Cattle and Sheep

This week I have educated myself on livestock as never before.

Because we are entering the world of FFA sheep, we started the week off by tagging and weighing the precious little animal. The people that bred Brooke's lamb brought him to the fairgrounds. They had kindly sheered him. It looked like he was a patchwork quilt. Brooke informed me that she had named him Guzzin. Guzzin was pinned against a fence and some very nice people pierced his ears with some tags. They have a sensor in one of them that they can tell if you have tampered with it. I guess this is for people that try to substitute sheep if one of them is too heavy or perhaps dies? Anyway, Guzzin got his ears pierced and then he was weighed. All 77 pounds of him stood on the scale. Then Brooke led the little lamb to a stall and we waited for our livestock foster family, AKA my best friend and her husband. They drove in with their truck and unloaded all four of their lambs. After their tagging and weighing, Guzzin got in the back of their trailer and huddled up with his new buddies. We followed them all back to their farm and the large area where they have their sheep live. One by one they were dragged off the trailer and led into the pen. At one point they all began to run free. This is where we started chasing them. Think two ladies and three young girls trying to corner a pack of sheep. They run pretty fast. Then the two ladies got the giggles. I think you can see where this is going. Finally, the kids were able to grab some of their halter ropes and lead them over to the feeding area. Brooke is going to help feed the lambs and also will come over and work with her lambie. The kids showed her how to empty the water pans and also to put grain and hay in the feeder.

Fast forward a few days.

We have cattle grazing on our land a few weeks a year. This is really good for the area of our land which grows grass and weeds that we really can't mow. This year we had a bull, a horse and several cows. They don't belong to us but to the man that owns all the land around ours. He leases the land from us for a very small amount which basically helps us out on our taxes. We have a gate which we shut and wrap a chain around everytime we go through it. The gate keeps the cows on the land. Sometimes this gate is inconvenient. You have to stop get out of the car, open the gate, drive through, get out of the car, shut and secure the gate. I believe that it was Tuesday? and I had driven home to get lunch or something and the gate was open. I swiveled my head around and there they all were... down the dirt road feasting upon the newly bailed hay. They had moved from our pasture into forbidden paths. And it appeared that one of my kids aided and abetted them!!!!! I began to investigate the crime. I called all the kiddos. Of course everyone completely denies leaving the gate open. Although I did get Hailey to admit that she had seen all of the cows wandering down the road and wondered for a minute if they should be there. I placed several calls and when I returned home several hours later the guilty cattle were all back in our area. They looked like they were eyeing the gate though. Possible making a plan for their next get away.

It is fun to finally have some experience with livestock. I am a city girl through and through. There wasn't anything rural about my upbringing. When we came here we enjoyed the fair, the lifestyle and the association with friends that are very involved with agriculture. Still, I really resisted being one responsible for much other than a dog and cat... (that was pretty new to us too).

So we have taken the first steps to be lamb raisers. Maybe next year we will have enough experience to have them on our land in a shelter/pen area.