Spring Worming

Every spring, we "worm" all of the brood ewes and rams at about the same time we shear all of the sheep. "Worming" is sheep lingo for drenching the sheep with medicine to remove internal parasites. As shown in the picture on the left, "worming" or "drenching" involves shooting a "wormer" (worming medicine) orally. There are several types of wormers. I use two types of wormers, a white wormer and a liver fluke wormer. My white wormer is Ivomec (active ingredient Ivermectin). This treats round and flat worms and poses to no danger to the health of pregnant ewes, unlike my liver fluke wormer. Valbazen, what I use for liver flukes, can pose a serious risk for pregnant ewes and should not be used in pregnancy but only for rams and unexposed ewes. Most of my brood ewes have lambed, so they will get Valbazen. The one ewe who hasn't lambed will recieve Ivomec. All of the weaned lambs will also get Valbazen. I will worm the sheep during shearing.

4-H Club Meeting

Today is a Sheep Club meeting. For the 4-H Sheep Club, we meet once a month to learn more about sheep. Today's meeting is in preparation for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. John and Kate Bostek will be presenting on wool grading. I am looking forward to hearing what they have to say. Hopefully, from what I learn, I will be able to grade my own wool more accurately.

Sheep Shearing

Today was sheep shearing for the Dorsets. We sheared the four brood ewes, varying in weight from 175-275 lbs. Connie, Rachel, Sister and Maddie cooperated well, despite their size. Still, they left us thoroughly exhausted. Below is a link to a video of a man shearing a Finnsheep--he's much better at it than I am, but it will give you an idea of how to shear sheep.

YouTube - Sheep shearing

YouTube - Sheep shearing

Spring Grazing

All of the sheep love spring. Spring signifies not only lambs and warmer tempature, but grass...the best grass of the year. We just let all of the brood ewes, minus their weaned lambs, out to pasture. They were thrilled. They jumped and ran like newborns and had the time of their lives.

The best part was seeing Agatha and Angus, the two youngest lambs, meet each other for the first time. Agatha led the way in jumping across the pasture field under Aggie and Hattie's watchful eyes.

Spring is so beautiful!

Preparing for Maryland...

On May 1st and 2nd, I will be attending the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in Howard County Fairgrounds, MD, between Frederick and Baltimore. This festival is the largest outdoor sheep festival gathering in the nation. I will be taking three sheep; a Scottie late spring ewe lamb (Lannah's lamb, Rianna), and two Dorset late spring ewe lambs (Connie's lambs, Britt and Nicole).

To prepare Rianna for show, I will rinse her wool with just water a few days before the show. I will completely soak her down and pick out the hay and forage that remains. The biggest challenge in preparing her will be training her to walk. Scottish Blackface sheep are renown for their "spirit", which can easily be translated to "stubborness". Training her is proving to be a challenge. She will be shown in the "long white wool" class, with Leicester sheep (long, curly wool), Windsadales (curly gray wool), and other Scotties. Her class will probably have somewhere around 10 lambs in it, a small class for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

To prepare Britt and Nicole, the first step will be halter-breaking them. This is much easier with the Dorsets. Despite their superior size, they are docile for the most part and will yield quickly. I will also shear their bellies. Because this is a wool show (compared to meat), I will not wash them or clip them. They will be shown in the Medium White Wool class with Dorsets, Columbias and Tunises.

Preparing for Maryland is the main thing that I am doing right now with the sheep.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! To start out, I'm going to talk about the sheep and what farm work looks like this kind of year. Thank you for visiting!