Sheeppost
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Put the implements away/undercover today. Still sick, feeling pretty wiped... but the sheep were being photogenic.
And our parrot-mouthed Border Leicester ewe Gloria got some scritches, for which she was well pleased.
The ewe behind her, I believe is #135, and the reason she looks so offended is that she is not getting scritches.
I like big boost and I cannot lie.
But mostly I drive tractors. -
Holy Sheep!
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I didn’t know you were sick? I’m glad you’re feeling better though.
I did miss the sheep posts.
Curator, Kia enthusiast, dad joke specialist
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@chariotoflove yeah, Mrs. BoostAddict and I caught a disease. It's pretty crappy, but the Dr. Doesn't think it's Covid. We had the test anyway, just in case and have not heard back with results yet, which we hope means negative, as they tend to call/trace positives as fast as they can... we're still under self-quarantine in the mean time. Not that we go much of anywhere on a regular basis even outside pandemic days.
I like big boost and I cannot lie.
But mostly I drive tractors. -
@jawzx2
Yeah, one of the bonuses of the covid times is that people are keeping themselves isolated more when they get sick, which was always a good idea anyway. Even if we beat this disease back soon, I hope that practice stays with us. My wife got sick too , but it also wasn’t covid. We still isolated her in the office until the results came back. Did a flu test too. Negative. Still don’t know what she had.Curator, Kia enthusiast, dad joke specialist
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@chariotoflove our's is never ending post nasal drip, general tiredness and cough.
I like big boost and I cannot lie.
But mostly I drive tractors. -
@jb-boin It's sheep all the way down.
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@jawzx2 bleh
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I love the new Opposite-Flock.com!
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Our neighbours both have Dorper sheep that appear to be blurting out out lambs every time we see them at the moment...which is nice.
Take the hard road and walk it. Because hedges aren't as soft as they look.
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly so an interrupting sheep or lambs that make weird noises as they come out?
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly our lambs are 5 months away... Opposite hemispheres and all that...
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@jawzx2 Now that you're back, I have a question for you.
Do you know what ever came of the enzyme they were developing for shearing sheep?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12917614-300-science-how-a-protein-can-pull-the-wool-over-a-sheeps-eyes/Never discount the possibility that you might live through it.
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@bicyclebuck Never heard of that before, but my guess is two fold based on what I read:
Abortions: In sheep a ewe's value is much less in her wool than in her production of lambs. Doubly so in dual-purpose flocks like ours, where we produce both wool and meat. The losses sighted could easily outweigh any financial advantage of not paying shearers, or spending less time harvesting wool.
Containing wool after break (what we call this process when it occurs naturally due to nutritional or hormonal stress factors) until harvest: They mention hair nets to keep the wool in place until harvested. This is completely impractical for producers who run thier sheep on a range in large flocks. Some small producers with few sheep in tightly managed environments actually use coats sort of like a horse blanket to protect high-grade wool from dirt and damage, but putting a coat on, let alone keeping a coat on a sheep is nearly as much work as shearing itself. We used to coat our sheep when we were running a flock of less than 20 finewool cross breeds, and if the sheep's not into wearing a coat, you might as well not bother. The nets would present a similar problem. Shearing also is a perfect time to address hoof issues and perform annual vaccination/booster injections as well as physically handling the sheep to help guage it's health. (we handle our sheep more often, and most of them are friendly enough that we don't have to wait for shearing to have close contact with them, but in flocks with multiple hundreds or thousands of head, shearing is important for that reason)
That process might work for certain, smaller producers, but my guess is that there was never enough interest to develop it further into a commercial solution.
I like big boost and I cannot lie.
But mostly I drive tractors. -
@jawzx2 I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I love the sheep posts. My wife loves the sheep posts. More sheep. Sheep all the things!
I think if I had land I’d try and raise goats. Maybe do the rental goats as lawn mower thing if possible. Goats seem like less maintenance sheep to me... maybe not as profitable as no wool?
'88 AMC Eagle, '15 Husky FE350S -Oppo Never Dies!
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@jawzx2 Thanks for the in-depth response! I remember seeing the video on the news many years ago, so I recognized it when it popped up again online just a few days ago. I knew just the person to ask about it, too!
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@sn4cktimes I would actually posit that goats are HIGHER maintenance than sheep. Horns get tangled in things and or must be cared for, whereas polled sheep (genetically hornless) have none of those issues. Also, goats may be more willing to browse on random vegetation than sheep, but that also means they are more likely to eat something that may make them sick. Goats, as a generalization, are also much more averse to containment than sheep (this is general, as individuals of both types exhibit more or less ambitious escape tendency) and will pose a greater risk of, not necessarily running away, but getting out of sanctioned areas and into places where they are not desired. Goats and sheep both suffer the same sorts of maladies associated with being small ruminants (bloat, rumen acidosis, founder, hoof rot/scald, intestinal parasites, various bacterial gut and systemic infections of greater or lesser lethality) and have relatively poor veterinarian skill/familiarity in most parts of the US vs traditional pet species or large farm animals like pigs, cows and horses. Wool in itself is not particularly valuable, but the right kinds of wool, marketed the right way can be quite profitable. The caveat there being that marketing it correctly requires knowledge and effort and inside contacts don't hurt. Also, finewool sheep and longwool sheep (the ones with the most valuable wool) have generally poor genetic diversity in the US and are just a tad less robust on average than downwool, mediumwool and mixed-coat or hair-sheep. Lamb can be fairly profitable in volume, and if you have an available market, but in general sheep are a cash crop only in specialty markets or at very high volumes. They are however charismatic, potentially very friendly, surprisingly smart animals that are much easier to handle physically than most other traditional livestock, and much more saleable and robust than small camelids. (don't get me started on llamas and alpacas...) Goats offer greater dairy potential (primarily due to US genetics) and are very tasty, but the market for both goat milk products and goat meat (sadly, they really are quite delicious) is specialty in the extreme unless you make feta or chèvre on a commercial scale.
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@sn4cktimes goats make sheep look like angels. Since that is far from true...beware the true nature of goats.
Take the hard road and walk it. Because hedges aren't as soft as they look.
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly indeed. Sheep are no angels.
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly @Jawzx2 They've gotta be better than ostriches though right? I feel like anything is better than those dinosaurs stomping around. Not sure why anyone would play that game.
'88 AMC Eagle, '15 Husky FE350S -Oppo Never Dies!
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@jawzx2 are these for eating or sweatering?
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@italia Yes.
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@sn4cktimes I'm a bad judge of that, as I really like birds. I mean, I own a parrot for fuck's sake... But yeah. Ostriches are much more trouble than sheep, especially anywhere it gets cold. They're surprisingly tolerant of lower temperatures, like much more than you might expect... but still, birds with so much bare skin showing are not meant for anything but tropical climates. And that's before we even talk about fencing requirements. Ostriches (and other ratites) are nomadic by nature and WILL NOT stay in one place if the option exists to roam. They can also jump very high. A 5ft fence is minimum to contain an ostrich, and if you have jumpy ones, you'll need more like 8-10 feet. Ratites also require special diets that are hard to replicate in captivity without lots of supplements. source: I have researched them extensively because I want a lap Emu.
I like big boost and I cannot lie.
But mostly I drive tractors. -
@jawzx2 I worked on a survey crew one summer in college, they asked me to go shoot some points in a field with a big ass ostrich in it and I told them hell no. I didn't mind cattle or other regular farm animals but giant dino bird is where I drew the line. None of the other guys would go in with it either so we made the owner move it and came back another day to finish.
