Freshly Hatched Chicks!

Wednesday was a busy day for Stephanie, our marketing and product manager. She was hovering over an incubator like a mother hen over a clutch of eggs. Why? She was hatching some baby chicks for our farm flock.

The process started a little over 3 weeks ago when we received an order of eggs from a local hatchery. They were immediately put in the incubator. Between then and hatching, we candled the eggs to see which eggs were viable and which weren't. 

On Wednesday the eggs finally began hatching. This one is just about ready to pop. 

Fresh out of the egg. This chick has almost finished its first job in life, hatching!

The hatching process is fairly exhausting so this chick is taking a breather.  

While this chick is drying off, a few of its compatriots have decided to come out of their shells as well. 

Our chick is soon joined by a few friends. When they are totally dried off we move them to the brooder.

The brooder is conveniently in Stephanie's office. Traffic to and from Stephanie's office has increased significantly since the brooder was installed. We're using a heat lamp and heat lamp stand to provide warmth to the chicks. The brooder is one of our shipping boxes for netting. 

The chicks are putting a few of our .25 gal Classic Drinkers and 2.2 lb Classic Feeders to work. 

Here's to an exciting chick raising season!

Lambing Jug Basics

Photo:  One of last year's lambs hiding from the lens of Tharren's camera. 

In a few weeks we'll be setting up the Home farm's lambing barn. This involves tracking down panels and connector hinges in order to build lambing jugs.

A lambing jug is a small pen in which a ewe gives birth and raises her lambs for the first 3 days of the lambs' life. This allows the ewe and lambs to bond with one another without being interfered with by other ewes. Jugs also allow shepherds to keep a close eye on the ewe and lambs.

Photo: Lambing jugs complete with ewes and lambs. One or two jugs open to allow the ewes in the holding pens access to water. The ewe and lambs in the foreground are marked with Sprayline stock marker. This helps temporarily match the lambs to their mother. 

To build lambing jugs we use our welded wire panels. Other folks like to use wood or plastic panels.

During the breeding season we used marking harnesses and multiple marking crayons in order to best determine when our ewes should be expected to lamb. Based on this data we separate the ewes into a number of pens in the lambing barn shortly before they're due to lamb.

When a ewe begins to show signs of going into labor, she is put into a jug. Signs typically include the ewe isolating herself from the flock, pawing at the ground and starting to build a nest. Most of the ewes are caught before they lamb, but on occasion they surprise us.

Feeders or waterers are secured to a wall or one of the jug's panels. If a ewe can knock something over, she will. Secured items don't spill as much water or waste as much feed.  We're lucky in that the water system for the lambing barn runs along the west wall. It is a supported PVC pipe with water holes cut every 3-4 ft. The constantly flowing water is gravity fed and we have not had an issue with it freezing.

Photo: Our watering system running along side the lambing jugs. We cut our panels so they fit over the frame and piping. Sometimes we'll put a heat lamp in a jug on very cold days or newborn lambs. It is clipped and tied to the panel to prevent it from being knocked down. 

Bedding should be refreshed after a ewe has left a jug. This reduces disease potential and lowers the amount of moisture in the bedding.

How to raise orphaned or bottle lambs

Photo: A few of last year's orphan lambs under a heat lamp. We like using bucket holders for our buckets. They are sturdier and a little more reliable than a piece of baling twine. We also hang a heat lamp to stimulate the lamb's interest in the milk.  

Premier's preferred feeding program:

• To start, use pritchard teats with warm milk replacer, colostrum or Kolostral.
• After one day (or less), switch to latex (red or natural) nipples in bucket teat units. As soon as lambs learn to nurse readily, switch to cold milk. Offer it ad lib.
• Day 5, offer grain (a commercial lamb starter or soybean meal with cracked corn) in a feeder. Place a light (a heat lamp and 175 watt bulb in winter) over the grain encourages lambs' attention and intake.
• After 2 weeks, switch from latex to rubber teats. Some older lambs have sharp teeth that can damage latex teats.
• By the 5th week their consumption per day will surprise you. So will the milk cost! So begin diluting the milk with more water.
• Weak 6 and after, wean by offering only water and dry feed.

What is the right height for a bucket teat? It should not be higher above the bedding than a mother's own teat (typically low). When a young lamb or kid stretches out their neck to nurse, the esophagus forms a channel to the 4th stomach. If it is not stretched, the milk falls into the first stomach (rumen) instead. This stomach was intended for processing grass or hay, thus it does not digest milk the same.

Milk temperature—warm vs cold?
Mother's milk is warm, but it's produced constantly in only small amounts.
On the other hand, orphan buckets "produce" milk sporadically in large amounts.
So use warm milk for newborns only. Warm milk offered ad lib to older orphans causes gorging. Offering cold milk will cause lambs to self regulate their intake.
To keep milk in the bucket cold, freeze water in plastic bottles to use as "ice cubes."

If the ages of the lambs are staggered:
Different aged lambs will require multiple buckets and separate pens. When a younger lamb feeds, the older lamb, whether they are hungry or not, will push away the younger lamb and begin feeding. Thus the need to separate lambs.

Fence Catalog Season

 Photo: RaccoonNet in use around a garden (sweetcorn and melons not in the photo). Kylie is picking a few of the beans that happened to be ready that day. 

Seconds after the last of the frost leaves the fields, farmers are driving new posts into the soft soil for their fences. So in preparation for the fencing season, we're getting our 2012 Fence Catalog ready. 

Photo: Jody working diligently on layout. 

The process starts long before the Equipment catalog is even mailed. Jody and Kerrie (the graphic artists) compile a list of needed photos for Tharren to take throughout the spring, summer and fall. Actual layout for the catalog starts before the first snowfall (November) and lasts through most of the winter. 

Photo: Joe and Kerrie discussing catalog pages. 

Once the layout is complete, I (Joe) write the catalog's content. This mostly consists of photo captions, item descriptions and how-to's. Stan (Premier's founder/owner) goes over the catalog and makes photo suggestions and copy edits. 

Photo: From the end of last year's grazing season. But we'll be back in the pastures before too long. 

The catalog then goes to the product consultants. Since they spend their day on the phone with Premier customers they have the best insight into what needs to go into the catalog. I make the changes from the sales staff and Stan goes over it one final time. Stan's sister, Vivian, does a final round of editing. Once all of this is done, Jody and Kerrie upload the files to the printer's website.

We're coming to the end of the process. Look for the new Fence catalog in your mailbox around mid-March.   

Photo: One of the many sights we can't wait to see in spring. Sheep in a lush green pasture safely contained with a few rolls of ElectroNet electrified netting.

Sold Ewes

We recently sold a few ewe lambs but before they could leave the farm, they needed their USDA scrapie tags. Carl was away at the American Sheep Industry meeting so Mike enlisted my help in placing the tags.

Ideally we would have used the North Farms handling system but various components had been drafted here and there when the barn's feeding layout was rearranged. It just so happens the panels that make up the chute are excellent gates. Mike and I were able to piece together a small, though functional, handling system. After all, a small handling setup is better than no handling setup.

Photo: Our small but effective handling setup. 

The sheep were brought to the holding pen and we were able to get started tagging. Mike placed tags while I refilled the ear tag applicator. About halfway through we switched and I placed tags while he loaded the applicator.

A few times when refilling the chute, the sheep balked at the entrance and refused to go into the chute. Eventually Mike and I were able to coerce the sheep into the chute but not without a few hiccups. This only occurred when the forcing pen was low on sheep. When this occurred we would fill the pen with more sheep.

Photo: The ewes in the forcing pen waiting to go through the chute. 

Eventually the last of the sheep were in the forcing pen. Luckily I saw a crook hanging on a nearby panel and grabbed it. The sheep now knew that I was serious about moving them through the system and they cooperated much more readily than before. I mentioned to Mike that all it took for the sheep to recognize my legitimacy as a shepherd was a shepherd's crook. He humored me by agreeing and went back to placing ear tags in the tagger. I wish I had grabbed the crook earlier, it saved a lot of time.

Photo: The ewe who decided to leave her pen and find the alleyway. We carry buckets of feed down this alleyway and drop feed into the bunks as we walk along. 

Once the sheep were tagged we had to bring them back to their original feeding pens. Of course sheep being sheep, one decided to go over one of the feeders rather than around where all the others went. We were able to get her back to her pen without any issue after that.

 Photo: Mike and Joe moving sheep from pen to pen. Notice the ewes catching a quick bite from a big bale feeder (far right) while everyone else is walking by the drive by feeders. 

Winter has arrived!

Winter has finally caught up with southeastern Iowa. We received 4+ inches after experiencing a week or two of 40°+ weather. Compared to folks in other parts of the country we've been lucky.

Photo: The ewe flock from the home farm. They are a Border Leicester/Ile de France mix. They were bred to several wooled sires (Suffolk, Hampshire and Ile de France). The Ile de France  sires are used to provide replacement ewes. 

How are the flocks handling the weather? The wooled ewes on the home farm still have a heavy layer of fleece on them. They will be losing this a few weeks before their lambing dates in March. The lack of fleece keeps the ewes cooler during the lambing process. They're currently outside munching on baleage and have available shelter, though they tend to stay outside in the snow.

Photo: The barn in the background houses some of our spare woven wire and panels leftover from fence building and general farm products. The wooden feeder under the barn was used for feeding soy hulls to our ewe lambs during gestation this last year. I believe we plan to do so again this year. 

The hair ewes at the North and East Farms are indoors and out of the elements. They have a heavy layer of bedding beneath them and the barn is well ventilated to keep them dry. They were bred in mid-late December for lambing in May. Since they are hair sheep and lack a thick coat of wool, they do not need to be shorn before lambing.

Photo: Our lambing barn sits ready for the upcoming lambing season. During winter the goats and the rams spend their time out of the elements in this barn. This laneway is often used for gathering the flock before they are sent through the handling yard which is at the far end of the barn. 

Check your harness.

Wrestling with a rambunctious ram to put on a harness is not the easiest of jobs but ensuring the harness is properly fitted can help avoid situations like the one below.

When using a marking harness make sure it is correctly fitted to the ram. An improperly fitted harness can cause chafing of the under arm area of rams who have little wool cover in this location. The friction between the strap and the animal can rub the skin raw. In the photo above the harness became loose, allowing the straps to rub on the animal.

Rams typically lose weight during the breeding season. The combination of exercise and lack of food consumption (they have other things on their mind) reduces the ram's girth causing the straps to loosen.  Harnesses can also loosen over time as the straps work their way into the wool.

Check a harness for proper fit during the season. This can be done when crayons are changed or when the flock is brought in to document new crayon marks. The harness should be tight to the rams body and exhibit minimal movement. Don't forget that the crayon also needs to be positioned between the legs.


(Note: The ram in the above photo was treated with topical applications of Iodine and Pinetar.)