Finally, We Let Our Sheep Out to Pasture (in our backyard)

Oh my word, did we clean up sheep shaw supplies! Maybe we'll get started on that today depending on how everything goes. For sure, let's get the ewe sheep out. They've been cooped up a little over a week and it's over time for some direct sunlight, some green grass on the stem. But we want to lead them back to the stall so that we can continue to, you know, handle them, be close proximity, and get get them used to us. Good morning, Almanzo. Good morning. Supposed to be left open now, so these chicks will eat 24/7. I was withholding feed, but they weren't gaining properly, so I'm just gonna feed them 24/7.

So they're out of water, they need to eat. You guys were thirsty.

Good morning.

We are coming to the views. I'm gonna check them out.

Hey guys!

I must have looked a little too closely at Ryder. Not a fan. Oh, and they feed off each other, so like one gets a little upset, gets a little fearful, then the rest of them do.

So hey, look at this, sweeping! Hey, why'd you shut the doors?

So no kids get in here and mess it up.

Okay, I'm pretty sure right after this sheep shaw, I need to start building a turkey shaw to get these guineas out. Sheep are in there, we want to get them out here, run an electric fence along through there, give them little paddocks in here close to the house, be able to get them back in the stall.

Good morning.

No, first thing they go for, that milk. Now the pigs are well taken care of. Let's get the ewes well taken care of. Who you got there, Beck?

This is Dixie. She's not a fan of my love. I caught Bandy and Belle already, and they, they're totally okay. They, they didn't— they're, they're trying— they try to get away, but not like this. This is like, okay, it's like like won't.

Well, I got you some greens so they associate you with good things.

It's funny because like I'm trying to spread the mulch, when I go to catch them they like run. Yeah, I'm spreading the mulch, I'm trying to spread it in this corner, they're all in the corner, they won't even move. I'm like up on them, I have to like get them to move.

It's crazy. They're right at the door. Is that because you scared them or is that because they hear me coming? They love it.

Hello.

You're fine. You're fine.

You don't seem as scared. I mean, she's still eating while I'm petting her.

Yeah. That's it. I mean, I petted them. They don't like love me petting them, but they— and I have to catch them. But then like I can kind of just hold them and pet them. Some of them are still trying to get away from me, but you know. I think that we're doing a lot better than we were. And now I am going to work on my mineral project. These minerals are also for sheep, so I'm going to go ahead and write down all the minerals, and then we're going to use a Dremel and carve the initials of each mineral into the mineral feeder so then we know what mineral they've eaten and needs to be refilled. So I'm gonna start on that now. I've got my list and now I'm going to start working. It didn't hit that hard.

No, it just fell.

I wonder if there's a safety on it or something.

I know I started. See, look.

Yeah, so you're making engravements for our minerals. Okay, just little letters. That's good.

Yeah, and I was gonna do 2 sets exactly the same. Okay, it's gonna go in alphabetical order. So now I realize that I didn't do BBC.

We're having to engrave it because, um, if you just mark it, it gets rubbed off easy.

Wait, I broke it.

I'm wondering if It's the plug.

That's weird.

I like—

just fell.

I like went to go get more of these and my foot must have been around it and I just walked and it came off the table.

It was like this big.

It didn't really hit the floor that hard.

Okay.

It might have hit a special part or something.

We don't know how old that Dremel is.

That's the way this thing spins. And you push that down to take the bits up.

Did this maybe come out or something?

No, this wouldn't stop it from working.

The reason I'm sad is because like I was gonna get this done and now I'm not.

Do you want to go to Lowe's real quick?

Not really.

Could I see it for a little bit?

You'd be back by 10. You could have it done by breakfast still. So that might not be so terrible. You'd have to be super careful not to go right through the plastic.

I don't want to use that.

Yeah, it does— it wouldn't work.

That's a good tool.

All right, I guess we're gonna go to Lowe's and buy a new Dremel.

No, I can go.

No.

It's gonna be me and Josiah because you went last time, remember?

It's his turn. Come here and go have fun. All right, here you go.

Good deal.

Grain's not out yet, guys. Should be here directly. Look at all this manure. Need some spreading, need some debugging. 1, 2, 3, go! Got cows on new grass today. Open up the paddock. The lane's right there. We can go into this pasture. We can partition off one area here, one day, open it up, two days, three days. They're on their fourth day. We totally removed the, the temporary line. They can backtrack over grass they've eaten because grass doesn't start growing back till three or four days, so it's safe for them. They come back, they don't really eat it, but if they do, it's okay. It hasn't started to grow back yet. If it has started to grow back yet it can really hurt it. That's one reason it hurts to do continual grazing, because they just keep going and getting the good stuff before it can recover. Buenos días, luchadores! How's the mobile wrestling ring working out for you? Let's move you on to some new grass. Did you eat your alfalfa pellets? Look, guys, they ate their alfalfa! Oh, angle it over towards that fence a little bit. Bottoming out down here. Pulling it might be a great idea. I just realized if we put a rope or a chain there and down there, it would spread the weight and we wouldn't have to like push it in the middle. Pulling it, that might be key instead of pushing it. Yeah, I think pulling it might be nifty if you can get— attach one end to your corner and one end to your other corner and pull from about right here, say. Yeah, okay, they're happy. Just train them to more off the pellets then. Well, it's 9:30. These are the days where chores take up a lot of time, not much room for projects. I want to go see the forested pigs, see Jonah's job, so let's hustle and go do that, then we'll milk. You know, we might have to throw some feed in there to get them to go in there.

What do you think?

I know it's better to feed in pans, but if we'd be real careful and not pour it on their manure, I think we'd be all right. It'd probably be better to do it early on before they start pooping everywhere. I don't think they're going to volunteer here to go in there. Come here, Jonah, come hold this camera. Well, that'll get you guys chilling in the bushes. Okay, Jonah, you did a great job, buddy. Good work. You did this all— he did this all by himself. You're 11 years old. Let's get the cows in. Look at flossy looking stud.

I've seen bears eat lots of flossy.

Oh yeah? Now why you gonna go pick on her? She just licked you. Milk and ring later. I'm gonna let her finish this. Let's block the bromance off. Joni, you got the cows, I got the bromance. Boy, they know the drill. Flossy automatically goes to her place. Phyllis in here, her calf followed suit. You guys are 10:20. What happened?

We went to Target. I got like a whole bunch of Christmas stuff.

Oh, you did? Nice.

All right, I need to go upstairs and take stuff upstairs. Will you go put this where we're doing the Dremel stuff? Gonna go Dremel. We are done with the used, um, mineral feeders. We're taking a screw gun— we're taking a screw gun and screws to their stall, and we are going to get this put up. We won't have time to fill it with minerals just yet, but we will get these put up, and then after breakfast we will put the screws in. We have 18 mineral feeders and gonna go eat breakfast, and then we will come back and do the minerals. They're already checking them out. That's Belle. You're a good girl, Belle. Let's, let's store them a special place where nobody won't rip Done with breakfast, and I am going to get Henry, get some minerals, and get filling up the minerals. They have all the minerals here, and as you can see in that time-lapse, they were going crazy for some of them. So I guess they needed them. This minute— this is the mineral program from Advanced Biological Concepts. I'm sure we'll leave the link down in the description. And we, um, we use this same program for our cows as well, so it's for ruminants. On to the next project, which is putting together a shelf in the garage, and then I think the garage will be complete. And then I'm coming for it.

Mama's saying, Josiah, let's get the calf up.

Oh, here we go.

Oh, he's jittery. You can't get him? He's strong. He's strong already. You need help?

Yeah.

Oh, Jess, I'll help you. Goodness, takes two strong boys to pull that calf. All right, one of you push and one of you pull.

There you go.

Almost 2 gallons of milk from Phyllis. All right, 11:30. Let's sit down and see if we can't get this edit done so we can go back out and get some more— get these sheep out. You think we can get the sheep out today, Josiah? I like that attitude. I think so. I don't think it's gonna be that hard. 2:15, lunchtime. Good progress on the edit. Hopefully I can get done, do a little bit before supper. But anyway, I should be on schedule to at least be able to work after supper. Did find a shade cloth for the wrestling ring for the luchador. Nice green 7-foot shade triangle. That's gonna look really nice out there. Burgers from the farm, caramelized onions from the farm. This is looking delicious. Hey, go easy on that barbecue sauce, man. That's a hot item. That barbecue sauce, Anna, is killer. He's gonna eat it like— he's gonna eat it like it's a side dish.

No, I'm not.

About an hour till supper. Done editing. Let's get these sheep out. First, mow path for the fence. What are you guys doing?

We're just checking on them and petting them. I put the halter on them. Of course.

Good.

Of course. In our love. But they've eaten out of almost every single one of these.

Oh yeah, the mineral update, guys. You line that whole wall, just temporary until they're out of the stall. They've eaten every single one of those minerals.

Yeah, it looks like it.

17 minerals they've needed.

Um, there's a couple that don't look real touched, but this A, they've been really hitting the A.

Ask Grandma Judy.

That's how most alfalfa We should keep trying the pellets then. You're not supposed to feed copper as a part of another mineral, but only as itself. Otherwise they'll overdose on copper. Is that what she's eating right now?

She's eating copper floppiness.

Wow.

Remember, um, Violet wouldn't.

Yeah, it's Christine.

Goodness.

I, I'm just trusting everything that I've read about that. Cuz people have said like they can die, they can eat too much copper, but I think that she knows what she's doing. But I've also read other things that said like what, they'll die without copper, right? Like look, she's got it all over her mouth.

That's a Pat Colby thing to give copper. Copper is a Okay, I got the fence up. We just get them a little bit of grass here right out from the stall. Uh, we'll just keep going, clean up our garden area, clean up our other part of the yard. I don't know, another week or so, give us some more time up close with them.

Okay, Belle is just going to town on A, and she goes like this with her front paw. Wow, I don't know what she's doing.

We should have done this right away. Okay, well, that means we need to get the Luchadors theirs. Yeah, turn on. Okay, it's showing full lights there. Put that on, put the tester on there.

8K.

Okay, go test it down there a little bit. How are we gonna get in here? You— okay, go ahead, test that. 8K. Good. I don't know how we're gonna get in here. I guess step over with a bucket.

Yeah, because—

or we can just have to come from the outside and turn it on right there. It's gonna be a pain for a little bit, Beck. Only until— no, yeah, it'd be easier if the Energizer was over here, but our power source is there. We'd have to run a drop cord over the door, which probably wouldn't be that hard.

Wait, how about we do this? Ladder steps up it.

Doing okay.

So let's let them out.

Okay, let's turn it on.

It's off.

I'm turning it on.

Okay, open it.

So we don't need to hurt them out, we just need to let them get out there. Are you sure?

You can lead it.

We open the door and ain't nobody— we've been worried about them escaping this whole time. It's good. We're gonna have to leave. We do not want them to have pressure and bust through this fence. You think it's worth the trouble to get an extension cord just Yes, since they're gonna be in here a week. Yeah, because we come down here, what, twice a day?

Yeah.

Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep! Come on, come on!

Okay, I just went to get the ladder to set up the camera on a time-lapse and they came out. There's two out.

No, don't come to me. No, you're going to get shocked.

It's okay, it's okay. Let them get shocked. They need to train.

I know, but they were coming to me cuz they saw me and they like me.

Oh, I know.

I hope I didn't just ruin all of that.

Yeah, you were sitting there and they, they came over to you. They were trusting you.

Come on, it's okay.

Come on. I don't think you ruined much of it.

You might have ruined your tag.

What'd he say?

Well, we weren't able to train them to a bucket in a week like we'd hoped. That was in case, you know, somebody got out, we could lead them back. This fence is hitting real hard, so we're gonna just count on that. Look who's out and about. As soon as we left, they got out, ate them some grass, got them some direct sun. I bet they'll sleep out here. What do you guys think? Happy we got the sheep out in the sunshine, direct to green grass. Oh, I told you guys they'd love that plant. Look. It is all gone. All gone. Enjoy your night. I guarantee they'll sleep outside in the cool of the evening.

Yes!