Wednesday, January 27

Wednesday Dose of Cute: Man at Work














The Girls Just Love Him

It's the heart of hay feeding season!
First You Have to Put Up the Hay
3/11/06: Oh, Just Take A Seat Anywhere
3/14/06:
A Whole New Way to Start the Day
3/26/06:
I Told You They Have No Manners

3/2/08:
How Do Donkeys Order Lunch?
3/7/08: Waiting for Lunch (on Top of Breakfast)

© Copyright 2010 FarmgirlFare.com, the eating for two (all those sheep in the pictures, silly—not me!) foodie farm blog where I don't know about you, but it sure looks to me like my hunky farmguy Joe is petting a ewe or two in that last photo—which is something he'd definitely never be caught dead doing.

12 comments:

  1. Great photos! Love the story it tells.

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  2. The utter dedication that farm life requires is truly amazing to me. I don't think I could do it but I am grateful that there are others who can.

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  3. What girl doesn't love a man bearing hay?

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  4. Looks to me like he has quite the fan club!

    (I think the truth is out. Photos don't lie :)

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  5. I wonder why some of the sheep don't have their tails docked? Maybe, if you're going to write about that, you could explain why people usually do dock sheep's tails. Thanks!

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  6. Ahhh.... to be adored by a flock of lovely ladies. This is the life!

    Susan

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  7. oh...the old 'give me food and I'll follow you anywhere' shots....LOL....great photos - as always!!

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  8. Hunky farm guy knows the way to a gal's heart - feed her.

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  9. He looks like he is being mobbed by those ewes. I think he was whispering sweet nothings to them too.

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  10. Hi Everybody,
    Thanks for all the fun comments. I definitely think he's busted. ; )


    JuliaR,
    Good question! We usually dock all the lamb tails, but we have some Katahdin hair sheep in the flock now, and because they're not all wooly, they don't need their tails docked. You'll find lots of photos of our Katahdins (which we introduced to help improve internal parasites since the breed is naturally resistant) here.

    Here's a little bit about docking tails, taken from the Sheep 201: A Beginner's Guide to Raising Sheep website:

    Docking is when the tail is shortened. Docking improves the health and welfare of sheep and lambs. It prevents fecal matter from accumulating on the tail and hindquarters of the animal. Research has shown that tail docking greatly reduces fly strike (wool maggots) [fly strike is really disgusting and awful], while having no ill effect on lamb mortality or production. Docking facilitates shearing. Not many professional sheep shearers want to shear sheep with long tails. Docking makes it easier to observe the ewe's udder and detect potential problems.

    Some markets (lamb buyers) discriminate against tailed lambs, since having a tail lowers the dressing percent (yield) of the lamb and removal of the tail during processing requires extra labor.

    Not all sheep require tail docking. Because hair sheep lambs do not have long, wooly tails, it is usually not necessary to shorten their tails. Lambs from the Northern European short-tail breeds also do not require docking. Fat-tailed sheep are usually not docked. Some producers of wooled lambs do not dock their lambs or they only dock the ewe lambs.


    Like I said, we do dock our wool sheep tails when the lambs are very young, but compared to most (and especially to show sheep), we leave the tails really long. Some people literally dock the entire tail, which can lead to birthing problems for the ewe - and to me, just looks strange.

    We use the banding method to dock tails and castrate males. From Sheep 201:

    The easiest and most common method of tail docking is to apply a rubber ring (or band) to the tail using an elastrator tool. Banding is a bloodless method of tail docking. The band cuts off the blood supply to the tail, causing the tail to fall off in 7 to 10 days. Some producers cut the tail off before it falls off to prevent potential problems.

    Banding causes some pain to the lamb, but the pain is short-lived.


    You can see the banded lambs' tails in this photo.

    And that's today's sheep lesson! : )

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  11. Thank you very much for such a thorough explanation!

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  12. I have been reading your blog all week. I am up to Feb. 2008 The one ? that keeps coming to mind that I have been waiting to ask just in case you all ready wrote about it is. How did you meet farmguy and how did you get from the other farm to this one?
    I'll keep reading to see if you did write about this. Love the pics

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December 2015 update: Hi! For some reason I can't figure out, Blogger hasn't been letting me leave comments on my own blog (!) for the last several months, so I've been unable to respond to your comments and questions. My apologies for any inconvenience! You're always welcome to email me: farmgirlfare AT gmail DOT com.

Hi! Thanks for visiting Farmgirl Fare and taking the time to write. While I'm not always able to reply to every comment, I receive and enjoy reading them all.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I especially love hearing about your experiences with my recipes. Comments on older posts are always welcome!

Please note that I moderate comments, so if I'm away from the computer it may be a while before yours appears.

I try my best to answer all questions, though sometimes it takes me a few days. And sometimes, I'm sorry to say, they fall through the cracks, and for that I sincerely apologize.

I look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy your e-visits to our farm!