Monday, May 09, 2011

In high cotton

I just love all the crimpy wool on my beautiful Bonny's head!

Before you start throwing stones at me, remember that when your pastures are looking like this, OUR cool-season grasses will be all dried up and brown. Then I'll be the one lusting over YOUR rich, green forage! But for now, we are definitely in high cotton; sitting in a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

That's it for now from . . .

8 comments:

Sabrina Wille Erickson said...

I can't help but envy your spring grass! lol
Beautiful photos!

Mom L said...

I just keep thinking what a wonderfully lush buffet your sheep have! I'm very happy for them.

Nancy in Iowa

Michelle said...

I must admit that my sheep are enjoying this lush buffet thanks to my husband's fencing efforts last year. Before then, this pasture was enclosed only by a single strand of electric tape to keep horses in; the sheep were limited to the small wooded lot or the lower pasture, which doesn't have such nice growth because it is the late summer sacrifice pasture for the horses. We have a third pasture that is still electric-tape-only; no plans at this point to make it sheep-useable.

Anonymous said...

Michelle, my girls are currently on a dry lot with a little occasional green grass offered and grain and good grass hay. We are almost done fencing an area that looks very similar to yours. Should I transition them slowly on to it?

Michelle said...

Ruth - YES! I started off with just a half-hour on green grass with my sheep, and graaaadually increased the time until they could safely be out on it all day. Several springs ago I almost lost a ewe to grass tetany (hypomagnesemia), so now I am super-careful. Others are not with no ill effects, but "once burned, twice careful"!

Franna said...

Are we going to have a "hot" season this year???

Jenny Holden said...

Wow those lambs are looking big and well now. They look happy in the lush grass but watch the fleeces. I had mine in a long lush field up in Scotland and I did get some wool rot! But then it was an extremely humid atmosphere and rained pretty much every day in July and August. They were fine once moved to shorter grazing but I guess the fleeces just never dried properly in the long grass, some even gained a green tinge!

Michelle said...

Thanks, Jenny. They are wetter at the moment than I like them to be, but I did leave them in on Saturday to dry out as I don't like them constantly wet. Today is cloudy but no rain, and the next two days are supposed to be dry as well.