Éclair
The Ewe Lamb

I have always had a big spot in my heart for sheep. I love all the animals on our farm. There are chickens to cluck & pigs to squeal. 3 sheep (one of which I will talk about later). One rolly polly fat pet miniature goat but of course, he is not allowed inside the house! But we all love the dog! Also, we have turkeys just in time for Thanksgiving. Not to mention, the Christmas goose (we have a few of those!) Our most recent additions are two cows that my brother owns. One is a bottle calf and the other a young heifer. Oh and I almost forgot, we have rabbits too! But out of all the animals the sheep steal my heart!

So when my dad & another sheep man were talking one day. The other man mentioned that he had a ewe lamb that looked like the ram we had. It got my dad to thinking………………

And my dad act me if I wanted to buy the ewe lamb and I seed yes so he tolled the man that I wooed buy it and I did so. She is part hair sheep & part wool sheep. She
is about 9 months old and very cute. I named her Éclair because of her spectacular color arrangement! Yes, she looks just like the “Éclair donut”!! She is dark brown on the majority of her body, then she has a fuzzy caramel topping all on her back. And an adorable cute white face.

I love her!

She blends well with Rocky Roads, the ram that looks like her. And the other sheep Sinoman (Cinnamon) all “hoof” around together! I have so many other things to be grateful for especially my ewe lamb Éclair!

Written by: Zechariah

Moooovelous
Moments
Breed or Feed
?

We just could not wait for a bigger place to get started on the absolutely mooovelous project of “growing” our own beef. We have already added pig, goat, chicken, deer, rabbit, goose, turkey, duck & squirrel to our “home freezer” of meat that we eat. But many members of our family still favor the ole cow!

We have been splitting cows with a friend of ours for some time. We have split 3 in the past year. This last one we killed was the toughest to butcher of all three we have done so far.

Just over four weeks ago we got a Holstein calf that was just 8 days old. We are preparing to wean him at this time. His name is Flank. He weighs about 150 pounds. He will most likely be dinner or sold at auction at some point. Soon after we got him we put him on one and one-half bottles (each holding two quarts) of calf formula twice a day. Then we changed to two bottles twice a day. More recently we have changed to a one bottle ration split more or less evenly over two bottles twice a day. Now we are giving a single formula ration in one bottle twice a day. We are planning to reduce his feedings to a single feeding with one bottle prior to weaning. It has been neat to bottle feed Flank as I have never bottle fed an animal before. Not to mention how he follows me around and moos for his “momma” (me). He is real cute. I will have to be careful that he does not “steal” my heart!

We got a new Black Angus heifer Monday. She weighs around five hundred pounds and is named Bossy because she bossed around Flank. I think they are going to get along fine. Several of us have hand fed her. She will be breeding stock most likely.

I think that this will be an interesting project. Although I like doing cows, I must remember that they all belong to God.

Written by: Samuel