Weaning Time

Rikki was the first in line for weaning.  She was 10 weeks old and the milk bag was empty.  Her parents were darn tired of remembering to bring out the bottle every 8 hours.  Of course Rikki wasn't too keen on the idea, even though her belly looked plenty full just from the grass, and at times she just couldn't finish that big bottle of milk.  How much can you cram into a little sheep belly?  The thought of all that grass topped with a little milk, yuck!  So Rikki was the first lamb of the season to go vegan.  She still gives us the complete body search when she sees us, just to make sure we aren't hiding a bottle of milk in there somewhere.
     The other lambs had there mommies taken away at a little over 11 weeks of age.  The moms seemed ready, some looked like a bag of bones, the babes were sucking the life right out of them.  So last week we moved the moms into the lower paddocks and put in the earplugs.  Fortunately the weather was a bit cooler, less stress on the babies and more likely that the neighbors have their windows closed.  Oh and there was yelling.  We did get one neighbor calling about whether or not we had purchased a special noise permit from the county.  No, but they were just kidding, thank god.  All our neighbors are saints in that way. 
     So now everyone looks pretty settled.  The moms are quiet and drying up.  The babes are happy with the special foods they are getting and having the run of the barn.  All is quiet on McTavish Farm, except for the sound of the grass growing!

Little Kiki, a young ewe lady now!

Felting Fun

Yesterday I decided I needed to give myself a bit of a break and just "play". It was a holiday after all. I had been planning for sometime to try to felt a 3-d project and picked a vest as that seemed doable. About 3 years ago we had a yearling that got sick and then just never got her health back to snuff; a failure to thrive. We ended up having to put her down; a sad decision, but the right one. Sometime before we did the deed I had sheared her. As she had been sick and I did not want her to get cold, I did not shear her in February with the rest of the gang but waited until later that spring when she had begun to shed it. By that time is was well matted and I was able to cut it off her in one piece, almost like a pelt. I held onto this partially felted piece as it was lovely with lots of luster and softness, and I had memories of her.  My aspirations were to actually do something with this fiber.

Well yesterday I actually had the energy to act on what had been fermenting in the back of my brain all that time. I had been thinking about using Mandi's fleece to incorporate it into a felted vest. I consulted my felting books and came up with a plan to do the seams in one piece rather than do a flat piece and sew it together later. I had some very fine, soft Shetland wool, fawn color, from a ram we had (he had also since died, really, most of our sheep are healthy!). To save time I ran some of it through my picker and a bit through the carder. I had also died some of it a orange red. To add a bit of contrast I carded up a bit of very dark brown fleece as well. So in total I had 3 oz of fawn from the picker, 3 oz of fawn in carded batts, 1 oz of fawn overdyed red/orange, .3 oz black and 10 oz of Mandi's partially felted fleece.

Red and fawn fiber laid out, the carded batt not yet added.

I laid out a sheet of plastic on my fiber room floor then a big old white sheet. I drew out a rectangle measuring 3 ft by 6 ft to allow for shrinkage. I put down layers of the fiber starting with the red, then fawn, then some tufts of black, then cut up the Mandi fleece in chunks and laid it out as evenly as I could.

Close up of all the layers ready to be felted together.

Working on the side seams

I put some screening over it and wet it down with soapy water. Then I put on some rockin music and danced around on it for awhile, leaving the sides dry and undisturbed. I rolled it around my big PVC pipe and rocked it back and forth on the countertop. When it was holding together enough I unrolled it and "glued" together the seams. I used some sheeting between the layers and feathered the sides together. Then wrapped it more around the tube for more rolling.

When it was held together fairly well, but still quite large, I unrolled it and cut the front opening, neck and arm openings. At that point I moved upstairs to the bathtub. I used some bubble wrap and my hands, more hot water and soap and rubbed it all over to firm it up. At that point I began to realize it was very close in time to our proposed dinner date with our neighbors! Not wanting to leave it unfinished, I bit my lip and threw it in our front loading washing machine.

As we were getting ready to go out the door the wash was finished and I pulled it out. It looked a bit like a child's size but I pinned down hubby and made him put it on so we could stretch the begeezes out of it. And it worked! Now I have my new vest I'll name "Wild Thing". My sheep won't recognize me!

New felted vest, just needs some sort of button closure.

More Lamb Pics

Rahab and her girl Roslyn

Scarlet and her ewe lamb

Katie's kids enjoying a fleeing bit of sunshine

3 black lambs playing in the mud!

Kiki and Zora, the 2 girls out of a triplet set.  Rudy, their look alike brother is playing in the mud!

Lambing Completed

Hurray!  We have finished and can now rest through the night, well except for the feeding of little Rikki  (but she is so cute it's hardly a bother).   We ended the season with 10 ewe lambs and 6 ram lambs (compared to last year where we had 4 ewe lambs and 11 ram lambs).  All are healthy and bouncing off the walls.  We only had to assist with one birthing.  That was with Aurora who had triplets and unfortunately one of the lambs had died and was trying to be delivered shoulder first.  Lambs generally do assist in their own birth but when they are dead that makes it more difficult.  Tom and I were pleased to be able to right the situation and get out the other two quickly, no vet calls (yes!).  She had a girl and a boy.   All are doing well. 

This is Aurora's boy "Nomad"

A nice feature of this lambing is that we did not have any middle of the night issues.  All lambed at reasonable hours.  The early morning ones, around 4 am, did it all by themselves and had babies fed by the time we made our barn check at 6 am.   That included Strudel who had triplets! 

Strudel with her "Kiki" and "Zora".  Her ram lamb is hidden behind her, sleeping.

Tom working on "lamb socialization"

Little "Rikki" not sure if she likes it here in the barn, the house is better.



Well I guess it's ok, if I can sleep in the hay.



Spoiled Sheep

So little Rikki now has a new, doting mother.  That would me none other than my mother.  It is the grandchild she will never have.  Rikki now wears diapers and is tromping around her house.  Mom's cats think she has lost her mind.  Rikki is doing well with the bottle and traveling in the car in a cat bed.  Yes a very spoiled little sheep.  My only stipulation is that she is brought back to the farm on a daily basis and given supervised playtime with the other lambs in the barn (sin diapers).  I do not want her to forget she is a sheep!

Meet Rikki

So Miss Rory had her 4 lambs but decided this one cried too much so guess who gets to take care of her.  She was 3#6oz at birth (her brother and sisters were around twice that much).  She has taken well to the bottle and now weighs more like 4 #.  She follows me around very closely, and yes she is now coming in the house! Wait until Tom gets home.

This is our very first bummer lamb in the 10 or so years we have been doing this.  Since we still have a few ewes to lamb I am hopeful one might adopt her.  We shall see.  In the meantime she is getting lots of love and sleeps in my lap as I write this.

Rory has a Party

At day 145 Rory decides to go into labor conveniently in the late afternoon, shortly before I am heading home from work.  Tom was in charge that Friday.  By the time I got home she had just delivered her 2nd lamb and was busy cleaning it up.  But then another came. Three on the ground, we are scrambling to get them nursing then another water bag appeared.  OMG a 4th on it's way.  The first three were girls, the last a boy.  It was a challenge making sure they all had there first drink of milk and knew where to find it.  There were lambs everywhere, hard to keep them all straight.  But they are a nice variety of colors, don't you think?  Now to figure out how to take care of all them. 
This is the first time we have ever had a "litter" of this size.   Singles and twins are the norm, at least once a year we have a set of triplets.  But this is insane.  There is definately a little supplementing of food that will have to happen.

This is a picture of Rory taken two days before.