I have sheep. Not a large number. Under ten head actually. The excuse I used to have them was I needed a few sheep to start my young border collie on. We don't always have cattle in the corrals to work. So, a few sheep would suffice. Somehow for the second time since we have been married, I managed to buy some sheep. The last time was 14 years ago when I was starting another young dog. I had those ewes for about 2 years. My husband grumbled about them. Often. One day I got a call that they had escaped north to a neighbor who had sheep. They had only escaped our place one other time and we got them home without a problem. This was the perfect excuse/opportunity my husband thought for me to have a complete dispersion sale of my sheep. To tell the truth, it was time for them to go. I didn't work my dog on them much any more. My dog got plenty of work on cattle by then. So, I was sheepless until September of 2018. I decided I really needed sheep again for the two dogs I had at the time. Plus, my granddaughter thought maybe she might show some breeding sheep in addition to her market sheep.
I really wanted hampshires or suffolks, both black faced breeds. My husband thought if I had to have sheep, I should have some that might make me some money in the form of a wool check. Hmm....if it would make him grumble less about my having sheep, I would try the wool thing. I located some nice rambouillet ewe lambs and bought six head, a good number to have for my dogs.
Deciding I needed my black faced sheep fix, I purchased a suffolk ewe lamb later on. My granddaughter sold her Hampshire ram, so we pooled our money and bought a really good registered Hampshire ram we were going to share. My husband will do just about anything for our granddaughter (and usually for me too). This time he went above and beyond and traveled with me to pick it up. Five and a half hours and 360 miles to Pearly, MN to get the ram. The guy who hates sheep did that.
Our granddaughter breeds her ewes to lamb in January to have them big enough to show as market lambs at her county fair in late June and the state fair in mid July plus any other chance she might get to show in the summer. She bred her ewes first and about the time I was going to bring him down to our place...she called to tell me the ram was sick and how did she want me to doctor him. She did what she was told and after rallying briefly, he died. That meant having to find a new ram for me to use.
Deciding I would buy a white faced ram, and later buy another Hamp or Suffolk, the search began. Once again, I ended up south of us almost in Wyoming to bring home a Targhee ram. My husband made that trip with me too to look at the rams offered. I went back a month later to pick mine up.
Now, my ewes should start lambing literally any minute! Everytime my husband walks thru the corral the ewes are in, he swears and reminds me how much he hates them. Yet this man feeds them for me when he has to or even just does it for me. He checks on for signs of lambing (granted he does that when he is down there to check our bred heifers). The point is he is a pretty darn good guy. No doubt he truly loves me to put up with me and my sheep.
NOTE: I read this blog post to my husband and his response was, " Yes, I do truly love you but I still wonder what I did to deserve sheep!"
Photos are of my ewes a while them home, taken in November, 2018.
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