Farm Journal
2004
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On February 14th, just days before our lambing season is to begin, we had a white Valentine's Day. It was a day filled with snow when our normal high is 60o and our normal low is 38o. . .
We started the year with 12 registered Blackbelly Barbados adult ewes and 3 lambs from last spring. On September 21, 2003 we bred our adult ewes to a nice looking registered adult Katahdin ram we leased from
Our lambing season started a few days earlier than expected. Our first lamb was born on February 15th. It was a very busy lambing season. Between February 15th and March 4th, 11 of our adult ewes gave birth to 18 very healthy lambs with no problems. Sadly, Bertha, our oldest ewe, and one of our favorites, who has produced many of our best adult ewes, had a stillborn ewe lamb. But overall this has been one of the best and easiest lambing seasons we have had.
In May we added chickens to our little farm. Janet has wanted chickens for years because of a problem with an excessive grasshopper population in this area. Grasshoppers have destroyed the hedge around our house and many trees. We have heard that chickens eat a lot of them. We will see.
Rod and Hannah, friends from our church, gave us 6 Black Australorp hen chicks.
Ray built a large chicken coop for them and we are planning to add Araucana chickens and Guineas just for fun.
On May 12th, we had an aerial photo taken of the place.
We ended 2004 with 4 registered
adult Blackbelly Barbados ewes and Sarah, a 50% Blackbelly Barbados and 50%
Katahdin adult ewe. They were bred in October for March 2005 lambs.
We kept 10 of our spring lambs, 50/50 Blackbelly Barbados/Katahdin ewes.
We plan on breeding them in the spring for fall lambs.
We also have
Marty, our Great Pyrenees, a great
livestock guardian dog,
And
Maggie, our AKC Registered Anatolian Shepherd,
also a great
livestock guardian dog. Maggie had her
first litter of 9 puppies
on December 11, 2004, 6 female and 3 male.
And 12 chickens.
