Little Lambsie Divy

With the better half being home on vacation come many changes to the daily activities on the farm. Not only is more work getting done it takes less time to accomplish. Leaving time to get out and about, away from the farm for short periods. I rarely leave the farm when I am home alone. Just so much to do and I hate leaving the critters unattended. So his being on vacation allows us to get out and about and I also consider it a mini vacation for myself.

You know you don’t get away from the farm much when the friendly employees at the local farm/feed store holler across the store as you come through the door " Wow! They let you off the farm to come in to visit".

The last few days have been busy. We have welcomed a few new critters to the farmstead, the feeder piglets (photos and info to come later), replacement chicks and our new lambsies.

Excuse the poor quality photos, as you know I am so not the photographer and "el cheapo" digital camera seems to be on it's last leg.

The New Chicks

Some of our layers are quite old with a couple being our original birds and they have stopped producing completely. We stopped by the Cackle Hatchery to see what they had in-store. I was hoping for a few new Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks and Arucanas. None available that day so we chose a few California Whites, Dominique’s and Black Sex Links. Jim really likes the California Whites. He has a great story about one of our old CW’s that I’ll share another day. In a nutshell that old CW loved to lay her daily egg in the back of the pick-up, not in the hen house and actually took a trip to town. I am happy with the Dominique’s, they remind me of my grandmother, those were all she raised.

As most of you who read our blog regularly know, we raise our own meat. In the past we had been raising our own lamb/mutton though dispersed the flock when our goat numbers grew to over 150 head.
By my bringing the Shetland wether boys back to the farm for their fleece I think it made the better half remember how much he enjoyed raising sheep (other than shearing). We have also had customers requesting lamb, actually more so than goat. This also goes along with changing our direction on the farm.

Soooo ....

say hello to our new bottle baby sheepies. Scarlet and Pittypat

(Can you tell I watched Gone With The Wind not too long ago LOL).

Pittypat white with brown spots
Scarlet brown and white all over

Eating their breakfast (you can get an idea how colorful Scarlet is)

They are St. Croix/Katahdin cross ewe lambs. These breeds are hair sheep as well as meat breeds. They do not need to be sheared. They shed their coats. This was the main selling point for the better half, no shearing required.
Scarlet and Pittypat will be our foundation ewes. Their offspring ram lambs will be for terminal lambs. Their ewe lambs will stay to increase our flock. Of course this is all future planning, Scarlet and Pittypat are only a month old. When they are a year or better we plan to find a stud ram to borrow. I really do not want a ram on the farm.
Sunday after church we picked the lambs up at a fellow bloggers farm. All Natural Simple Life It was so nice to meet her and her family, plus visit with like-minded folks that were only just a few miles away from us. It actually is a small blog world. I would have not known they were even close if it had not been for blogging.
I have to share I was so impressed with her daughters. All were lovely, polite young ladies and obviously not afraid of hard work. They were out in the thick of things, caring for the animals, working side by side with their parents. Makes me wish I had granddaughters I could share our farm life with.

I also wish I could have brought home all 5 little ewe lambs they had. They were all so adorable.
Thanks so much Tonia, we love the girls.