Sheep out in a Summer Snow Storm

This week Alberta was hit by a freak summer snow storm. I do not recall getting snow so early before but I do have memories of late snows in May and June.

The trees still have leaves and many are bent over and some are breaking. The animals are not particularly happy about it either. The roosters are not even smart enough to go inside and are roosting on a branch with no shelter above heads. The cats are unimpressed.

The sheep are pretty well adjusted, the snow is not too much for them, they can still dig through to the grass. 

It is that time of year to sell them though. I had a buyer who was all lined up to come two weeks ago, but when he went to leave his place he noted something was wrong with his trailer, I think he said an axle was broken. He was going to fix it and come the next day. The next day he had bought the wrong axle and was going to have to try again a few days later, but after repeated trips to Canadian Tire, or wherever you buy new trailer axles, he was having no luck getting the right one and eventually said for us to go ahead and sell to somebody else.

This was frustrating, but understandably not his fault, unfortunately I had turned 3 other buyers down in the process, two of which I did not get their phone numbers. Thankfully I did get the e-mail of one guy and he is coming right away for a ram lamb. Well, I should say, he is waiting for the weather to improve then will be here. He has selected a nice brown Katahdin ram so we are holding that one for him, but we do have an interesting bunch of rams this year including one with four horns and a really neat looking tri-color hair sheep.

I am not happy with the weather, I am not a big fan of the cold. I have aches and pains, and it is hard to take. It is one thing to get winter weather in winter, or even in the fall, but again, this is still summer and we have 2 more weeks go to before it is fall.

I love Alberta, but sometimes I think I am crazy to live here.

Always a Daughter, Also a Friend

People seem to think that livestock animals are without feelings to one and other.  By observing my own flock I clearly see this is untrue, not only do farm animals often form friendships with their own kind, they do tend to remember their offspring.  This contradicts what people are sometimes told, as I was often told as a child that farm animals do not remember their offspring after it is weaned, and particularly after they give birth the following year.

I do notice that even years later the sheep that were related tend to hang around each other more than with their non-relatives.  Mother's and daughters seem more close than sibling pairs. 

Dark Brown Barbado is a sheep we bought at auction, one we have had for a few years.  Early in 2009 she had twin lambs, Girlie being one of them.  Girlie is part wool sheep, she gets a woolly coat that sheds erratically and looks funny unless cut off. 

When the lambs were young I had told my daughter she could pick one to keep.  Her most favorite lambs happened to be rams, so she had to make another choice, and selected Dark Brown Barbado's lamb which she since named Girlie.  To make Girlie friendlier my daughter took her into a stall and gave her lambs starter pellet treats from her hand every day.   It was not long before Girlie learned to go to my daughter for regular treats. 

Girlie has had 2 sets of lambs herself, and has always remained friends with her mother.  This fall I took the picture of the two ewes standing in the pasture and thought they were posed quite nice, so wanted to share the photo here.

Girlie is in the back, with her mom, Dark Brown Barbado in the front. They are both starting to get their warmer winter coats.

The Grass is as High as a Sheeps Eye

The first seven months of 2011 have been nothing if not wet, and cold. Winter was long, snowy, and colder than typical. Anyone who thought spring would make up for it was wrong, anyone who thought summer would make up for a terrible winter and spring, was also wrong.

Winter was cold and wet, spring was cold, wet and windy, and summer continued the trend. The gloomy cloudy days made everyone miserable, the wind tore most of the sheet metal off my shed and the rain made everything soggy. Weeds were pretty happy, and the pasture did look greener than every.

Two years ago there was a drought in the area. Pigeon Lake, nearby, was way down from its usual, and even 2010 did not bring it up to where it should be.

We sold a few sheep in 2010 due to the drought, pasture was very poor that year, and rather than go through the same worries again it was just easier to sell a few sheep. In the spring of 2011 we sold Baby Katahdin, the ram, and all the lambs, so we were left with 8 ewes, Aggie the donkey, and Crystal, the llama. This seemed like a reasonable number of sheep.

July 28, 2011

The problem being that we had nothing but rain so the pasture did nothing but grow. All of central Alberta, and southern Alberta did much the same, although parts of northern Alberta experienced fires that left the town of Slave Lake ravaged (later it flooded).

You might think the animals were thrilled with all the grass... but no, they were being eaten by mosquitoes if they were not being pelted by rain, the shed had not much of a roof left so they mostly stayed in the old barn poking out only rarely to get something to eat, then going back to get away from the bugs. I have been here now 6 years, the mosquitoes were the worst I have ever seen.



July 28, 2011



For almost one week in July we had sun, but it was tempered with thundershowers at night. The lucky thing being this was the week our cochin chicks hatched at least they had some sun. I am not so sure if there has been a day with no rain, or not.

The sheep cannot keep up with the grass, and nor can we, lawn mowing is a never ending chore. The mosquitoes are not quite as bad and the grasshoppers are assisting in chewing down the pasture. Aggie is getting fatter and fatter (donkeys get fat on their necks) and we see the sheep now from time to time when they poke their heads up above the grass.

If you have been following this blog you know the sheep are Patsy in the front (with 5 horns), Mrs Brown Katahdin, Diamond, with Mrs White Katahdin tucked in behind, Girlie and her mom, Dark Brown, and off to the left is Favorite Sheep.  Blackie is only see in the above picture, where Aggie is also getting in on the shot.  Crystal is actually behind Aggie rolling in the mud/dirt.

To compare I will show you a picture taken in roughly the same spot two years ago.

Patsy in 2009 - same pasture as above.

Our First Sheep

When we first moved to the country the 10 acre property had been badly neglected, overrun with grass and thistles.  It was so bad we had to walk through slowly or risk tripping on rolls of barbed wire hidden by overgrown grass.

The metal roof had blown off the shelter and was at risk of being blown by the strong winds, so a major clean up was due before gettting any types or animals.

The pasture was already fenced for sheep, and I had taken a short sheep course in college so thought sheep would be perfect.  Not knowing where to buy sheep in the area we bought our first sheep from a petting farm a short distance away.  We started with 4 ewe lambs, and along with them bought 2 llamas.

We soon learned that when you get a llama to guard your sheep - you should only get one, but that is another tale.. We had the four ewe lambs, and llamas, and thought we were set.  Of course not long after we realized that four sheep was too few, and we would need to get more.

Here are our four lambs in their new home... Teardrop in the front, then "Favorite" (she's the friendliest), Diamond next, and Speckle is hiding in behind.  As you can see they have their work cut out for them...