A-Mazing!

I received this link in an email a while back. It is titled Extreme Sheep Art and for good reason! The video explains it but here's a quick summary. This is a film of a bunch of guys from Wales who, frankly, have too much time on their hands, and a lot of sheep. They use their well trained border collies to move their sheep in the most amazing patterns you will ever see! The whistles you hear in the background are the sounds of dog whistles some shepherds use to tell the dogs what to do and how to move the sheep. I don't think there is anything more I can say to show the greatness of this video. Just take a look! It will blow you away!!

Rockin Rodeo

Want an epic display of pure strength and endurance? One event at rodeos around the world is founded for kids to show their talents and rodeo ability. Yes children. Why is this on a sheep blog you may ask? Well this is simple, the event is Mutton Busting. Mutton Busting was brought officially into rodeo in the mid 1980s where the idea was that kids 5-7 years old (no bigger than 55lbs) would be given the challenge to ride a sheep for 6 whole seconds. It can be a rough and tumble sport just like full size rodeo. Many of the children I know who participate do it to prove to their families or themselves that they can be real cowboys or cowgirls.
Now how about those sheep? Annually we send some of our sheep to the Tees Rodeo for the first weekend of August for this event. How do we chose? All you animal lovers out there please don't be too afraid here. These sheep are almost 200 pounds and have tiny humans on them. It may not seem like the most humane event but we always take precautions to make sure that they all stay safe. We use the ewes that aren't pregnant, are in good shape (strong and not boney) and sometimes even pet sheep that have done such event before.
All in all the kids, the spectators and even the sheep can have a lot of fun.

Moisture

So I'm sure as you all know it has been raining. Lots of raining... And with that rain comes clouds. This is the reason for th lapse in blogs that I have been writing. See because we are in the country... ok so far out in the country we need to use satellite internet. This is at least better than dial-up! Since there is so many clouds our satellite dish couldn't send or receive the signals thus leaving us internetless.

This isn't the only thing the rain can affect. The poor little babies outside are feeling the rain and cold too. We have gone through a fair amount of blankets and antibiotics the last few days. Sheep get water logged. Their wool absorbs all the water it can and it stays for a long time. This water can get kind of cold in the wind that has been whipping around. When sheep get cold they get sick, and not just a common cold but pneumonia or other harsh lung infections or diseases. So this is when we have to bring all the sheep inside and try and treat all the sick sheep before they get too sick. This is when we use Penicillin or Oxytretracycaline (both antibiotics) to fight off any bacteria that may be housed up in the sheeps' lungs. Again this is another controversial method. Organic farmers can't use antibiotics to treat these diseases. I just feel sorry for the sheep who get sick and their farmers can't help them with science. 

Poo Poo and more Poo

Today is a special 4h activity on my farm. A fundraiser, a skill developer, and team building exercise of sorts. Judging by the title of this blog you may believe that this sounds like a "shitty" day (pun intended not meant for offense). This year not only did my club participate in highway clean up but we are working on selling 20L pails of genuine, high quality sheep manure. Now don't think that this is a job were we walk around following our sheep hoping to stuff a bucket under them hoping for a fresh excretion. No, no, no... This is old poo. 3-4 years old is ideal. after turning the fertilizer (the poo) and making sure that no sticks or twigs get in we are packaging them up to sell to local farmers and urban gardeners alike.
"Sheep manure is low in nitrogen – compared to other animal manures – so it won’t burn your plants. Plus, it’s a natural slow-release fertiliser and this is part of the versatility of using it as a mulch. I usually pour it on to about a depth of 50mm (2″) ensuring that it doesn’t touch the plant’s stem."- From http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/2008/03/the_many_benefits_of_sheep_manure.html.
If you are interested in buying some manure from our club ($10/bucket or 3 buckets for $25) please contact me or send me a personal message here on the blog for more information. 

Poster Girls.

This past winter we got the privileged to receive a "Proud to be an Alberta Lamb Producer" license plate.Since my dad is a director of the Alberta Lamb Producers, we got the chance to take a picture of our family farm with this license plate to advertise our love for farm and our farm itself. The above picture shows that advertisement. To the right is myself holding two of our bottle lambs, Barbie (black lamb) and Ken. On the left my mom, Lorna holding Burp with our late loyal sheep dog, Freckles. All of us are standing in front of our Volkswagen Beetle. Now this car may not seem like a true farm vehicle but it helps us even more with the commute and traveling to Alberta Lamb Producer meetings and events. This may just be a picture to some but it really does show that my family of Windpatch Farm, are truly Proud to be Alberta Lamb Producers.

Three Bags Full

Shearing is an annual ritual here at the farm. With sheep it would seem like a given. Sheep=Wool. So every year around the end of February we get all our sheep together, hire our Aussie shearer Dwayne, crank up the tunes and get ready for a long day of hard work but a lot lots of fun. Last year Dwayne taught me how to shear. To the perfect shearer it is a movement of 53 strokes that pulls the wool off in one big piece called a fleece. This fleece is then strategically thrown onto a special table and picked clean or at least close to clean. From there, the fleece is put into giant brown bags, kind of like big potato sacks. There are two ways of doing this. 1 is putting them into the bag by hand, or foot i suppose. Int he bottom picture on the left you can see my boyfriend Brendan stuffing a woolsack. Its a tough job but he makes it look gooood. lol. The other way is with a hydraulic press that is annually manned by my Grandpa. this pushes the fleeces into the bag at high pressure so we can get many many more fleeces into the bag. Now you would think that wool is kinda cool. We should be able to sell it at a great price but you would be wrong. Slowly the sell rate for wool is gaining because the consumer market is liking the idea of a natural and organic material instead of synthetic. But in the last few years, after we sell all our wool, we haven't had enough money to pay for the shearer!
Once the wool gets to the wool mill (Yes there is such a thing, there is a big one at Carstairs, where we sell our wool often) the wool is washed and cleaned fully then spun into yearn (then into mats or clothing) or carded into a filler (For douvets or bed pads). Then that's when you can buy it for your home!

How About a Good Laugh?

4h has done a lot for me. I've met new friends and gained so many new experiences. I'll post a blog about my 4h club a little bit later but first I would like to show you one of our new contests to our 4h club and its been a real hit!! I guess the loss of dignity in other people can be found humorous. I took part in this competition for the first time up at the Northlands sheep show a few summers ago. Once my 4h club saw the pictures they couldn't resist the idea of trying it out in our club.

Yes above is a picture of showing my sheep while I'm a fireman and my sheep is a Dalmatian. This costume contest really makes our achievement day less stressful and gives us a good laugh. We have had mattresses and Serta sheep, princesses and dragons, oilworkers, army men and many many more. It's been a lot of fun. Our club takes pride in being a more laid back kind of 4h. We really don't think that harsh competition is the best way to go so we try and have as much fun as possible in any way possible. 

Does your club have any cool show competitions or games?

Bottle Babies

My farm is in the middle of lambing. Yes this is when the ewes (girl sheep) have their lambs. My favourite part of lambing? I know its not the best thing for a farm but it still is my favourite. Bottle Lambs! It is usually rare that we have bottle lambs. Out of 450 that are born we usually have about 6 (that's really good). There is usually only a couple reasons why we keep bottle lambs; 1 the lamb is born too early and the only way we can keep them alive is to feed them by hand and warm them up inside the house, 2 the baby is born in the freezing cold and they need to be inside to warm up, 3 the mother doesn't have enough milk to feed her lambs and we don't get a chance to foster them. We try to do this the least amount possible because it is expensive and can be difficult to bring the lambs up to weight when they don't get milk whenever they want from their mother. We usually use three different types of milk to feed these special babies. The first one is milk replacer. This is a powder that you can buy at any Peavey Mart or UFA. It is kind of like powdered milk that us people use but it has special vitamins and nutrients that lamb, kids (like goat babies) and calves need. The second kind is cow milk. We use this for a simple reason, it is much cheaper!!! Milk replacer powder is VERY expensive and can go bad quite easily once it is mixed with water, whereas cow milk is readily available from our dairy farm neighbors (Thanks again Andrews!) and can be kept good for much longer. The third kind our farm uses in goats milk or colostrum. This is because it is very close to sheep's milk and again it can be less expensive. As you can see in the picture above lambs in the house do wear diapers! to be frank I really don't want to clean up after them that often. This is much easier. Do you have any other questions about lambs? Bottle lambs? Or anything else on the farm?

School and Home can go Hand-in-Hand

In grade ten I took on another activity to go along with all my others and school work. This one was different though. It was at this point that I decided to take the Green Certificate course. If you haven't heard of it before it is a program that brings together Alberta Education and Alberta Agriculture to create a program geared towards youth in agriculture or those who are going into agriculture. At the very beginning you are given what looks like a giant text book full of information(in my case on sheep). The information is broken into three parts and you are given three years to complete it with two testing times a year. You must take a test on each of these sections and pass in order to receive your certificate.

There are so many options on what you can take your green certificate on. Mine was obviously sheep but there is also swine, dairy, cow/calf, beekeeping, equine, crop just to name a few. Again each book is broken down into three sections X, Y and Z tests. For mine the first section I did was on lambing and marketability, another was on culling and breeding and the final was on feeder rations and general farming upkeep. The first two sections are my passions. Working with the animals and lambing are my definite favourite so I needed a lot of dad's help when it came to "watching the grass grow" and endlessly amazing topic in my dad's eyes. In the end I was able to pass the tests. Yes I've said tests a few times but they aren't like any exam I've ever written. You meet with another member of your industry and simply talk. I found myself comparing breeds and getting invites to work on farms for the summer more than being graded or critiqued. Not only did I learn about other farms but I got to meet the farmers behind them and know that there is always someone out there that will help you or knows exactly what you are going through. I must say this is my favourite part of farming in general. It is rare to find a selfish farmer. We are the ones who live off the land, watch the grass grow and help bring young animals to maturity with our own hands. Its a passion, one we want to share. I am surrounded my dairy farmers, cattlemen and other shepherds and there is never a day that goes by that I feel alone in agriculture. This, more than anything, is what Green Certificate helped me learn. Oh and by the way I earned 16 high school credits while doing it! I hope that all of you that live on a farm take a little bit of time and try the Green Certificate program. Its worth every minute.

Just A Little Poke

Sorry to those who are following this blog. On Thursday blogger informed me that it was in read-only format so I was unable to set up a post and yesterday I was taking part in the 30 hour famine at my school. This went all of last night and I found myself far away from any computers.Now its finally the weekend again! I hope everyone has big smiles and is hoping that this wind will die down just a tad so we can really feel those 20 degree temperatures.

What do I have planned for this B-E-A-utiful weekend you may ask? This afternoon I will be doing one of the hardest but most worth it jobs on the farm. This is vaccinating. Now I can almost hear all the organic fans cringe at the thought of the word but let me just explain our reasons for vaccinating our sheep.

We vaccinate with 8-way, and as the name may imply this is to prevent 8 different diseases that can  inflict sheep. One of the most important diseases this is fighting is blackleg. All my cattlemen and women out there should know what I'm talking about and the follow shepherds are probably cringing with them. Not only is this disease fatal but it is highly contagious. The bacteria Clostridium chauvoei is responsible for this farm horror. It usually starts in the hooves of ruminants then quickly moves into the muscle and eventually the bloodstream. Since the sheep are walking around with this on their hooves until they bigin to limp, they pass it onto the soil with in turn relays it back to another sheep. (aka. really big mess). Another disease that 8-way fights off is tetnus. I'm sure you've heard of this one before. Its the same thing that you hear you mother yelling about when you step on a nail... or get even close to one. Just like people, sheep need tetnus boosters too. 8-way also prevents bacillary hemoglobinuria, black disease, lamb dysentery, hemorrhagic enterotoxemia, pulpy kidney and malignant edema. Which I'm sure just seems like a lot of big medical words. I could go on and on about the different disease and if you would like to know more post a comment and i would love to tell you about all of the disease that we fight with on the farm and that 8 way can help protect sheep from.

It is today that we get to give our ewes a booster shot of this drug. Just like people need to get booster shots against disease sheep need it as well. Plus these ewes will begin to lamb in the next few weeks so it is best to vaccinate them now so that the immunity to disease can be passed onto their lambs through the amniotic fluid and the colostrum (Hearty milk full of antibodies that the ewe produces in the first 24 hours after her lambs have been born).

It may be a difficult process to walk all the ewes down to the shoots then one-by-one hand vaccinate them, making a full days work but to see healthy lambs and happy ewes is always worth it. I have seen only a couple sheep in my lifetime succumb to an illness that could have been prevented by the use of vaccines and it has changed my whole outlook. I refuse to stand by and see another animal have a painful death when I, their farmer, could have prevented it. Again if you would like mroe information please send me a message or a post and I would love to answer any questions you may have on this touchy subject to the best of my abilities and my experiences.

Does your farm use vaccines? Why or why not? As a town kid do you feel unsafe knowing that farms use these drugs?

Its a Team Effort

Something that is amazing about being a shepherd is that not only can you work with your sheep but you have the companionship of man's best friend always at your side. Border Collies, Australian Shepherds, Blue Healers, just to name a few of the herding dogs that farms use. As a rule of thumb these dogs are usually darker in colour, have great stamina and boundless energy. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum are the guardian dogs. Akbash, Pyrenees and Maremma are usually the dogs of choice. They are the big white dogs that seem to blend right into the flock. This is one of their special qualities that make them great for guarding the sheep. These big white dogs are usually docile until confronted with a coyote, where they spring into action to get the lambs in a safe place or get the coyotes far away from the flock. We have watched our dogs and we have noticed a system.
We have 5 guard dogs in total. Usually three are in one pen at a time while the other two are at the barns. There is one dog, Jill, who always stays with the sheep, no matter what she will always be with them. The other two in the field will circulate the perimeter of the fence on a half hour cycle (yes actually a half hour on the dot.). As soon as there is a threat all the dogs come together on the top of the tallest hill and seem to have a meeting (this is no joke). Jill will stay with the sheep forming them into a circle all together, while Jack (the top dog Jill's brother) runs to chase the coyote down, as Luke (Jack's right hand man) runs around the perimeter again to ensure everyone is safe. It's an amazing system! I don't know how they do it!
Every since they are puppies these dogs live with the sheep. They move with them, sleep with them and eat with them. This is our new puppy Dexter who is sleeping out in the barn with the sheep. Right now he is in the cute phase but he still doesn't stop working. Jack and Jill are now eleven years old. That's old for any dog let alone one that works 24/7, that's why we bought little Dexter to hopefully ease the load for the older dogs.
Its just amazing how animals can help humans and I know that our farm would not be near as efficient without them.
Does your farm have dogs helping you? Maybe llamas or donkeys instead?

Questions, questions, questions.

The whole point of this blog is to get out information on agriculture and the industry I'm in, SHEEP! Do you have any questions for me? I know that here in Alberta we are the Beef province. "Triple A Grade Alberta Beef" is a sentence that brings pride to our province. But what about whose left? Pork, Dairy, Poultry, Bee-farming (I can't think of the big name for the keepers of the little bees), and yes sheep too. Is there anything I can say to help clear the air on agriculture? For example... Did you know that some professional tennis rackets use the intestine out of sheep to create the strings? There are so many small things in agriculture that you wouldn't even think about. Think about how milk gets to your fridge... My mom comes from a dairy farming family and my dad is a milkman (yes we are that cool) so I know about a lot of that production as well. Also did you know that a few years ago a man was milking 200 sheep in Southern Alberta? Just know that this blog is a great place for you to come with any questions that you may have. I'll make sure that I find the answer to any questions you have.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read all this and feel free to ask anything or say anything on your mind.

Conflicting Loyalties of A Farm Girl

Mondays must be the hardest day for this farm kid. Not only is it the first day of the week, but it is also the day that I volunteer at the Lacombe Hospital and Care Centre. Here's how my day goes.
6:19 am-Alarm goes off (No it couldn't be 6:20 that would just be too normal for me)
6:31 am- Finally get the energy to get up
7am- I'm usually out of the shower and looking half decent ready for the day
7-7:30- finishing touches along with helping mis milk replacer for bottle lambs and helping mom if there was a bad night lambing.
7:33- Back inside to change clothes now that milk and probably afterbirth is all over me. sigh
7:37- start the daily commute. On average my drive takes about 35-40 minutes to get to school this doesn't include picking up my dear friend Michael in Clive.
8:27-3:30- School school school. yet another sigh.
4-6- Volunteer at the hospital, talking to the elderly, making meals, delivering water, etc etc
6-6:35- Drive home if there isn't any other things to do like groceries or trying to maintain a social life.
6:40- Homework homework homework. Tonight? Physics 20. Anyone want to try and explain to me about centripetal motion? This can take up to two hours if I'm having a bad night.
7:30 ish- supper? nope. chores. Feed the dogs. Bottle lambs, mix milk replacer again. feed ewes in the barns hay, water, barley. Check ewes in pasture to make sure that no one else is lambing or try and help if they are.
8- Supper finally! yay!! wanna guess what it will be? Probably something with lamb at the very least. Instead of beef hamburger we use lamb burger for everything! Check the blog later on for awesome recipes!
8:30 ish- Finally time for sleep. Can't wait. Yeah it may seem early but man has it been a long day... it always does right?

Yeah I know it doesn't seem so exciting. That's my life though. And no matter what it is... I love it. It's busy and hectic and yeah I don't go through a day without getting poop or some other sheep's bodily fluid on my clothes but I wouldn't change a thing. Maybe just slow down time for more sleep. I've learned so much from this life and so much of that is from living on a farm and learning that my family, my friends and my farm are the most important things to me.
Are you a farm kid? Is it worth all the long weekends staying home to work? Are you a town kid? Do you envy farm kids? Do you know what its like to be stressed to the max? Do you think you could handle living on a farm too? Have you ever been at another persons' farm and realize how much time it takes? What have you learnt from your farm experiences?

Just an Average Weekend

So today is Sunday, Mother's Day. How did I spend today? Other than making this blog and fighting with technology I processed lambs. Now don't get too scared on me, I didn't turn babies into hamburgers or something equally scary out of a alien abduction movie, but on our farm when we tag new lambs we call it "processing." This may seem like an odd term but its all about getting the new lambs into our electronic database we have for our flock. Now we used to be "old school" where we wrote everything down on a piece of paper then that was rewritten onto a bigger piece of paper which was put into a ginormous binder which was then kept for the next ten years or until we lost it. And that was only if that paper got that far. See over the years our sheep have acquired an appetite for all these important papers. Just three years ago we tried a new system. This is the Alberta Lamb Traceability Project system. All your cattlemen out there probably know what I mean but this was very new to the sheep industry. Radio Frequency Identification came into play shortly after the BSE scare. This is a way for a little tag to send a radio frequency to a hand held computer so within seconds that little computer has the sheep's number, mother and father (dam and sire respectively), any health concerns, and their age all at the touch of a button. My (very old if I say so myself) father says that in his day this was only seen on Star Trek and other Science-Fiction shows or movies. Technology has come a long ways and now this is helping agriculture change! Think of it! Since the Industrial Revolution we have been using some of the same technology. Plows, Harrow and Discs are all examples of this.
In the last three years this RFID program has been spreading through the sheep industry with great results. On our farm alone we have seen a difference. Before this we would put our sheep through the shoots, try and read their sun-bleached tags, then look on that same chewed piece of paper for the corresponding tag number, now we hit a button, the Psion (hand held computer mentioned before) picks up on the frequency of the tag, and the computer pops up a number and information. A task to run through 150 ewes used to take 3-4 hours but now... about an hour. That's up to 75% faster and with a lot less mistakes! See agriculture is more than meets the eye.
Do you think that this is as cool as I do? Would you consider going into agriculture if you knew it was easier? Can you think of any careers that involve this technology along with agriculture? Would that seem like a good future for you? What is your farm doing with technology?

If you have any suggestions or helpful hints of the blog feel free to let me know...