if a sheep has its own post, it gets its own category
We were minding our own business in May 2012 when the breeder of our LGDs called, asking us to buy a six-week old male puppy who had tested as bold, fearless, stubborn and unusually assertive. The breeder thought the puppy needed experienced Anatolian owners to manage his outsized personality in what would become his outsized […]
This is only my second eulogy in over a decade of blogging, thank goodness. Several years ago I wrote about my country veterinarian father. Doc Peterson was scary smart, hard-working, loyal, committed to safeguarding the livestock under his care, and definitely not the urban sort. Our first and only border collie, Molly, could be described […]
Once upon a time and long ago, 14 summers ago as best we can remember, a scrawny local teenager not yet old enough to drive began working on our farm, eventually becoming our full-time, resident ranch hand. It ended yesterday when that same young man, now 29 years old, married and the father of our […]
For those of you who landed on this post looking for how to “work” a newborn lamb, or how a Soay ewe manages to nurse her first twin while the second one is coming out the birth canal and greeting the world, let me reassure you that you have not landed in an alien universe. […]
Remember two years ago when we had a teeny lamb weighing only 1 pound 15 ounces? We could not resist naming him “Saltmarsh Peanut,” and Peanut he is to this day. By way of reminder, here he is in Steve’s hands a few hours after he was born: Although lambing has begun in earnest for […]
Please welcome the smallest viable British Soay sheep ever born on our farm –OR119-360. Is it any wonder we named him “Peanut”? Here he is the day he was born — all 1 pound 15 ounces of him: [Note: click on any picture to see a bigger version] We may eventually give this little guy […]