This morning we got up early-ish... 5:30 am... to pull sponges and inject 16 ewes with hormones. Saturday, Martin Dally is coming to AI same ewes with Gotland semen! This will be our second year in the "Gotland Program". Hopefully in early April, we'll have 20+ more % Gotland lambs at EverRanch!
Rolling back a bit, we finally got the barn and Hilton cleaned out. Wow! There was a lot of bedding built up! You can get an idea in the barn. This was the first "path" cleared in the bedding. It was mid-thigh deep!!!
We rented this nifty Bobcat clone from the friendly local Kubuta dealer. At the same time they delivered the Bobcat, they took our tractor to the shop :-(
DH had a lot of fun motoring around in the Bobcat - with no overheating and no hydraulic leaks!
Thomas wanted to help. There was only room for one in the cab when it was running. The safety interlocks were amazing! Seat bar, seat belt, deadman seat switch, double hand controls....
There was waaaaay more compost in the works than we had space for. The neighbor (with the beautiful gardens!!!) said "sure!" when we asked him if he'd like some. ...heh... then he went away for the day. I wonder if he expected THIS MUCH??
Would you like to be our neighbor??? :-)
More recently (Nov. 3 and 4), I was chairman of the Puget Sound Labrador Retriever Association's fall agility trials. (Yes, I was chair last month of the Welsh Springer agility trial... WHAT was I thinking???) Every year we take a group photo of all the labs we can gather.
Staging everyone:
And the 2007 Group!...
... with a few stragglers added. It's tough with a large group to get everyone looking with eyes open. My apologies to those who are "hiding". (The photo will "biggify" if you click on it.)
I hope to post news of the AI fun! Sometimes it gets so busy, there is no time for photo taking. I'll have the camera there, just in case. :-)
- Franna
7 comments:
Hi Franna,
Hope all goes smoothly for your Gotland AI tomorrow - exciting time! Are you using semen from the same two rams as last year?
Love the photo of all those labs - what a wonderful breed - and they don't require grooming :-)
Beth
Franna: I've cleaned the barn so many times that, when I first saw that picture of you standing in your scooped out path in the barn, I could actually SMELL it!
Girlfriend, you are STYLIN'! ;)
Enjoy the AI, I just participated in my first one, they certainly are exiting.
It still amazes me that a living animal is produced by that little white straw of frozen goop.
Someday I may give that AI stuff a try...after all, I have you to learn from! :) Good luck and I hope they all take.
I'm with Becca...I could just smell the wonderful odor as you hit that bottom goopy layer. Oi! I have been trying to keep up with ours as we can't even think of getting any great machinery in there (next barn for sure)using the wheelbarrow and trying to remember not to twist the spine when I fork the icky stuff out. Do you use lime on the floors? I've been trying a product called PDF, made for horse stalls, on ours but have come to the conclusion that nothing will cut that smell until it dries of its own accord.
I guess that's one good thing about AZ - it's so dry here that barns do dry out quickly.
Someday I may give that AI stuff a try...after all, I have you to learn from! :) Good luck and I hope they all take.
I'm with Becca...I could just smell the wonderful odor as you hit that bottom goopy layer. Oi! I have been trying to keep up with ours as we can't even think of getting any great machinery in there (next barn for sure)using the wheelbarrow and trying to remember not to twist the spine when I fork the icky stuff out. Do you use lime on the floors? I've been trying a product called PDF, made for horse stalls, on ours but have come to the conclusion that nothing will cut that smell until it dries of its own accord.
I guess that's one good thing about AZ - it's so dry here that barns do dry out quickly.
Oh, the smell of composting straw and poo! We really missed our pigs last summer. They help to turn it and aerate it (while adding to the nitrogen), and make it much more finished than it was this year.
- Franna
There was only one Gotland ram available this year :-(
Several more are in the works - both from England and Sweden! Hopefully by next year we'll have multiple rams to choose from.
So far in the US, there are lambs from 3 sires. Daniel will make the 4th. I believe his first lambs are due in February.
- Franna
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