Weaning time is a difficult time for us - we want to let all our sheep go out into the pastures and enjoy that great grass that is growing all around our acreage, but at the same time we know that if we get the lambs too close to their mothers, they won't stay put! They will take off under our fences and end up in the adult ewe pasture with their moms.
Right now, the ewes are all the way on the opposite side of the property in the timber, and the lambs have been a quarter-mile away in the east pasture. The problem is that the lambs (and the ewes still nursing their lambs) have eaten down what was in the east pasture so that there is really not much left for them there. I have had the option of opening the west pasture gate for them so that they could graze there, but I've been reluctant.... You see, if they go into the west pasture, they are in direct sight of their mothers in the timber - only two high-tensile wire fences stand between the west pasture and the timber, and most of the lambs have already figured out how to scoot under the bottom wires.
So, I've been procrastinating moving the lambs and have been feeding them alfalfa hay instead. All good things come to an end, though, and the alfalfa is almost gone. I don't want to use it all up because in a week and a half, I will be weaning the rest of the lambs, and I will want to close the lambs into the barn again for the first couple of days. No more alfalfa to feed now means the lambs and the few ewes with them needed to be moved, but oh, I was scared!
I never move sheep in the early morning - the old-timer's rule of thumb is to never move sheep into a fresh pasture when the grass is wet. The point here is avoiding the dew, not rain, and the idea behind it is that if they are coming from a low-nutrition area (as they would be in an eaten-down pasture) into a high-nutrition area, you want them to do so after they have filled themselves up a bit on the poorer stuff. Too much high nutrition feed on an empty stomach can make for digestive problems in sheep, so I waited until about noon yesterday before I opened the west pasture gate and closed off the east pasture to regrow.
My fear, of course, was that as soon as I opened the gate, all the lambs would run to the far side of the west pasture, see their mothers in the timber, and then scoot under the two fences to be with mom. I watched and waited, but it seemed like all the lambs who moved into the pasture were too busy eating to look for mom - a good sign, but not necessarily an indication that all would stay put! The question was, what would they do once their tummies were full?
So, it was with a lot of trepidation that I went out yesterday evening for a head-count in the ewe pasture. I fully expected to find at least a half-dozen of our lambs who had made it across the open terrain to mix with the ewes. If so, I would have to bring the truck and a dog, and begin sorting them out of the group to bring them back. I called my sheep to the gate and they came - and there were no lambs (see photo at right)! The rest of the group must have been grazing a great area, because they straggled behind the first rush of sheep, but they, too, had no lambs with them! This was incredible, but after most of the day in clear sight of their mothers, none of the lambs had made the trip to rejoin them! I couldn't believe my eyes! I was elated! We had won this round of weaning - admitedly with two lambs still in "jail" in the barn, but that was a small price to pay!
Even better, by dusk, the lambs in the west pasture rediscovered their old pastime: playing on the manure pile. It has been weeks since we've watched them run up and down the pile at dusk, playing king-of-the-mountain! Without access to the pile, they continued playing their version of tag in the east pasture, but no more running up and down, jumping and twisting in the air - until yesterday! No, they had not forgotten their fun times! So, after a long day outside, Rick and I spent the last half-hour or so of sunlight relaxing and watching the fruit of our labor - our 2010 lamb crop - celebrating spring!
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