Sheep in barn on a rainy day.
It is raw out there today. Headed out first thing to get some of the feeding done before the heaviest rain arrives. They (the weather people) are calling for 1-2 inches of rain, possibly turning to snow before it’s all said and done. Right now with temperature hovering in the mid 30′s and rain falling makes it feel miserable outside ezpecially when the wind starts blowing.
Things have been busy on the farm over the holidays. We brought the cows from the back fields in to the barn on Saturday (X-mas eve) so we could seperate out some of the biggest steers and put them in with the hiefers (young female cows that have not yet calved) and pulled out an old cow and her calf. The old cow is stiff in the legs and not getting around too well so we thought having her at the barn where she can get out of the weather and has easier access to hay would be good for her and her calf.
After the seperation was complete we took the cows all the way to the back of the property and went ahead and started feeding some hay. They will get feed everyday now as needed. We had some fence work to do before we could move them back there. A large pine tree had come down in the late fall when we had a strong front come through with a lot of wind. We also moved some of the strands around on the high tensil to hopefully keep the smaller calves from sneaking through.
The sheep continue to do well although on days like today they spend a lot of time in the barn out of the rain. They don’t like the rain. More so than other animals it seems. As soon as the rain starts they head for the barn. Generally they are a good indicator of when the rain is easing up as they will head back to the fields to graze. You would think that sheep more than other livestock would be ok with falling weather as they have those nice thick wool fleeces to keep them warm.
I will try and spend most of the day getting some work done out of the rain. The oil needs to be changed on the Kubota and eggs need to be washed. There is some computer work that needs to be caught up on and there is always micellaneous other projects that