Moving Sheep

While Joy and I are off relaxing in Houston with our 1-yearold grandson, Jeffrey and Jackie are left maintaining the farm (thank you Jeffrey and Jackie).  Today they sent some photos of moving the sheep with guard dogs Hero and Heidi to the west bahia field. 

Getting Hay

The next day after barcoding the sheep, hay was ready to move.

While we have a hay baler and other haying equipment we used in the past, making enough hay for our needs now is problematic from a time and hayfield standpoint.  Eventually we will get back to it, but for now we are buying hay.  This is the third year we brought hay out of a hayfield just east of Picayune, 22 miles away from the house (a little less than 30 minutes drive).

For over the past month or two, it's been raining nearly every day.  Impossible hay production weather.  Finally there was a patch of hot, dry weather.   On Saturday, we got a call from Brian, he's cut hay and would start baling the next day.  We would need to get the bales out of the field before the rain started up again.  Quickly. 

Months ago Jeffrey bought a trailer frame to rebuild into a hay hauling trailer. 

After some welding, rebuilding the axles, mounting new lights, wiring, painting and cutting oak planks for the deck, it was ready to go.  Well ready enough to haul hay, with some more work to do later. 

With Jeffrey's truck and trailer and my new truck and old trailer we hauled 142 bales of hay back to the farm, last load in at 2:00 AM Monday morning. 

Monday afternoon, the last of the hay was in barns, under cover, with storms threatening rain all around us.

Barcode Sheep

Last weekend was busy for us, barcoding sheep on Saturday, hauling hay on Sunday. 

The ewes will begin lambing towards the end of August, to help identify them out in the pasture we identify them by spraying a barcode on them.

With four different colors, reading from front to back, there are 256 color combinations that can be painted on their backs (4 to the 4th power).  I use a Google spreadsheet to record sheep information, their tag number and their associated barcode.  RGPO for example is Red Green Purple Orange.  With the spreadsheet sorting function, the lists can be ordered alphanumerically by barcode color or tag number, so identifying a particular sheep in the field is much easier, especially for sheep that won't stay still enough to read their ear tag.  The spreadsheet can be accessed via the computer in the house, or via the smartphone when out in the field. Deworming, vaccination and weight information are also recorded in the spreadsheet. 

In addition to barcode application,  we gave the ewes their CD-T booster vaccination shot and dewormed those needing it.

Joy is recording information in the computer and telling Jackie the barcode to apply.  Jeffrey is checking the eye color of the sheep to determine if deworming is required. 

Hero and Heidi are doing well with the sheep, here they are early in the morning lounging with the sheep.