Hiya my mates,
Frankly, I ought to be cleansing my home proper now. There are wanted and sensible duties that demand consideration! Dusty bunnies collect within the corners as we converse. But the decision of this little two and a half acre farm I like a lot is louder – and this week is all about listening to these calls. That is the week that my want of three years was lastly realized – it lastly occurred. New creatures arrived on the farm… any guesses as to what new animal joined our homestead?
For the document, after I do determine to wash my home, I’ve most unbelievable cleansing focus in my arsenal. Kudos to Department Fundamentals. For those who take heed to my podcast, you understand how a lot I enjoyment of cleansing (unusual?). We’re onerous on the whole lot it appears, from counter tops to socks. It is a cleansing focus that you need to use for the whole lot from laundry, to stains, to flooring, to home windows, to bathrooms, to showers, to canine kennels (ya, simply did this one.) This makes it versatile, cost-effective, and sustainable (I take advantage of the glass bottles and simply refill). However my level is to inform you that this cleansing focus from Department Fundamentals will get probably the most grotesque animal stains out of my garments.
Animal stains (and smells) that I’ll now be getting from… our new dairy sheep!
AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!
I understand that dairy sheep will not be on everybody’s record of “necessities”, however I’m been on the lookout for good breeding inventory for years and am so grateful to have lastly discovered the fitting women for our farm. I can’t say sufficient good about Concord Heritage Farm, one other Washington State based mostly household. They’ve been so type in downside fixing, answering questions, and pairing us with the fitting women for our wants. For those who’re close to to me, they’ve received lovely lambs on the market every spring. You possibly can be taught extra on their web site right here.
What breed are they?
East Fresian x Rideau Arcott x Border Leicester x Finn
In the end, we actually wished to focus on bringing sturdy sheep to the farm for simple of administration. Normally, “sturdy” isn’t a phrase linked to purebreds. “Hybrid-vigor” is a genetic time period meant to attract consideration to the durability created by crossing two or extra breeds collectively. My genetics professor used to name this the solely free lunch a farmer ever will get. For us, a strong crossbreed means sheep that may tolerate 110° summers, -10° winters, maintain their situation properly, are good moms with out intervention, and have good temperament.
However Shaye… don’t you could have a dairy cow already?
Sure. Cece is at present in milk and is gorgeous as ever. Nonetheless, one subject we run into time and time once more with Cece is getting her bred. This will get a bit into the homesteading weeds, however to breed a cow that’s in milk already (which they often are in a small-scale administration like ours), we should:
- Carry a bull to our residence in order that we are able to proceed to exploit Cece as regular. This presents apparent points with measurement, temperament, feed, and fences. Our fences should not constructed for bulls who’re desperate to chase cows or discover greener grass. We’ve had points up to now with bulls I’m not eager to repeat.
- Discover somebody to artificially inseminate Cece. To this point, we’ve got not been ready to do that domestically. I’ve thought of getting licensed, however it will require just a few weekends away from residence and I haven’t been prepared to try this but. I took a category on AI in school however that was many moons in the past and I would wish a severe refresher course to achieve success.
- Cece might go to a farm with a bull, however that will require somebody to exploit her each day nonetheless OR be prepared to take her bull calf together with her. This may current it’s personal set of issues as a result of calves should not halter educated (sometimes) and are a bit spunkier than previous dairy cows. We’ve additionally made the error of sending a heifer calf with Cece to a farm with a bull, in an try to breed Cece, solely to have the heifer calf get bred means earlier than she ought to have.
Level being, there are loads of administration selections small-holders like us should make in terms of breeding and managing livestock. Now we have to be sensible, resourceful, and grounded about selections that may in the end have an effect on our soil, checkbook, and desk.
Ooh – and to maintain it additional thrilling, and to maintain us additional humble, the phases and targets are all the time shifting barely.
When my youngsters had been youthful, we had been consuming a lot milk a dairy cow was the one affordable choice. I weaned my infants on to uncooked milk from our first dairy cow, Sally, and she or he nourished them properly for years. I can’t even start to depend what number of gallons of milk had been consumed – it was rather a lot.
That was 10 years in the past, and in that point, the youngsters have grown considerably. I’m not filling sippy-cups endlessly with milk anymore, so the consumption degree has modified. Uncooked milk continues to be important for us – however the demand isn’t as excessive. That presents its personal set of administration selections in terms of managing a dairy cow. The query turns into:
- Do I’ve the capability in my schedule to permit of the duties of fermenting, culturing, and processing “x” quantity of milk per day from my dairy cow?
- Is that my precedence proper now?
If I’m being sincere, there’s few duties I take pleasure in extra on the earth than being a milkmaid. Once more, like cleansing, I completely enjoyment of it. However realistically, I’ve needed to let go of some of my valuable issues over the previous few years to create a bit more room for our homeschool schedule, children’ social wishes, church coops, piano classes, and creativity of their very own to chase. We’re within the thick of the perfect and fullest years of our life! I feel it’s attainable (and fantastic) to have a dairy animal throughout this time of life. But it surely’s not a season the place I can make investments half a day in cheesemaking. I’ll be there once more.
Why Sheep
All of those administration selections, coupled with the truth that Cece is sort of 9 years previous now and never at present bred (for causes listed above), we determined it was lastly time to attempt our hand at dairy sheep.
I discuss this extra on this week’s video, however right here’s just a few bullet factors:
- We hold a ram 12 months spherical already. Breeding dairy sheep is a non-issue for us and would require no additional administration on our half apart from exposing the dairy women to the ram.
- Two dairy sheep require rather a lot much less spring/summer time pasture than a cow and her calf. This can permit our dairy animals to have publicity to extra pasture on our small farm, thus rising the standard of their milk.
- The 2 women we dropped at the farm give 1/2 – 1 gallon per day (so 1 – 2 gallons per day whole for us). This can be loads for us to have contemporary milk in addition to tradition yogurt, kefir, and make tremendous fast cheeses like mozzarella or ricotta.
- I actually need my youngsters to really feel a bit extra comfy milking and construct up the boldness and talent to do all of it by themselves. The boys have realized to exploit Cece, nevertheless it’s not one thing we are able to simply ship them out to do alone. She’s too massive, she has horns, there’s an enormous calf to handle, and cows are simply massive whenever you’re that small.
- We’ve had sheep for over a decade. We already handle 6-20 sheep in our small herd (relying on what number of lambs we’ve got and what time of 12 months it’s) they usually’re an animal that we not solely are comfy with managing, however an animal that we really love having round.
Now What?
Each the brand new ewes are as a result of lamb in only a few days. We’ve made our first administration selections to depart the lambs on for 3 weeks, after which, we’ll start to exploit. However extra on lambs/milking/scheduling later…
We are going to proceed to exploit Cece in the interim till we determine it’s time to dry her up. Ideally, I’d prefer to ship her (dry) to a farm for breeding. After calving 9 months later, we might milk if we wished or simply let her increase us a lovely fats calf for beef orincrease us a substitute heifer for the longer term. Cece has been our satisfaction and pleasure for eight years now and she’s going to dwell out all her days on our farm, no matter what her milking capability appears to be like like for the season.
Phew. Sorry. That was loads of phrases. I suppose I’ve just a few passions in life:
- Good meals
- Gardening
- All issues associated to exploit
I hope you could have an exquisite weekend, my mates. Thanks for being right here and studying alongside us!
Cheers,
Shaye
