Family chose LAMBS as future lawn Mowers

Today's vlog, it's a big one. We're gonna go pick out lambs. Yes, we're gonna get sheep to help us mow the lawns. But right now we want to go get Violet in. Has she had her baby? Has she had her baby? Has Violet had her baby? Any day now. Everybody's coming with me this morning. Violet's laying down. Has she had her baby, Lily?

No.

You know, I don't think I want to mess with the Brazilian gate right now, so I'm just going to switch the gates so that it opens this way and she can walk right out and right back in. We'll save the Brazilian gate training for another day. Who's the lucky person to drag the waterer? Any volunteers? Oh, you're gonna volunteer it. Can you pull it? Well, I see your heart, buddy. I saw your heart. Come on, help me. Come on, keep up, kids. Keep up with me. She's coming over here. All we got to do, Violet, is put this handle on and then you can go through. You ready? Let me open this up. It should be a lot easier to get her in and out. One day the Brazilian gate will be good because you can make The gate wherever you want. Let's go. I got Violet through much easier. Udder is getting huge, teats are huge. It's any day now, Lily. In the afternoon, we headed out to go check out some sheep from a local farmer. We're gonna let the ladies ride the Kubota. Only 2 people can fit on that.

And then we went into the lambs.

When we got there, one of the first things that struck me was all those sheep coming to greet us and bleating. Is that what you call it? Oh look, very clearly. Baa, baa. Oh, don't let them out.

We bottle feed them.

You want to hold one?

You want to do one?

Come on, Jonas, somebody do one. Oh, look at it on its knees.

Don't find bouncy in our land.

Bleat, bleat, bleating.

They were in unison there for a moment.

Yeah, yeah. So you, you still pretty happy with just getting some rams?

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, it's easier, it's easier to dive in and then, and then we'll You can exit and, yeah, and get a feel. You may decide you want goats, or you might wise up and go sheep, right? Almost all of these were twins, a couple of triplets, and a few singles.

And how old are they right now?

We started lambing the last week of January. Okay. And we finished up with that one last week.

Well, these, you said they'll be ready in a month or two months?

Um, It depends on our weaning. I'd say we've got at least another 3 or 4 weeks before we wean and then 2 weeks of weaning.

Okay, so that's 6 weeks.

If they're leaving, I mean, I think leaving the farm and weaning is a little stressful on them.

Okay, yeah.

But we normally, rarely will we wean before 8 weeks of age. We prefer 12, but you get into parasite season and trying to get them onto a clean pasture before the parasites get too pronounced.

I'm so excited about getting the lambs because it's going to be our chores.

Now the guy that helps me doesn't always do that, but they know that. They know it.

And I've disappointed them.

So I mean, you can't do that too many times and not have a treat.

Oh, but it takes about—

he's calling Wolf— getting in their back.

I love these animals, but they're not the sharpest animals. See, they're already coming.

We've heard that.

If I took a bucket and walked through in through that gate, most of them would follow. Then you lock them in and the others want to get to the flock, so they're going to try to get in too. But you always have that one that hits the brakes, you know.

Are these the ones you fed? Lily, you're a little lamb whisperer, honey. You like that? That one licking you?

She's licking my jacket. I'm overpowered to having them to look at. I'm looking forward when we're herding the lambs. No, I didn't hold a lamb.

All right, time to go. So what'd you think, little people?

Uh, good.

You see lambs in our future?

Yeah. You see lambs in our future, boss? I do.

I do, I do. You did? You like them? I think you get that one.

Cute.

I didn't.

I didn't. Okay, because I was talking to the gentleman, okay, just getting information from him. So I'm excited.

We're getting a good deal because we're getting rams because we're just gonna raise them from the spring into the fall, it's about November. Yeah, and, uh, so those are the cheapest kind you can get anyway. I will say I'm very nervous about this because I've never done sheep, and I've heard that you got to be careful that they don't get worms and that they can tend to be more sickly. But you know what, I heard that about turkeys too, and we got like 12, 14 turkeys. Okay, we got the heat lamp going, we got the birds here. Hey, hold on, slow down. Everybody be calm, everybody be calm. Jonah and Josiah can lift one very gentle and put it in the light.

Good.

You can't hold one, Mr. Brown. Maybe I'll let you pet one. Okay, nice. It's very nice. And only one died. So I'm gonna get with Dan Oman and just see what he does to prevent those kinds of things. And I think because they're going to be on grass and we're going to be moving them every day, every few days at the longest, that it should be okay. So I realize we just have 6 weeks to get prepared for this, ask Dan our stuff, get the electric poultry poultry. Look, look at me. Get the electric netting, uh, you need kind of— we need to figure out how we're going to do the mobile watering system, any feed pan supplement type stuff we need. Rebecca's going to get the book, uh, Natural Sheep Care, Pat Colby, and just be reading on that and getting prepared. So that's all we can do. We're never going to be 100% fully prepared. We just got to go for it. I think that's going to be our best teacher. Is experience. You guys ready to go home? Call it a day?

Yeah.

Tell me the story about going to get in the Lambo. We got in the car and then we came home. I'm just kidding. Um, is she looking like she's pushing? It looks like Violet has an interesting position. Like she might be in labor. I think she might be having this baby. What do you say, Violet? You having a baby? Her vulva is really inflamed, her udder is swollen, and her stomach is really sitting heavy, holding her tail out. False alarm. You see how her tail— she's not setting her tail all the way down. Her belly is sticking way down. Actually, I do think she's having a baby. Now, how soon? I mean, I think she's in labor. Here it comes. Oh, false alarm. Why don't you guys open the— go open the lane. In the gate. I brought her in for a couple of reasons. One, I want us to be able to experience the birth. I want to capture it on camera. I want our family to be able to see it. I also want to just monitor her. This will be a first calf ever, so I just want to keep a close eye on it. If she's that close, I can go down there, the kids can go down there, say every hour and check up on her. You guys are going to fill these up, clean those out. Hey, I think she might be in labor.

Yeah, are you gonna bring her in?

I mean, I'm no cow labor expert. I'm gonna bring her in just so we can watch her.

Yeah, well, and, and if she does have the baby, I think it would be better if she had the baby inside instead of in the rain.

He still remembers. Isn't that something? You got a good memory, buddy. Chomping on that already. Ah, put it under there. She's huge.

Oh my gosh, I've never seen this different. Well, I've never seen Otter go so good except for that time she got real full. Yeah, and we got like a whole pail of milk. Yeah, we got like a lot of quart jars. We got like 3 quart jars.

You guys come check on her. Every hour on the hour. We took a break for supper. You had the baby? Not yet. I'm gonna keep this camera on her, check it every hour. She's gonna have this baby really soon. I don't want to miss it.