Announcement: Her Name is Junebug!
Posted on August 10, 2008
Not the kid – The calf. Thank you to everyone who participated in the exercise. We wrote down all the names given to us, and walked out the the pasture and stood next to Big Momma and her little calf. We started calling the little girl by each name, and the one they both like most – us too – was JUNEBUG – submitted by Marcia, and perhaps inspired by Mike’s “June” submission.
In any event, observe her running around, chasing chickens and being cute – and I tell you the name Junebug just rolls off the tongue.
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New Arrivals – Lambs
Posted on August 10, 2008
These two fellas are Katahdin sheep. We are trying them out to see if we like them, and so far so good. They do like to figure out how to escape their paddock, which is kind of annoying, but they don’t seem interested in roaming too far and they are pretty easy to get back to where we want them.
Katahdin sheep are what’s known as “hair sheep”. Hair sheep shed their coats each year and do not require shearing like your typical sheep. The thing about regular wool sheep is – yes wool is a nice product, but because if cheap imports it is relatively worthless. So what you are left with is raising an animal that requires that bit of maintenance, plus the cornucopia of health and sanitary issues that accompany the woolen breeds. Hair sheep were bred to be more hearty, disease resistant and less susceptible to the numerous parasites that infest sheep.
The constant worming involved in standard sheep care make organic practices a challenge to say the least, so hair sheep might be a way to make it work. It will all boil down to how we like the meat. If we think it good stuff, we might pick up some ewes and start a flock. If it’s not so great, we might just buy feeder lambs to fill the freezer and not bother with the flock-building thing. Stay tuned – we’ll let you know how “Chop” and “LegO” taste this winter some time.
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