schommer pond area to eat hay and dry down their udders.  Heidi and Hero are with them as guardians.

Here is the 2020 lamb crop eating their morning ration of grain.  About 220 lambs.  Zeus is in the foreground. 
A couple of photos of the lambs on forage.

Some photos of Hero and Heidi with the moms eating hay in Schommer pond area. 

Friday, November 20, 2020

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Schommer Pond Area

We moved the Georgia ewes and ewe lambs (31 of them) to a new area today, the Schommer pond area.  This is on the eastern side of the oaktree field, an area that has not been developed very well yet.  I enclosed it with about a dozen net fence sections and electrified it.  Also made introductions between Hero, guarding these sheep and Apollo and Aurora who are nearby.  Here are some pictures:
On the trail:


We arrived:


Picture time with the guard dogs:

Jeffrey, Apollo, Jackie, Aurora and Hero. 
Apollo and Hero.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Moving Sheep

After grazing for a few hours on the radish and oats, Jackie and I move the ewes and lambs back to their overnighting field where they have hay and supplement tubs.  These are a few pictures of the move.  Heidi and Zeus help, sort of. 

Radish

The Daicon radish, also called the "tiller radish" because it makes a large, long root that opens up the soil, is also a very vigorous grower.  It is one of the cover crop forage plants we are experimenting with.   In the northwest blueberry field, after a summer crop of cowpeas, we planted a mixture of radish, oats and hairy vetch (a legume).  The radish came on strong and is starting to shade out the others, so we brought the sheep in to graze it down a bit. 
Here is Heidi and a closer look at the forage.
A closeup of the radish plant showing its large root coming up out of the ground.   These are actually good to eat.

Monday, November 9, 2020

Fall Planting

Today, I finished planting cool season forage for the sheep.  Today's and yesterday's planting used a new seed spreader that Jeffrey helped me setup on the Gator. 
Here, in the east bahia field, I am planting a mixture of Durana white clover a chicory.  The seed is very small and my seed drill would tend to get it too deep.  It wants to be near the surface no deeper than 1/4 inch.  First I dragged the chain harrow around with the tractor,  then spun out the seed using the Gator, making multiple passes from different directions to try for a uniform seed distribution.   Then dragged the harrow around again to help settle the seed into the soil.  

A closer look...
The sheep with lambs are in the middle field with Heidi and Zeus on Guard.
Sheep have eaten most of the summer forage and are on hay and supplement tubs while the cool season crops come in.

Thursday, October 1, 2020

Fall Lambing 2020

Lambing this fall, 2020, is mostly complete.  Here are a few lambs in the south field.  Some show unique coloration, not just all white, which makes it more interesting. 

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Hay for Winter

We are stocked up with hay again, ready for winter feeding as necessary.  We acquired these 216 bales from a farm 30 minutes away, just east of Picayune a little bit.  The hay barn is completely full, with a spot left for the trailer.  Although when I backed the trailer in, I found that I couldn't unhitch the trailer because there was no room against the hay to fold out the hand crank that puts the support feet down.  After moving the two hay bales on the front left up to the third row in front, I was able to crank down the support feet of the trailer and unhook it from the truck.











These are some pictures of the hay fields and of us loading and transporting the hay.  I drove my truck and trailer.  Jeffrey drove his truck and the hay cutter let us use his trailer to help speed up the removal; 10 bales per load.  Jackie drove their truck around the hay fields when Jeffrey was using a tractor to load the hay.   As hurricane Isaias was moving up along the east coast there were several hot, dry highs in the mid country that were giving us a nice long dry weather window for making and moving hay.  So, over the long weekend of August 8 and 9, we made multiple trips.  We heard the news that Mary was in labor with Oliver on August 9, while we were loading and unloading hay.


After loading several bales, they need to be pushed forward, tightened together before the last bale is placed on the back of the trailer.  The last two are strapped in place.  Don't want to lose one along the side of the road.

 










Here, Jeffrey is unloading hay from the borrowed trailer.











Before putting the bales in the barn, we used a probe to test their moisture content.  Most bales were in the 15 to mid 20's percent moisture, which is good.  Any that were 30 or higher were set aside and put in last.  Most of these were in the 30's, only one read up around 50.  The concern is as the hay bales cure, if there is too much moisture, they heat up and can catch fire, if they get hot enough and are packed in too tight.  So, these are packed in double rows with about a 1 foot space between each row.  That way there is at least one open face to the air.  They are also up on pallets.  With this ventilation and the low moisture content the stack should be good.  The few questionable ones were put in front where I could keep an eye on them with a temperature probe for several days. 

Friday, July 31, 2020

Summer Forage Sunflowers

This spring we planted iron/clay cowpeas, Laredo forage soybeans, Koto buckwheat, and Tifleaf 3 millet.  And in a couple of fields, for fun, we added in some Peredovik sunflowers. Overall, the cowpeas were the best forage performers with the buckwheat putting on a nice early display of white flowers. The soybeans grew, but did not do well compared to the cowpeas. The millet was kind of problematic, in some fields it germinated well and grew well, in others it did not seem to germinate very well and there were very few millet plants. I bought untreated millet seed and wonder if that was part of the problem somehow. The sunflowers were the showiest, especially in the the west blueberry field.

I added sunflowers to the mix in two fields: the Coast Electric field and the west blueberry field. Coast Electric field is a new area that we are just getting fenced in and it has very poor soil. In this field everything germinated and has grown minimally well. The sunflowers are flowering at about a foot and a half high.


















The growth in the west blueberry field has been phenomenal, with sunflowers flowering at heights of 4, 5 and 6 feet. For years the west blueberry field has been a lambing and sheep wintering area. Sheep being fed hay and grain, sheep camping out, stomping around and pooing everywhere. Except for all the sheep business, I never added any fertilizer or lime to the west blueberry field. In fact it was a rather weedy field with lots of smut grass throughout (as the name implies, a nasty and invasive grass the sheep don't eat) and I didn't mind applying herbicide to the whole field prior to planting. But, the soil in this field must be spectacular and I look at it as an example of what the soil can be like in many of the other fields on the farm, just given the right care. What follow are a series of pictures showing the sunflowers and other forage that grew in the west blueberry field.







I caught this tiger swallowtail butterfly, Papilio glaucus, flying from one sunflower to another.

Jackie caught this spicebush swallowtail butterfly, Papilio troilus, on a sunflower.  We see many of this butterflies on the sunflowers as well as the flowers in Joy's garden.




























There are a few lambs from the spring lambing with the Georgia rams.  We separated them into two groups (ewe lambs and ram lambs) and put them in their own section of cowpeas/sunflower forage.  They are not as voracious as the moms, that flock of 220 ewes strips all the leaves off a half acre of cowpeas 2 to 3-foot tall within a few hours.  The number of lambs is such that cowpeas have time to regrow.  However, the lambs like the sunflower leaves the best, I think, striping them off the stalk as high as they can reach.

A ram lamb in the cowpeas with sunflowers.



















Some of the ram lambs eating some supplemental grain. I feed them just a little to get them in the habit of coming up where I can check on them.





















The ewe lambs.