Whew! It's been so long since I blogged I almost forgot how. We've been very busy but not much has been really blogworthy - just continuing in the cycle of seasons. There are a few things worth reporting here for sure so consider this post an update.
Border's is coming to slaughter four hoggets (yearling ewes) next Thursday, the 31st. In anticipation of that, I've had to build some means of working and separating the sheep. We put new door on one side of our sheep barn and are building a pen 8 feet wide by about 35 feet long. There will be a gate at then end and a gate in the middle. The idea is to run the sheep out of the barn (gathering pen) into the first section of the new outdoor pen (forcing pen, crowding pen). This area will be crowded and I can go inside and easily (hah!) catch the animals I want and lead them to the gate and through into the second section. The sheep being separated, the barn door is opened and the remaining ewes and lambs can go back inside, out the other door and back to the pasture. I'll let you know how it works.
We found out that our broiler losses were due to a deficiency of vitamin B in the supplement. The organic farmer who provides our feed switched back to Fertrell and everything seems to be OK now. Unfortunately, we lost most of our original 50 so we've got some new chicks. The few survivors from the first batch will be ready in a week or two. We've also had some predator losses so we've had to turn one of our stalls into a fortress of chicken wire.
At this point we have the best garden we've had for many years. We didn't get started as early as we wanted and so haven't done the succession planting we had hoped to do but we're getting a little better each year.
Be well.
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