About half the time when I go to the sheep pasture, Doris comes to see me. She was bottlefed last year, and still knows that I sometimes will have a treat for her. If she is nearby, she trots right up to see if I have brought her anything.

After checking it out and a quick pat, she is soon on her way back to graze.

It has been a bit of a tough stretch with losses lately. I discovered a hungry coyote had been helping himself to the odd lamb from the group of sheep which was left near the yard. Normally it is a safe area, but a pair of coyotes that has been hanging around I think have discovered the taste of lamb. So after chasing one out of the pasture twice and shuffling some groups together, I brought Ruza back from the main flock (where the dogs seem to be keeping the coyotes at bay) to watch over the small group of ewes. This combined with a few losses to pneumonia and parasites, has made trips to the pasture depressing instead of enjoyable. 

As I head out each day, I get a feeling of apprehension about what trouble I may find. Yesterday, things seemed to be ok, nothing noticeably sick or dead, a new set of twins, and a couple lambs I had caught to treat looked no worse. As I checked the other side of the pasture, Chief (the collie) came across what looked like a coyote path under the fence. About this same time, the pups, who often follow me while I’m in the pasture, seemed to have found something of interest. My heart sank as I thought I would find a kill when I reached them. As I got closer, legs up in the air went another step to confirming my dread. Until the legs moved! Instead of a dead ewe, I found one that had been cast (stuck on her back). I turned her over, and after a few minutes of resting, she was able to walk back to the rest of the flock under the supervision of the pups.

That’s what June is all about. Last week, we brought the first group of calves in for their first vaccinations. Thanks to good help, we had a good day and got the roughly 100 calves and cows vaccinated and moved to their new pasture. The vaccinations are done to protect them from common diseases such as pnuemonia and tetanus. 

We have been having a stretch of hot and dry weather, which can be hard on the animals, and makes me wish they had more shade. We have had a few sheep come down with pneumonia, which I suspect may be due in part to the warm weather, which also causes them to bunch around the water trough.

The dogs spend most of their time during the heat of the day resting and will sometimes sneak off to find shade, but here Sam is resting with the sheep.

We also went this week to purchase a new bull. This Speckle Park bull will be used on our heifers this year and should produce some nice replacememts. He has very nice conformation and a great dispositon. He came from Stookeys, who have a very nice little herd of Speckle Park cattle. If you’re looking for easy keeping cattle from a grass based program, they certainly fit the bill!