First Lambs of 2009 / 2010

This morning the first of our lambs was born for the coming season. The mother was one of our Hampshire/Dorset ewes that was born soon after we arrived on the farm in February 2008. This makes it the second generation we have witnessed being born here. The lamb was a boy, a single birth but a very healthy looking little fellow.

Appearing Soon: New Lambs!!

Over the last week we have been busy putting the finishing touches to the jugs and the lamb pen for the pending arrival of the new batch of lambs. If our records are correct the first ones will be born on Wednesday (16th December) - although this date is based on when the ram was turned in with the ewes so in all likelihood it will be a few days past that - also the ewes are first time mothers. Things have gone a lot smoother in preparation this time and we knew exactly what we needed to do and how best to change things to suit us.


The weather has been particularly brutal in the last few days. Temperatures got down to 10 F (-12 C) and all the water troughs froze and we had a couple of burst water pipes outside the barn - thankfully no problems with the new dairy piping. Considering that the weather has been called unusually cold by the locals I think that's a testament to the builders and our design! Unfortunately we did lose a ewe lamb from this years March/April crop. She was the smallest and just didn't have enough in her to overcome the chill. By all accounts we have been fortunate once again.


For those interested in a more comprehensive photo diary I am going to update the actual web site - Catesby Farms over the next few days so you can see the complete evolution of the milk barn.

Finishing Touches

Over the weekend the last few things needed to complete the dairy were done. We just need to go in there this week and give the place a really good clean.

The refrigerated tank arrived and we had a refrigeration technician disconnect it so we could move it, then once in place it was reconnected, serviced and tested. Everything works fine. Moving the tank was made easier (it weighed around 850lbs) when we realized it could be taken through the main door with barely a 1/16 of an inch to spare either side. Same thing with the freezer we had in the garage - it just made it through.

In the actual milking area the stanchions came back from the powder coaters looking fantastic and with a bit of concrete drilling everything was fairly easy to anchor to the floor and install. The double set of head gates will enable us to milk 8 sheep at a time with there being enough room to install a third unit to increase our capacity to 12 in the future as the flock grows. At present, we will be milking 7 groups of sheep. At 10 minutes a group, that should take us about 90 minutes per milking session taking into account prep and clean-up either side. Time will prove us right or wrong.

Over the last few weeks all of the ancillary items from sterile wash cloths to overalls and boots have been slowly arriving as well. We've assembled a small stainless steel trolley, shelves, a wash system, and now just have the pit to paint and the cleaning to do before we call on the Department of Agriculture to come out and give us an inspection. We should have the green light days before the first lambs are due for the next season so our timing is right on the money.

November, being the wettest month of the year usually has seen the lagoon fill fairly quickly. We pumped this year in January and August but will likely pump this week (on account of the pending clear skies - clear of further rain that is). Once emptied it will take the rest of winter and spring to fill before we empty it again in summer although we have to take into account the wash water from the dairy now so maybe we will be pumping again in spring. With the new flexible irripod hoses and irrigation pods this should be a much smoother operation and not involve the on-going moving of aluminimum pipes (which in winter when its freezing cold becomes a real task!). The flexibility allows us to irrigate at least 4 of our fields now without any issues whereas this year with the restriction of the aluminium pipes we could only irrigate 2. With a bit of magic we can probably do almost all of the property from this set-up if we needed.

The dogs of course are loving the weather. As for the inside of the house, it's also moving ahead really quickly. All the wet weather has meant we have had a lot more time inside to work on putting up trim and painting. It seems to be a neverending job, but the house is finally looking warm and comfortable, rather than how it originally looked - white, cold and sterile.

The Catesby Farms Dairy Almost Online

With just the milking stanchions left to install, the bulk milk tank to be moved into place and primed with Freon, and the freezer to be moved, the Catesby Farms Dairy is on the verge of getting the green light. Once the last three details are completed, sometime mid next week, we will arrange for the Oregon Department of Agriculture to come and inspect us. Assuming we pass, we will be a legitimate dairy operation!

Here are a couple of pictures of how the interior looks right now, post-renovation. Once the milk tank is installed and the freezer is moved I will put some more pictures up. The outside still needs a good coat of paint but that will wait until the warmer months next year.


In other news, we are on top of everything else that needs doing around the place, which we think is a first. The hay is slowly going out the door, a half dozen bales a week and both the Bobcat and the Hyster are now back in operation after breakdowns. Most of the ewes are now pregnant, with the first ones ready to lamb mid December. We shall be taking the ram out of the field in about 10 days and then selling the last remaining wethers.

All the work left to do around the place is small - cleaning the machinery shed is probably the largest job still to do. It feels good to be on top of things at last.

Time Goes By Quickly

It's been 2 months since I updated the blog, and a lot has happened in that time. Not only have we had visitors from Australia, but the milk barn is now 99% completed and the rains have finally arrived.

In the video above are our two main dogs Marlowe and Byron. Marlowe is the frisbee addict and Byron if you remember was the dog I took to Canada twice to have both his hips replaced. Hard to tell that a year ago he was a virtual cripple. Now he hares around the place like there was never anything wrong.

The nights are starting to get quite cold and the whole place feels as though its falling slowly into sleep mode.

Our first group of lambs for the new facility are due to be born early December. This will be a test group of ewes so that we can get all our automatic milking processes perfected before the bulk of the lambs arrive mid March. If all goes according to plan we will have between 60 and 70 ewes lambing.

The final clean-up before the winter sets in has been temporarily placed on hold while the hydraulic pump on the bobcat is repaired. Alas it isn't a simple, or cheap job and I'm really missing it at the moment as there is still manure to spread and feedlots to scrape.

The farm itself though is in the best shape its been in for many years. All of the fencing is now repaired or replaced where needed, we have spread new pasture grass in one of the paddocks and we are feeling a lot more comfortable with how everything should be as we head into our third winter here.

We recently had some visitors from Australia. Friends of the family that were passing through on a mammoth road trip across America. It seemed strange to hear Australian accents again.

Last weekend the wethers went to the scales. We had 21 this year. In a couple of weeks we will likely thin our ram numbers as well with another 5-6 off to the scales.

One thing we have been using (and so far the results look promising) is a footrot vaccine. Footrot is one of the more common problems with sheep in this part of the country. The bacteria that cause it live in the soil and its almost impossible to get rid of. It thrives in the cold and wet so lies dormant most of summer and then hits hard in Fall or Spring. We treated a couple of ewes with it recently but everyone else looks to be doing well so we are keeping fingers crossed that the vaccine works. Apparently the local vet did all the clinical and field tests in the region, but general reports nationally are mixed about its effectiveness. So far we seem to be going well.

Hopefully I can be more punctual with the next update.

Sheep Dog Trials

Over the weekend we attended a local Sheep Dog event held by a friend of ours. The Colliding Rivers event was this year being used as a warm-up event for the National Sheep dog Trials being held here in Oregon at Klamath Falls in late September.

Sheep dog trialing is a lot different in Oregon than it is in Arizona where Jen first started doing it. Back there you run your dogs in a small arena-like enclosure, but here in Oregon the courses are large, covering dozens of acres and include hills, valleys and of course a lot more obstacles. The comparison is like show jumping and cross-country with horses.

Over the last few days we have started bringing Hamish, our youngest dog up to the fields so he can have a run around with the sheep. Marlowe is already well versed in the intricacies of sheep handling and Byron has been back on the sheep for a few months now since he was given the all-clear after his double hip surgery. It's fascinating to watch them. You can see them thinking about what they are doing and just like people each has their own personality and of course methodology. Marlowe has drive and determination and his concentration is unequalled. Byron can balance the sheep perfectly, and Hamish seems to have the enthusiasm of Marlowe. We have high hopes for him as he is a relative of the dog that came 5th in the UK Nationals last year, and descended from a line that has won that title on more than one occasion.

We'll be heading down to Klamath Falls overnight when the Nationals begin and hopefully we'll pick up a few more pointers, but it will also be an opportunity to meet up with some of our Arizona friends who got us started in this all those years ago.

Rest in Peace, Bandit

This morning, before the sun had fully risen into a glorious clear blue sky, we buried Bandit under an apple tree, here on Catesby Farms. In all my life I have never known a dog to have had such a long and eventful life as she did. When the body was no longer willing, nobody told Bandit she had to stop, so she didn't. Just yesterday she was walking around the back yard barking at the other dogs, keeping them in line and telling them what she thought, as she always did.

She lived a long and happy 18 years and experienced more than most dogs ever will. Having lots of other dogs around kept her young at heart and gave her the determination to keep going. She lived out the final year or more of her life as a farm dog, as all good dogs should, and now will always be a part of the farm, keeping an eye on the sheep and watching over us.

Is it hot enough for you?

The thermometer climbed to 108F for the scond day in a row today. The Pacific Northwest is apparently experiencing a heatwave unlike anything its experienced ever before, not since records were first taken. That makes doing a lot of the work around the place almost unbearably difficult. It also means that we have changed to night time irrigation in an effort to reduce the amout of evaporation happening and thus get more value out of the process.

I feel sorry for the contractors working on the Milk Barn, although they are here at 6.30am and gone by 3.00pm just as the temperature hits 100. They have made excellent progress so far. the new floor slab has been poured and all of the drain plumbing is now in place. Next will be the framing inside and then they will be running the electrical and sink plumbing through the walls. Everything so far looks really good.

I've started to clean out the main loafing barn as well as the jugs, in preparation for the lambing at the end of the year. All the jugs are empty now and I'll need to put some lime down to clear up anything nasty. In a month or two I will lay some straw and everything there will be ready to go. I might be able to do some work on the other end of the barn after that and get it ready for the lambs as a small nursery.

UPDATE: Overnight (29th/30th July) we lost one of our ewes due to the heat. I have been reading that a lot of northwest farmers have lost livestock due to the oppressive heat in the last week. We consider ourselves fortunate that we have plenty of undercover areas and the sheep have access to plenty of fresh water. Unfortunately sometimes you have to take the bad with the good and that's certainly the case when an animal dies. RIP #1134.

Today is.....Shopping Day!

The Milk Barn is now underway at long last. We have had contrators gutting and rebuilding it from the inside out since last week. So far they have redesigned the milking pit, laid all the foundation concrete and taken all the old walls and ceiling materials away. We also have a 'soon to be door' opening between the actual milking area and the two front rooms.

What does all this mean? Well it means we have finally placed the order for all our milking stanchions and our sinks and an electric water blaster that runs hot/cold off the mains. My one day a week ranch hand is a welder by profession and we are going to get him to assemble them into a solid rig as well as add a couple of things to the milking stand we will find useful, such as a quick release for the stanchions that can be operated from within the pit. Once the building is done, we can ramset the milking platform into the new floor.

Our ram 'Mr. T' is in with the younger sheep we got from Vermont Shepherd, which are now over 18 months of age. This means that we will be setup and ready to milk in early December with a second group of ewes lambing in early March as per this year. We are still undecided if at first we will sell the milk in raw liquid form (requires a bulk tank and compressor to cool it for the milk barn) or whether we will freeze it and sell it frozen. the latter would certainly provide us with a broader market as we could sell it interstate to other cheesemakers.

The irrigation is working well. The Irripods are easy to install and reduce the labour of moving pipes as well as providing a flexibility of moving around that the aluminium pipes don't give. It takes me about 15 minutes in the mornings to take the ATV out and shift them. The grass in the front field as well as the field with the irripods is looking really good at the moment, whereas the surrounding properties are all brown and the grass is dormant, thanks to the summer highs of 95 degrees (33 centigrade) we have been experiencing over the last few weeks.

At the end of last week we discovered in one of our old sheds a kitten that had been abandoned by its mother. Poor little thing is only about 4 weeks old, so we have been feeding it and it now seems to be doing well. It's a cute little black ball of fur at the moment, possibly a Coon Cat that will be good to keep the mice down in the barns when it's older.

The Irrigation Jigsaw Puzzle

With the end of the haying for this year we are back into laying out the irrigation system. Last year, being our first experience, there were several issues that required major work, from buying a new 5HP pump to determining the best layout of pipes to irrigate maximum land. All that took time and unfortunately because of that and other tasks we were undertaking at the time we were unable to get a second hay cutting on any of our fields. This year things will be different.

Last year we had someone helping us hay, this year we had the same person, but next year we are planning on doing the whole thing ourselves. I bailed the front field using our old New Holland Hayliner, and after a few disasterous results we managed to get a good yield of 110 bales. The irrigation is now on that field so we will get another cutting come late August I am hoping and if the weather is good a third is not out of the question.

Beyond that we have 2 other fields that are being worked on. Moving the 5HP pump to the river side and connecting up the 6" mainline we will be able to irrigate both of them. The smaller will hopefully net us about 200 square bales in a second cutting. All of this is good news because our actual hay consumption in winter is small, meaning that all of the hay we have just cut can be sold - which amounts to about 120 round bales (that sell for about $20 each). As I mentioned because of the lack of rain this year during spring, this season will be a lean one for hay so we will keep ours undercover for a few months and anticipate the price going up.

In order to get a lot of the work done around the place - work that requires two men, I have found myself a farmhand for one day a week. He's been helping now for a couple of weeks and we've already made spectacular progress rebuilding a couple of our fences. I'm hoping that by winter we will have done most of the renovation work around the farm, from the fencing to reseeding a couple of the fields (they're full of foxtail, but that's another story!).

One important piece of news, our cow finally had her calf, a heifer, and she's very sweet. she's already bigger than the ewes so even at 2 weeks of age she's bossing them around.

In a weeks time we put our ram in with the lambs we got last year. They are now about 20 months of age so ready to start producing. This means that we will be lambing in November and then again next March/April. We have a dozen that will lamb at the end of the year assuming all goes well and this will be a good lead into a full milking schedule for next year. By April we will have ironed out all our issues and will be milking around 50 ewes.

We are waiting on the contractor to give us a start date on the renovation of the milk barn. after going through the new plans, the renovation plans and various permutations, we have a list of what needs doing and what needs buying. The hard work there will also be done by the time we lamb/milk in November.

Note: Someone requested more pictures, so I will attempt to add more in each post.

Summer is on its way, at last.

It's been an odd Spring. It has been a lot dryer than normal, and all of the rainfall figures for Douglas County from January to April are at about 2/3 of the average. What that translates to is a leaner hay season, which started a couple of weeks ago for most people on Memorial Day weekend. Ours started last week, earlier than last year but a sudden thunderstorm stopped everything in its tracks. The ground has dried at last and we're back in the swing of things.

The lambs are all doing very well, most are over the 50lb threshold now and the earliest ones are looking almost as big as last years yearlings. they're all on pasture now and have been for over a month, which has enabled us to determine our hay usage over the winter and so we know from the cut happening now how much we will need for the winter ahead. The rest can be sold, and if we can get a second cutting from at least 2 of the fields we should make a decent profit, at least enough to get the hay equipment we own working 100% so we can do our own hay next year and take all the profits.

With the lagoon in place we have an extra 40,000 gallons of 'water' that we can use for irrigation, with the added bonus that it has manure in it which is great for fertilizing the grass. Once the haying is done we will begin irrigating, and hopefully will get a second cut in late September.

The ewes were all shorn last week and we are about to turn them all into the neighbours fields for a couple of months once he has removed his hay. That will take the pressure off our pastures and allow us to do some serious fencing work, making some of the larger pastures smaller to aid in flock rotation.

Late last month we had some Arizona friends stay with us for just over a week. We had been feeling jaded because of the work we still have ahead of us but they picked us up and have given us a new perspective. The rebuild plans for the milk barn have halted, the quotes we received were a little higher than we had anticipated, even in the economic climate we're in, so we are moving ahead slower than we originally anticipated, but that is good in some degree because we are not feeling out of our depth, as we had felt now and then before. The milk barn has been gutted and over the summer months Jen and I will try and renovate as much as we can ourselves.

We have some new ideas we are looking into, thanks to our Arizona friends, including selling raw mutton from our culls as dog food. Looking at the prices around it should be more profitable than just sending them to slaughter.

At the moment we are handicapped by the fact our Bobcat isn't working. Once its back in one piece and the haying is done and the irrigation is running, I have to use the manure spreader to spread about 3-4 tons of solid manure across our 50 acres. That should be fun! Actually its not that hard a job, it just takes time, like everything.

We are also about to turn our young unproven ram in with about a dozen yearlings so we have some lambs in Autumn. these ewes will hopefully be the first small group that we milk on a regular basis. as I mentioned, moving slower is a lot more comfortable.

Urbanites Opting for Simpler Lifestyle

Over the last few days (thanks to a USA Today article) I have taken the time to notice that there seems to be a lot of movement of urbanites like ourselves back to the land. While most seem to have been forced as a result of the economic collapse that now seems to be happening pretty much right across the globe, this surely is a good thing. All of the blogs, articles and even Facebook pages that I have been going through are filled with people that despite some rude shocks and a general unpreparedness for their new lifestyle are actually happier, and more balanced people for having made the change.

As I have mentioned before I have urbanite friends in Canada who want nothing more than to be able to buy a couple of hundred acres, build themselves a green home, and raise livestock. They are like a lot of others I am reading about - those who at present are unable to move and so are turning their once dormant back yards into vegetable producing gardens. Even in the UK it seems this revolution is happening with companies reporting enormous increases in seed sales.

Will it last? That's certainly an interesting question. Once economic stability arrives, will these people return to their urban roots and take up where they left off? I don't think so personally. I think that over time the growing trend will be to ruralization rather than urbanization. With the availability of mass communication and the internet these days there is no general need for the average person to be forced into the concrete jungles. All of the people I am reading about have everything they need and are living a more satisfying existence on sustainable plots of land. I know it's not for all of you, you're more than happy in the urban sprawl, and that's just fine as well.

I'd like to show my support for those people who have shown the courage (whether through economic necessity or not) to return to the land and a more satisfying way of life and for anyone out there interested in looking into it, take a look at some of these links:

Self-Sufficiency and Homesteading
Homestead.org
Mother Earth News
The Simple Living Network

When the Catesby Farms website is eventually launched (and yes I know that's been coming for months now), I'd like to include a small section on sustainable living, based of course on our own experiences. Maybe it will give you a better insight into how we are doing this, and maybe, just maybe it might tempt you to look further into it yourself.

Construction Time Again

Things have been busy with engineers, contractors and friends all doing their part for the Milk Barn project in the last couple of weeks. We have just had all of the original milking stanchions for the 6x6 herringbone cut out and the room is now empty apart from the pit in the middle. We have had various quotes for everything from a complete knock-down and rebuild to a renovation and a refit.

So, in the next couple of weeks we hope to have workers on-site renovating the Milk Barn and turning it back into a milking facility once again. Once that is done we will definitely feel as though we are getting somewhere. We have been looking at various milking systems and are having DeLaval come down from Salem to talk to us in the next few days. I am also in the process of talking to potential buyers of our milk. Initially we will not be able to use all we produce in our first foray into actual raw milk cheesemaking and as the flock grows next year and into 2011 (we are now aiming for 150 ewes) we will have a large surplus of milk that we will need to market. For the time being we want to get comfortable with the milking process in conjunction with the animal husbandry. Jumping into everything at once is never a good idea. Our initial figure projections show that milking 50 ewes next year will turn us a small profit and that we should be able to increase the flock to 100 ewes and then 150.

We realized we were overly ambitious with our initial plans considering there was so much to learn with regard to sheep management, animal husbandry, milking and of course cheesemaking. The first two are an on-going thing and you are always learning something new, the last one is a rewarding process but in order to be successful at it you need to know the three steps before it, and so milking is next.

The lambs are doing extremely well and all are putting on weight and looking very healthy. The differences between the three breeds is now starting to become more evident in their little faces and soon we will be starting to wean them. In the coming weeks we have the haying to look forward to as well. The rain and the warm weather that has started to grace us has kicked the growth season off and it's hard to believe that we only have another 6 weeks before we're haying again. The warm weather will be a welcome break from the particularly wet few months we have just had and will give us the opportunity to finish the vegetable planting for this year.

Final Lamb Count

The final lamb for the season was born this afternoon (barring any unforseen circumstances). The final breakdown has been as follows:

29 Rams
17 Ewes

With 27 ewes giving birth, we lambed at 170% which is better than the 150% from last year. Unfortunately we lost 5 lambs, meaning our survival rate is 87% (slightly better than the average 85%). We had one set of triplets, 16 sets of twins (10 mixed, 5 all male and 1 all female) and 11 single births.

In all it was a fascinating experience yet again in which we learnt more than we could have hoped particularly assisting in several deliveries. We were slightly disappointed that the ram to ewe ratio was 2:1, but there are things we can try next season with regard to diet to hopefully alter that. We did get our 15 ewes which was what I wanted though.

Now we begin the task of deciding who we keep and who we cull. Unfortunately sentimentality only goes so far.

One of Life's Little Coincidences

We had 2 ewes lamb today. One was anticipated, the other was completely unexpected. The first, the anticipated one, delivered this morning fairly easily, the second, totally unexpectedly delivered this evening thanks to some handy work by the local vet (Dr. Barry Downie from Bailey Vet here in Roseburg). Being a yearling and with a lamb in the wrong position, it had got part way out and couldn't get any further. I thought it was dead having spent almost 30 minutes trying to pull it. It's head had swelled, its eyes were bulging and its tongue was swollen and protruding from the mouth. I thought I saw a couple of signs of life before the vet arrived, but even he at first thought it wasn't going to make it. Anyway, it did. It's shoulder had locked and that's why it wouldn't budge. It was a rather harrowing entrance to the world for a small lamb.

The coincidence is quite fascinating. Last year my daughters named a set of twins - one called Mint and the other Bambi - they were the first twins whose birth we experienced after we arrived here. In fact here is the first picture of them on the day they were born.

It was Mint and Bambi that lambed today, hours apart from each other, both giving birth to boys. Sometimes life throws real curve balls at you.

Sunny Days Are Here Again

I let the sheep and the lambs out into the far paddock today, having spent the day ensuring that all the little holes in the fenceline had been effectively repaired. I needed to install a gate betwen that field and the very back one (it only has wire fencing and not anti-sheep stuff so we can't let them graze there although I am looking to fence some of it off because the grass at the front is really good quality).

The little lamb rejected by his mother is now with the rest of the flock and as you can see from the picture he has mastered the art of self-feeding finally which means no late night or early morning feeds from me!

This week we finally begin the task of finding contractors to renovatethe milking barn and turn it into a cheesemaking facility. We'd like them to start around the beginning of next month so that everything is ready to go by May/June.

Ups and Downs

The Lacaune that lambed on Friday rejected her little boy pretty much straight away. Over the last day or so he had begun to go down hill so at midnight last night we were putting feeding tubes down his throat and giving him some milk to try and revive him. Poor little guy was cold and we were stoking the fire well into the wee small hours to keep the room nice and warm. This morning he is standing and has taken another feed by himself and the cold has now gone. He's with us now in the office and the dogs are all looking after him and being extremely well behaved. Good news.

On top of that good news we had our first set of twin girls born this morning to one of our East Friesians. One is very small but both are feeding and look strong and healthy.

Lambing 2009: Progress Report

As of this evening we have had 36 lambs born with only 2 that didn't make it. considering the mortality rate amongst sheep can be as high as 20%, our rate of under 6% is extremely good. We still have 11 ewes penned in the nursery field but we believe only 7 of them are pregnant. With our current lambing figures of 180% that means we will get another 12 lambs. One disappointment is that we have had a male:female ratio of almost 2:1 (23 males and 13 females), but I originally wanted 15 females to give us the right flock size goig into next year and with a dozen or so left to be born we should do that nicely.

We are also going to pick up another 6 Lacaune yearlings next Friday from the same place we got our others. They are downsizing and we got them for a really good price. Judging by the fact that 4 of the 6 we originally got have lambed so far, all had twins and all had a boy and a girl, they seem to be excellent sheep.

Once lambing is completed and we have picked up the new Lacaunes, I'll be able to determine the flock composition for the end of this year, but as I mentioned in an earlier post we are getting rid of all our wethers and all but one of our older ewes. Feeding the extra mouths isn't cost effective and more sheep eat through the pasture quicker.

A Local Promotional Interlude

As we take a breather for a few minutes with one of our ewes in labour (UPDATE: She had twins, although the first was an assisted birth - only one leg was forward - and the second was a rear presenation that we had to monitor - but all went fine), a New York Times article from this morning has prompted me to present a series of local links to give regular visitors a better idea of this wonderful little town called Roseburg.

First, the article A Perfect Pear by Stephen McCarthy, an excellent stroll down memory lane for a successful entrepreneur making spirits near Portland who grew up in Roseburg. The comments by visitors are particularly interesting.

Next is the Lookingglass Store, a building that has a wonderful history to it. The article was written by our next door neighbour.

For those of you interested in the local activities and sites, here are a series of links that show the area in its uniqueness.

City of Roseburg Site
Umpqua Valley Wine Tours
Oregon Wine Country Tours - Personalized tours of the Umpqua Valley Wine Region
Music on the Halfshell
Crater Lake
Umpqua National Forest
Winston Wildlife Safari Park
Douglas County Museum

Follow some of the links in the above web sites and you will get a great picture of what this part of the world has to offer, from amazing waterfalls and river rafting, to hunting, fishing, and the beauty of the great outdoors. Oregon is a lovely spot in the USA that many visitors miss. It boasts two of the five greenest cities in America (Portland [#1] and Eugene [#5]) and is now developing a wine industry (around Walla Walla and the South Umpqua regions) to rival Napa Valley in California.

As the original NYT article alluded to, there is great pride around Roseburg in the production, support, and availability of locally grown and made products. Most of the (what I call) pointless larger chain stores have not made it here thankfully and the local council seems to be quite serious about keeping them out. OK unemployment is high (over 12%) perhaps as a result of this, but people are friendly and many of those around have been here for more than a single generation.

I am constantly told that moving here, into the farming business, and living a healthy and partially sustainable lifestyle is becoming more and more a desirable future amongst city folk. I can completely understand and can only offer one piece of advice - if you really want it, do it!

The Fast and the Furious.

As anticipated we had to wait nearly 2 weeks before the first batch of lambs were born. As I mentioned in my previous post, we put the ram in with one ewe and a couple of wether lambs when he first arrived to get him used to his new surroundings. After the two week period we let him loose with the rest of the flock.

Our first lamb was born on February 9th, our next ones were born last Saturday, February 21st. This was a set of triplets to one of our favourite older Dorset ewes. Unfortunately one of the ram lambs from the triplets died that first night. Sunday and Monday things are now starting to snowball. Twins from an East Friesian Sunday (Male and Female), twins from another East Friesian Monday morning (2 males), and a single ewe from another East Friesian this afternoon (Monday).

For all the stories we have heard about East Friesian lambs being quite weak, these ones are showing remarkable hardiness and this afternoon's one was up and walking within a few minutes of birth.

UPDATE: 27th February
I added some pictures of the lambs that are now with the rest of the flock. The bottom image of the three above is a lamb we have called "Noisy" because he can be heard from the house. I had to deliver both him and his sister. On 25th their mother we believed gave birth to a ram. The lamb was by itself in the field and when we picked it up she was the only ewe to come running, so we led her into one of the jugs. Yesterday morning she was on her side in labour. Believing that it was 48 hours after the first lamb in all likelihood this was a still born finally making its way out (sheep can lamb 24 hours apart but 48 is we believe unheard of) I donned surgical gloves and began to help with the birth. to my amazement it opened its mouth so I realized it was alive so as the placenta membrane had burst and its nose was barely exposed I had to pull it.

It was a little girl and she was perfectly fine. 30 minutes later and mama goes into labour again, so I assisted in a second birth, this time a little boy. We are now unsure as to who the mother isof the original lamb we attributed to this ewe, but it is likely an East Friesian who lambed in the morning. we tried to see if she would nurse the little boy but she wasn't having it so we returned him to his 'foster' mother and her two newborns.

Lambing Season Underway

This morning, just after 8.00am we were presented with our first lamb of the season. The mother was one of the older ewes we had kept from the original 50 that were acquired when we bought the farm in 2007. The lamb is a ewe, which is of course what we hope they all will be, and she has the East Friesian characteristics from the delicate little hooves to the narrow pointed head. If we have another dozen or so exactly like her I will be extremely happy.

Our timing was off by six days (the first was due to be born on the 15th), but this ewe was the one we had penned up with our ram for two weeks prior to him joining the rest of the flock, so we expected at least one early one.

When we arrived last year we got here right in the throes of lambing, so it seemed as though, apart from a steep learning curve, the lambs didn't feel truly ours. This year it will be different, knowing we specifically bred the ewes with the East Friesian ram we acquired, for the specific purpose of building a milking flock. Well today seems as though the hard work has begun to pay off and it feels as though we have taken another giant step forward.

In honour of the first lamb's birth, we wanted regular visitors to the blog to suggest a name for her. Post your suggestions in the comments below or email me at dherber@catesbyfarms.com.

Highs and Lows

Yes today was a better day. It began with me doing a sheep autopsy. I won't go into all of the details in case some of you are a little squeemish but I needed to get samples of the liver and one of the lungs in order for the vet to do a biopsy. It wasn't a difficult job and it certainly gave me a better understanding of sheep physiology. The one sad factor was that I checked the uterus and discovered that she was carrying triplets, 2 rams and a ewe.

When I finally made it to the vet late in the afternoon he said that part of the reason she had gone down so quick was the fact she was carrying triplets. The body was already under some degree of stress from the pregnancy and the pneumonia that struck her just stressed her that bit more. It made me feel confident I know what I'm doing though that my original diagnosis was correct - pneumonia. the liver sample I took is being sent to a lab and we are having a complete trace element screen done. that will tell us if the sheep are deficient in anything from selenium to manganese and iron.

The best part of the day though was spent moving the flock around and giving them their latest set of vaccinations. This consisted of Covexin 8, a 7-way blackleg plus tetanus and forms the basis of the immunity that pregnant ewes pass on to their lambs.

Tomorrow thankfully, is another day

2009 hasn't begun well for us. There was some clean up from the flooding around the fields, and a couple of fence holes to repair, but yesterday morning we found a sheep collapsed in the breezeway to the fields and this morning while assembling the creep feeder for the lambs that are due soon, I saw another that was in trouble.

Yesterday's died this morning, of what I guess was pneumonia. Certainly the symptoms indicated that but only an autopsy would tell us for sure (and now that I have spoken to the local vet I am knowledgable enough to perform one). This afternoon the one from the morning died as well, making that 2 deaths in the space of a day. We have had a couple of ewes die previously, and of course last lambing season we had a couple of newborns that didn't make it (that's unfortunately just par for the course), but both of these were East Friesian, likely pregnant, and a big part of our future, so it's come as a real blow.

Sheep are fickle, and the reality of things is that when they get sick there is every likelihood that if its not diagnosed on the spot, it's going to result in a dead sheep. That has been something we have had to come to terms with, but each death still causes despair and frustration. Tomorrow we rotate them into a clean pasture for a few days until I can repair a couple of other fence holes, then we can let them into the very back field for a couple of weeks to allow the grass in the nursery area to grow, then we will bring them back to the nursery field around February 7th, a week before the first is due to lamb.

We made an executive decision this afternoon as well that if we get a good ram from our Dorset mothers this year we will use him to breed Dorset back into the East Friesian bloodline and provide a little more vigour and hardiness. East Friesian sheep are very 'fragile' compared to a lot of other sheep and almost everyone who raises them breeds some other type into them for the local conditions. You've probably read my rantings about this before.

So 2009 begins ominously, but living on a farm you accept such issues and move on, taking whatever precautions you can to prevent others coming down with the same problem, if of course you can.

The other bad news was that we have discovered our youngest border collie, Hamish also has hip dysplasia. Nowhere near as bad as Byron had it, but it is something that may need surgery down the line.

Tomorrow thankfully, is another day.