What a Crazy Winter on the Farm

It has been an exhausting winter.

We had more snow fall this winter than we have had in years, it set records, and people started wondering where they were going to put all the show every time they shoveled.  Our truck was completely buried under the snow for most of the winter.

We were lucky to have such great neighbors, one was driving by taking some hay to his cattle up the road and saw us with our pathetic shovels and on his way back he cleared the drive and parking area with his tractor.   When the next massive snowfall happened, he did it again.  Another neighbor had a smaller snowplow and did our driveway a couple of different times too.  We gave them both gift certificates to go out for a good meal.

Our bird aviary under snow, partway through winter.

The snow made life pretty rotten for the sheep too.  Normally, even in the winter, they wander around most of the pasture, making trails in the snow, but this year the snow was so deep they never ventured off their one trail that went to the barn, shelter, water trough, and feeding area.

We had 18 lambs born, but 4 died, so we have 14 lambs remaining.  

I hurt my back twice, partially due to the shoveling, but also due to having to do excessive heavy lifting at "work".  I think the excessive cold weather may have also contributed to my bad back.

Right now I am rethinking breeding the sheep this fall.  Some of our ewes are getting older and we do not really have a place to keep them separated so they would not get bred if we had a ram.  As they are more like "pets" I do not have the heart to get rid of them, other than the lambs which we would sell anyhow.

Diamond and her triplets, all survived.

By some miracle the donkey is fatter than ever...

Here it is, nearly the end of April, and there is still snow on the ground in places, and lots of runoff.

So now we are all hoping for a glorious spring, we need it.

Making Money with Sheep or Not

When I was in College learning about horses, we had some speakers come to talk about how they got their start in the horse industry.  A couple of them mentioned sheep and how they made a lot of money with sheep and then did what they really wanted to do in terms of horses.

When my husband and I moved out to the farm we were told the previous owners of the property (10 acres) had kept 80 sheep.  That number seemed a bit high for the space and indeed we later learned the county rules were 3 sheep per acre.  We knew we needed some sheep at any rate as the pasture was over grown.  We got four sheep, then added six more, and a ram. 

When it came time to shear the sheep and sell their wool we looked forward to our new wealth, but soon learned a hard truth.  Apparently sheep wool was not nearly as valuable now as it was twenty years back when those people I mentioned had made their "fortune". 

Selling their lambs was another way to make money from sheep, but not coming from a "farming" background for the first few years we tried only to sell them privately to people who were looking for breeding stock - and I actually told people "They were already spoken for" when they called to inquire about lambs for butchering....

As time went by I did relax my rules and we sold lambs for higher prices, but still it was not anywhere near the point where we could quit our jobs and just live off the farm.

We thought about having a petting farm, but there were legal issues around insurance, you needed a public bathroom and area for kids to wash their hands.  Also we had concerns about kids chasing the animals and causing them stress, so we abandoned that idea.

We tried adding pheasants and other things to our little hobby farm but indeed none would make us wealthy and were actually just "hobbies".

In the winter, when it is too cold to go outside, I started a blog, I had heard that some bloggers made hundreds of dollars a month from their blog.  I don't think I have even made more than a dollar in week, but it is fun, I guess "sheep blogs" are just not that popular!

I found a few websites where a person can make a buck or two in their spare time.  I want to share them with you in case you also want to make a few dollars more in your spare time.

Triond - You write original articles and poems and they publish them, if you have Google Adsense you can get paid a bit more.  At one time they were paying quite well and I often made more than $100.00 per month, but times have changed and I now make considerably less.  Factual articles pay better than poetry. 

WebAnswers - You answer and ask questions posted by other users or "bots".  You are paid when somebody else views your answer.  This site allows you to link to Google Adsense after you have answered 50 questions - you are only paid on Open (green) questions and Red ones (those where you were awarded Best Answer).   Depending on how active you are and how good your answers are - you can make $100.00 or more per month, but your first months might not be that high. 

Knoji - This site is tricky to get started on but they pay well on certain things - such as writing company reviews and reports.  You must write original, factual, articles.

If you wish to join any site you can click the name of the site and can join via my referral, or you can go to the site and join on your own.  None have made me enough to live off of but they serve as a good way to make additional income when sitting around at home on the computer anyhow!

Other "Add-On" business ideas for farmers include having a farm Bed and Breakfast, corn maze, or going to farmers markets with things made in the winter months.

Advantages of Hair Sheep

Our first sheep were hair sheep but eventually we decided that hair sheep are the way to go.  They get thicker winter coats, and even have some wool hairs in the winter, but they shed in the spring and summer.  This means less work, which is great, particularly in areas where wool is not worth shearing and selling.  I note here that even if wool has no monetary value the wool sheep should still be shorn or they suffer in the heat. 

Hair sheep do not need their tails docked because they are shorter and as their tails are not covered in wool, the feces do not stick to them.  Typically wool sheep have their tails docked because manure stuck in the tail attract flies.

Katahdin ram

Hair sheep breeds tend to be smaller than most of the popular wool breeds, which makes them better to work with on small farms, or for people who are not strong enough for larger animals.  Although some people consider some of the hair breeds to be more nervous I have not found this to be the case. 

There are also many claims that hair sheep experience fewer problems with internal parasites.  I will say that keds are much less of a problem with hair sheep.

We find having a hair sheep ram to be the best for our breeding program, which includes larger wool sheep ewes as well as some hair sheep ewes.   The hair sheep ram means smaller lambs at birth, which translates to fewer lambing problems for the ewe.  I would not suggest breeding a hair sheep ewe to a larger wool breed ram.  The hair x wool sheep have an odd sort of coat that sheds partially.

We live in Canada, and have cold weather in the winters.  They hair sheep grow thicker coats in the winter, but should have winter protection (we keep ours in an unheated barn at night in the winter).  This is not so much of an issue really as we lamb in the winter so all our ewes are in the barn at night regardless of breed.  As you would expect, they are very tolerant of hot weather.

I would especially encourage anyone who wants to have sheep as pets, for meat, or for pasture control to consider hair sheep.

We have owned Barbado hair sheep as pictured above, Dorper, and Katahdin, which I am sure you will read about it other blog posts here!