Friday, October 24, 2014

Sorting and 'turn out' day, Oct 24, 2014

Well, after a hectic summer of constant activity, fall came. And here it is, that eventful day in October.

It started out with a lovely sunrise.





But its Oct 24. A nice round number, and marked on the calendar as 'Turn the Bucks out' day.

So Don set up the sorting  chute - for the first time. It has been here awhile, but being not sure where to set it up, it remained leaving against the shed. This year, he decided there had to be a better way to sort all those ewes than catching them all by hand.


So it got a trial run in a temporary location. And it worked. The girls even walked right through to the gate. 



Here it is in use. The metal structure just beyond the black ewe is the actual sorting gate. The panels on each side swing to the center, leaving a path for the sheep to go straight forward, to the left, or to the right. The addition of the wood panel just past adds a fourth destination. Which means by simply adjusting the gate positions, each ewe is directed to one of four pens.


 Ewe numbers were already sorted into breeding pens, thank heavens. The girls filed in without much fuss.

And after lunch, each pen got moved to more comfortable accommodations.


And the boys came out.




 Grandpa got his group in the lambing shed.



Sonny and his girls.  (well, this is with the 3 that were interested in him today. There are many more.)



Jean Claude was assigned to the group in the East lot.















And 140 has a group too.









So it all worked well. And all the rams are already at work. A total of 90 ewes will begin having lambs come next March. (usually the first is born on March 19th, regardless of the day the rams go out).

And I managed to get a blog post done. Finally.

I have so many subjects, and so little time. Maybe the colder weather will help settle me in at the computer. Maybe.

# makin' lambies.  Go Rams.   Thanks to Alex for the 'trade'.