Shots, Tags, Docking, Castrating, and Worming

I had not even finished my coffee, when Tor called to ask, if I would like to get the animals fixed up today. Knowing how things can come up, if you wait, I cut my leisurely breakfast short and went out to catch animals. Since Tor called before I had fed them, it was not too hard. Marc and Kyle put the panels around the feeders. I filled a few of them, waited for the animals to rush in to eat, and swung the panels closed behind them. We caught enough of them, that it was not too hard to catch the few stragglers. You can tell that Tor has worked around animals a long time. He looks like he is plodding along and then just reaches out and has the goat or sheep. I can catch a lot of the goats that way, because they are not quite as suspicious as the sheep. when it came time to round up the rest of the sheep, we put up the panels and Tor just walked along behind them and they were in the small shed. So easy!
Above is Agave. She is so tiny and she is easily recognizable, but I figured that we needed to get her done also. In the first picture I was trying to catch the blue of the worming/lice stuff on her back, but it did not quite come out. I plan to tag all of the babies next year before they leave the sheds. Matching moms and babies was not too hard to do, since they call out to one another, but I think it will be more efficient. Tor also told me that he gives the buck the first number, if there are multiple births. He says it makes it easier to remember when it comes time to put tags on and send in registrations. This little guy is one of the three Shetland Border Leicester crosses. They have lovely wool. Since they are all crosses, they all got the full treatment - castration.
They have really short horns, since they are crosses. They are all the size of a Shetland, which is nice - they will eat less. Their moms are huge.

I castrated all of the Jacob cross rams and kept one of the Jacob rams intact, in the event that someone would like to buy him. If he does not find a new home by the middle of September, he will be castrated also.

The whole deal took us three hours and the only ones that were not done were the two Shetland lambs in the arena. Guess we will catch them next week.

The best part of the whole process was the chance to put my hands on all of the fleeces. Saffron's twin bucks had the best fiber by far. I did not castrate either of them. The interesting thing is that the same doe bred to the same buck will not necessarily produce the same quality of fiber in their offspring from year to year. The Texas doe had twins: the buck got castrated, because his hair was not much better than that of a color carrier, while his sister had what I was looking for. Last year the Texas doe had the buck with the best hair. Absinthe's triplets are gorgeous, so her buck did not get castrated either. Since I worry about losing No Size, I decided that I would keep a few of the bucks and see how they do. No Size has given me consistently more does than bucks, so I want to make sure that any futer herdsire will do the same. The two black dominant bucks got castrated because none of their looks was great. I will use Palo Seco for breeding and kept Cinnamon's buck as a reserve. I castrated one of the silver bucks and will use the other for breeding. Their fleeces are gorgeous.

If you wonder why I included all of the details above, I use my blog as a memory jogger! Absinthe kept chewing my papers today, which made me start to worry about documentation. All of what she ate, I have on the computer in spreadsheets, but I made a lot of notes on my sheets today and decided that I needed a more permanent record.

And, I got to check the ewe that I suspected was pregnant - and she is! She must have gotten pregnant on the last day that she was in with Tarragon. Based on udder size, she could be tomorrow or two weeks from now.She is not a first timer and she in not in the arena, which is a blessing. I do not need more escape artists - and I think she is carrying twins.