Poor Racoon! He almost can't stand it and flirts endlessly across the alley with the ewes. There are two open (not pregnant) ewes and they apparently smell intoxicating!
The ewes were bred starting the 18th of October. So, we will start watching for lambs to drop around March 12. I'm so excited! However, I may have gotten carried away, or rather the ram got carried away, because we have the propensity for 7-21 lambs.
One by one, the ladies line up to flirt with the men across the driveway. This year the grass is so tall you can't even barely pick out the rams amongst it.
We will be breeding in November! Until then, keep it rated PG!
My husband sheared a couple of hoggets by himself, but he ended up doing adaptive shearing with me where he would tip and shear belly wool and get legs started, and then stand them up, and I would finish shearing the rest of the sheep from a sitting position while he held them. It was definitely a team sport.
Well, tomorrow we will re-attempt to put the ewe-lambs back out with the ewes. We tried to do a three-week weaning earlier in the spring, but that just did not work out. When we turned them back in with the ewes after the "first weaning", they went straight back to their mammas and the udders came right back!
Finally, it was time for the 10-month old ram-lamb to be reintroduced to his father. The ram-lamb lacked about 25 lbs. and a set of really good horns, and I hoped the ram would not fight the ram-lamb to the death.
