Experiment #425, Can I easily* clean belly/nasty wool? And an update . . .

Well, we're done with lambing!! I think. . . 

We added 18 new sheep to our flock last fall, 3 of which are weathers. Which means we have a total of 25 ewes. We knew all of them wouldn't be bred because the new additions are older, some a lot older. However we've only had 4 ewes lamb so far. 3 sets of twins and a single! 7 isn't bad but I think its time to clip our ram and replace him for someone more productive.

Recently we hired someone to come out and shear the flock, mostly because at 6 months pregnant I just can't wrestle them like I did last year. partly because professionals are a lot faster then I am and a bit because the new sheep are quite a bit larger then the Finns and a bit more squirrely. They were not very happy during shearing but were much cooler and obviously more comfortable afterwards. Now I have 32 fleeces to add to the 30+ from last year! I'm going to process some into yarn, some into roving and some into locks. 

Now, onto the experiment!

The one more experienced shearer went ahead and skirted all of the belly and dirty wool. After 32 sheep that's quite a bit of "throw away" wool, it filled 2 - 30 gallon lawn bags. I got to thinking maybe if I could clean it up, I could process it to use as core roving in my needle felting projects. But I also don't want to do a ton of washing, rinsing and carrying of heavy wet wool. I get tired easily these days and its just going to get worse. So this is where the experimenting and the weather come into play. Yes, the weather. I'm going to let the rain wash the majority of the yuck from the wool. 

Ignore my fat finger. As you can see its filthy. It was thrown on the barn floor, walked all over and only picked up as an after thought. Its a mix of Finn, Lincoln and one red Tunnis, in all different colors. The first 2 pictures are of the wool laid out on a make shift skirting table, after its been in a light shower. Unfortunately with as dirty as it is, its going to take a serious rain, or 3, to clean it up enough I'll be willing to send it through my picker. Fortunately for me its supposed to thunderstorm on Wed. So I will have to update you later this week. For now here are some more pictures to tide you over. 

Just a different way to lay out more wool for washing. These baskets have a woven bottom so the dirty water can drain through. I'll set them up on some blocks for better drainage. 

Little lamb getting their head scratched. 

Its very tiring, just being born. 

30 new Sheep and 2 Llamas

Sorry I've been a bad blogger!! Its been a little crazy with life and the new sheep. 

Well, their new to us, and their just temporary. Some friends of mine are having troubles with the place they currently live. I'm not going to go into details except to say they're moving and had no place for their animals. Thats where our pasture comes in. We don't use it in the winter, so why not? They put up better fencing and are building a temporary hoop barn. The fencing will stay but the hoop barn will probably go. We don't really need another barn. However having another pasture where we're able to put sheep or horses would be nice. 

The first wave of critters has made it to us already. 30 sheep and 2 Llamas. There are a few more sheep, some goats and 50 or so rabbits. I'm not sure how many of the rabbits we can take. In the stall there are 2 large empty cages and there is room for 3 more. I'm currently putting them together and will post details later this week. We'll probably put any does with litters in the stall and the rest we'll just have to find a place for. 

There is a corner of the barn that I've been considering. The problem; currently it houses a ton of tires. There is room above it for a loft but we would have to finish building it and reinforce it. Then there's the problem of getting the tires up there. I've already gotten what I could but there's still a lot of tires left. Maybe a pulley system? 

Bunny (re)breeding - The plan

Well my first breeding was an Epic Fail.They're rabbits you would think they would breed like, well rabbits, but no!! Out of 4 does, not 1 gave birth. I bred them on the 21st of Aug. They should have kindled (given birth) on Sept. 21st or Sept. 22. According to 'Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits' and I quote: "Rarely will the litter arrive after the 31st day, but don't give up hope until after the 34th. After that, mate her again." Its been 46 days, its time to give up the ghost. 'Sigh'

By the way I highly recommend this book. I've read it several times and still use it as a reference.


Ok so here's the plan. It's the same as the old one, we're just going to try it again. I have 7 rabbits at the moment.

2 English Angora does
2 Flemish Giants does
2 Giant Angora bucks
1 Standard Rex doe

Anybody else see the problem? I can not breed a larger buck with a smaller doe. The kits could be too big for the doe and potentially cause problems during delivery. Anyway I have a friend (who's name will not be mentioned) And she's been nice enough to offer stud services, the idea being to split the kits. She has:

2 Rex bucks
2 English Angora bucks

Ok, that takes care of 2 out of 3 smaller does. The 3rd will not be bred until she's a year old.

That leaves 2 Flemish Giants and 2 Giant Angoras. I have a smaller and larger one of each. My plan is to breed the smaller Giant Angora to the larger Flemish Giant, hopefully to increase the size of the kits. The larger Giant Angora will be bred to the smaller Flemish Giant. Their actually about the same size. If anything she might be a little bigger then he is, so the delivery should not have any problems due to size.

Kits (babies) - Somebody asked me today what I'm planning on doing with them. Well, 2 litters will be divided between me and my friend. I will look over the one's that I get. I may keep 1 or 2 English Angora, I will probably sell whats left. The Rex will probably be sold as pets. They will be pure blooded but will not have papers. I'm not sure if they can be used for 4H or not. The Giant Angora / Flemish Giant cross' will be interesting. Some should have long hair, some will have short hair. The short hairs will probably be butchered and put into the freezer. The long hairs (depending on how many there are) some may be sold as fiber animals, some I hope to keep for future breeding. The longer term general plan of the rabbits at least paying for themselves and perhaps making a little money between selling kits and wool.

As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to post. They will be appreciated!    >^.^<

Calves ~ Fall 2010

 Brought home 2 new calves today. We put them in the sheep paddock. It has a gate in the middle so we can easily separate the sheep and calves. Lucy and Ethyl, our red Angus cows, have there date with destiny in about 2 weeks.  Once their gone and their paddock thoroughly cleaned, we'll put the new calves in. These are Black Angus cows, I'll let you know in 18 months if there's a taste difference.

The steer is slightly bigger and all black.

 

 The heifer has white on her face and a white belly.

I guess he's camera shy, lol!!

We will raise these guys for about a year and a half.

Free Halloween decorations!!

I love Halloween!!  I got a wild hair yesterday and started decorating. I like to buy stuff after the holidays, when their on sale. I also make a lot of things. The trees below I bought, painted, embossed and added cobwebs in different colors. The pumpkins I made by needle felting.

I love the magazine "Family Fun." They always have great ideas and things to do with the kids. I had not looked through our current issue until today. When I saw the milk jug skeletons I knew I had to make them.

We have a fairly large fish tank, but we also have well water, which can leave trace metals that can start to accumulate inside it. So I buy water in 2.5 gal jugs. My son has been wanting to recycle, so the jugs have been collecting on the enclosed porch.

This one is going to be a little smaller than the others. Its made from a half gal jug, a milk jug and the bones are cut from one of the 2.5 gal jugs. The directions say to cut out the eyes and mouth, but I wanted them to be a little more visible so I colored them in with a permanent marker. To make the whole skeleton smaller I cut out smaller shoulders, cut the bones smaller and will not be adding hip bones.

I free handed the bones onto the larger jug and cut them out with a pair of kitchen sheers.

The best parts are, I have enough jugs just laying around that I can do a whole family of skeletons, they look really cool and they didn't cost me any money!! Just a little time.

Bunny pregnancy update!!

Ok so I'm a little nervous. Its my first breeding and I decided to breed 4 out of my 5 does. So far I'm pretty sure 3 of the 4 are pregnant.

English Angora - She started to build a nest of hay Sun. and this morning was pulling wool.
Rex - She is fat and when reintroduced to the buck a week after breeding the buck turned away from her.
Large Flemish Giant - Has not entered the nest box since I added hay to it 3 days ago.
Smaller Flemish Giant - Is already a proven mother, and was starting to build a nest of hay this morning.

In theory they're all due tomorrow morning!! I will not be posting pics immediately. I do not want to disturb the mothers. Sometimes with rabbits that can cause a bad reaction in the mother.

Here's crossing my fingers for some lovely babies!!!!

Angora Rabbit False Pregnancy?

Ok so this is my junior doe - Cinnamon. I chose not to breed her because she was less than 6 months at the time. I went out to the barn to feed the other morning and this is what I found: large clumps of felted wool, they looked kind of like cotton balls. I checked around/in her cage, there was nothing she could get a hold of and tear up. She doesn't have any bald patches and the next morning I came out to the same thing. Not sure whats going on here.     

Bunny birth day count down 3 DAYS!!!!

Bunny Barn - ideas

Ok, as for cleaning,  its not completely done and I can only do so much before the dust really gets to me but its starting to look really nice. I will be adding better pictures to an animal page sometime in the near future.

I've swept and vacuumed the cob webs from the pig, sheep, and bunny stalls. The stall that the rabbits are in right now is actually the one we use for meat chickens in the spring. Leaving the rabbits there for the time being is ok but only until we decide to raise meat chickens again. Probably not next year but the spring after next. (April of 2012 ish)

Anyway that means the bunnies have to move. . . .

There is room in the barn but its not an enclosed space like the stall. The problem with that is in the winter what to do about their water freezing. If my measurements are correct there is enough room for 16 large hutches and 2-4 smaller hutches. There is also room for their feed barrels.

Another idea is to build a Rabbit Barn off of the existing barn. There's a small area near the chicken pen/stall that already has a door. We would just have to build 3 walls and a celling. I believe the area is smaller then the one inside the barn. I'll be measuring it today so I'll know for sure.

Some things I would like to consider adding/changing in the rabbit barn would be:

• Skylights - white plastic roofing panels would work & would let in more light 
• insulation - There is a small blurb here: http://ncag.blogspot.com/2010/07/insulating-caseys-bunny-barn.html
• rain collection to feed into an automatic watering system - this would need a filter, read about an automatic watering system in Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits. I wonder if  putting a heater into the main bucket would keep the lines from freezing in the winter?
• Fans - for cooling the rabbits, maybe one to pull air in, and another other to pull air out
• worm beds - there is a pdf article here: http://www.happydranch.com/bitbucket/application/pdf/info/worms/Raising_Worms_with_Rabbits.pdf
• or a septic system - there's a nice video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINHOsRMe9I
• rabbit run - I would like a rabbit run that can be folded up and put away. Preferably outside, with shade and plenty of grass. Panels attached to the side of the barn might work. Maybe with a roof, also attached to the barn, that folds down? If I made the run long I might be able to connect it to the sheep pen. With a little work on the fences it would be a huge area for the rabbits to play in. There would be no roof though, and I couldn't watch the whole area all at once. 

Some of these things would interfere with other ideas I've had, so nothing is set in stone yet. If anybody reads this your comments would be appreciated. This is my first time managing our rabbit herd pretty much on my own. Constructive criticism / comments will always be read/considered and I will do my best to reply to everyone. 

Cleaning the Barn

The problem with our barn is dust. . . . and it wouldn't be a problem except that I'm allergic to it. Especially hay dust. I can only get so far in cleaning and then I have to stop for a day or two. And that's with wearing dust masks. It stinks big time!

I started cleaning the barn over this past weekend, when my sweetie was in. He helped a bunch. We cleaned out the sheep stall then put up more boards in the tire loft. He even nailed them down for me and then got after me for being up there without them being nailed down. I swept the cob webs from the pig stall and sheep stall. I still did not get everything done but being able to breath won over not breathing.

This morning I tried to work on the bunny stall. . . . I got the floor cleaned up. 2 wheel barrels of uneaten hay and droppings. But again I had to stop because of the dust.   :(  
My dad bought a shop vac for me to try out. Maybe I'll get to it this afternoon. . . .

Rabbits

Currently I have:

2 Flemish Giant does
2 English Angora does
2 Giant Angora bucks
and 1 Rex doe

The Rex and one of the English Angora's were bred to a friends' bucks on Aug. 21, 2010. I am expecting purebred kits on Sept. 21, 2010, though they will not be registered.

I bred the Flemish Giants to the Giant Angora's on the same day. In theory I should get a mix of kits with long wool and kits with reg. fur.

This first breeding is mostly to see who will produce what and if they will raise a litter. Only one of our doe's is a proven mother.

The Giant Angora's I have are purebred with pedigree but are not registered as they are colored. They came from a breeding program Colleen Wagner developed to try and introduce color into the breed standard. They are a little small for Giant's so she cut them from her breeding program. I'm breeding with the Flemish Giants in an attempt to increase the size of the kits and because I haven't been able to find a decent Giant Angora doe at a reasonable price within a reasonable distance from my house. With line breeding, after 3 generations, I will have a purebred herd. 

Finnsheep

Here's a quick break down on what we have and why.

5 Finnsheep - 3 ewe's, 1 ram and a weathers

2 Dorset - both ewe's (meat sheep)

We bought the Finnsheep because they are said to lamb in litters, with twins to quadruplets being the most common. Their naturally polled and have short tails. They are also a smaller sheep supposedly with less fat. That means better meat and I don't have to wrestle a big sheep when sheering or trimming hooves. Hopefully next spring we'll have our own lambs and won't have to buy any Dorset's.