Monday, February 25, 2013

The Update

Well no new lambies since Juniper was born. She is doing wonderfully by the way. Taking her bottle and being spoiled :) She has mastered the art of escaping the bath tub and has decided the 1st floor of the house is her play ground.

Her trip to the barn today was fun. She got to play with the other little lambs and spend time with her mother. I seriously thought my fingers were going to fall off after hand milking her mother. Guess Im going to have to build up some milking muscles especially if we are going to be milking off Junipers mother everyday. Dad bought a battery powered milker that works for sheep and goats off of ebay.... I guess we will see how this works but we always have the trusty back up of hand milking.

Our shearing date has been set for March with Emily (see her blog here! ). Can't wait to see her and Lydia!

I have been toying with thebidea of taking a fleece and having it processed into yarn as apposed to roving like we usually do... I haven't exactly had time with work to spin and i have so many knitting projects I want to start on!

Friday, February 22, 2013

The Scoop

Since my last post we have made some big strides! Juniper is on a bottle now and is making day trips to see her mother, 575. This visit was mainly for 575's benifit. Even though she won't nurse Juniper she is still depressed that she has no babies...... oh how the mind of sheep work....

No new babies yet - we'll see how mom does with the baby tonight! I wonder how sleep deprived she will be inthe morning :)

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Juniper's Adventure in Hustontown

To start off we had no new additions born today :( Better luck tomorrow. Juniper is doing wonderfully and is already making strides toward actually feeding from a bottle as aposed to being tube fed. Tube feeding is neither fun for her or me so thankfully she has figured out the straight syringe method. With any luck she will be completely on a bottle by the end of the weekend. Unfortunately I will have to leave my little darling for a couple days so I can go to work. Not to worry she will be in the capable hands of her grandparents ;-)

Today marks the second time I have milked a sheep and boy was it frustrating! If it wasnt one thing it was the other between the ewe not letting her milk down and getting kicked in the hands repeatedly. But I persevered and milked off plenty for Juniper to drink for the night and into tomorrow. We always have goat milk as back up but for the comfort of the ewe and the health of the baby, mothers milk is best. On my list for tomorrow is to find a milker. For instances like these I think it is worth the expence and probably a lot less stressful for the ewe and when my goatie girls kid I will be ready for action!

Since Juniper needs to be fed every 1-2 hrs and I have adopted her as my charge, Juniper went to the fire department tonight for CPR Class. Everyone was thoroughly entertained and inammored with my little lamb. Of course there was teasing to my unique choice of pet to tote around. "You see people tote around dogs and even cats but since Sara's got to be different she carries around a sheep!" Juniper loved the attention and put her two cents in here and there with a carefully timed BAA! when the class was not paying attention to her.

All in all Juniper and I make a pretty good pair and I am very glad she is rounding the bend. She is very happy in her little bath tub bedroom and is much more active and vocal now that she is feeling better.

TaTa for now! Time for a little sleep before Juniper needs another feeding.

The Beginning..... sort of ;)

Welcome to our blog! We are never short on excitement around here so sit back and enjoy the chaos!

Taj Mahal Farm consists of approximately 30 sheep (some in utero as I type), 2 goats, 1 Great Pyrenees guard dog, 2 house cats and 3 nutty Dixon's on 12 acres in Orbisonia,PA.

Currently it is 3:56am on our humble farm and I am on night shift with our bottle baby, Juniper. Juniper is a pure bred Texel ewe lamb that was born at approximately 1:30pm yesterday (2/20/13). Her entrance into this world was a bit rough but I think we've got this one on the road to recovery. Juniper is the sole survivor of a set of twins. The other lamb was sooooooo big that she died due to complications in her delivery. As a result poor Juniper had a rough go and as sometimes happens her mother was unable to take care of her so she is now our bottle baby in the bath tub! I will be up every 2 hrs or so feeding her and between round 2 and 3 the brilliant idea to start a blog for the farm struck!

Now that you know all about Juniper and the events leading up to my blogging at an unseemly hour in the morning here is some more information about our farm :)

Our flock is made up of 2 different breeds primarily with some crosses scattered through. We have registered purebred Texel and Cotswold breeding stock as well as some Dorset and Shropshire crosses. From these lovely lawn mowers on legs we get sell market lambs, breeding stock, freezer lambs, fleeces, roving, yarn,locks and soon pelts(eek an adventure I will soon be embarking on).

The goats are a recent addition. Their names are Josie and Hally and they are Alpine dairy goats. Their acquisition came through our very dear friend, Emily, who happens to be our shearer and has a blog as well! Once I figure out how to put links into a post I will be sure to send you her way! The goats are a recent fascination of mine since I learned how to make cheese this summer. I have aspirations to make many different kinds of cheese in the near future so you will have to come back and see how this adventure goes!

Before I leave you for the night/morning/whatever I will give you the lamb count since it is lambing season:
5 ram lambs and 4 ewe lambs. Let's see what the new day brings! Bring on the LAMBIES!!!