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.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, August 3, 2009
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.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
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.
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.
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