Fixing Heisman

Today is the day Heisman was fixed. My friend, Jodi, came over and showed me how to band his tail and his reproductive unit and we gave him his first dose of cd&t. This was all very helpful to me as I had never done it before and soon I will have about 30 lambs to do this for. We plan to keep Heisman as a whether and knew we would not be breeding him. We have a ram for our next year's breeding program and Heisman is not the breed we want in our offspring...although he is darling. So fixed now he is.

Heisman is here!

The past week was a little crazy adjusting to a new little baby around. But he is growing and doing well enough that he will be going out to the barn to stay very soon. He goes out with us to do the chores and I think he is eager to be outside.

Heisman is a southdown ram lamb. Another sheep person didn't have time to care for this little fella, so we took him in. We aren't planning to use him in any part of our breeding program so he will become a whether soon. I didn't really need the extra work right now, but I really wanted the experience of caring for him as we have 17 ewes that have been bred and this is our very first time having lambs. So I figured it would be easier getting experience with just one little guy than when I have 30+ lambs in the barn very soon.

I am learning homestead life as I go. I am fortunate that I have an adventurous spirit and some good friends who are learning as they go too. But sometimes I think it would have been nice to learn these things as I grew up (like my grandma did). You can only learn so much from reading a book. I do better with real hands-on training.

I will certainly be more prepared for my own lambs that I would have been if Heisman hadn't come along. I need to get a few more supplies like stuff for tube feeding and colostrum powder and extra nipples for bottle feeding. SOOO glad I did this!

Raising a Bottle Lamb

It looks like we are going to raising a bottle lamb. I am thinking we will be picking him up tomorrow so that is exciting. My friend knows a friend who doesn't want to keep him, so we will be the lucky recipiants. I'll post pictures tomorrow!