Well, the Bluefaced Leicester ram has been turned out with 50 of the Scottish Blackface ewes!
We will have little Scotch Mules born in March and April!
Can’t wait!
Tis The Season
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Category Archives: Ranch Activities
More New Sheep!
Last weekend, we took a seven hour drive to Camrose, Alberta to visit Ostara Farm, owned by Danny & Kim Boyco. They are Scottish Blackface breeders. We purchased a registered yearling ram, “Ostara Flaithri 32A” (view his pedigree) and a registered four year old ewe, Ostara Ciara 27X (view her pedigree)to add to our Scottish Blackface flock. I will add a photo of the ewe soon.
Yearling ram, Ostara Flaithri 32A. (Photo credit: Ostara Farm)
Our new Bluefaced Leicester yearling ram.
On our way home, we went around by Lucky Lake, SK and purchased our first Bluefaced Leicester ram from Brad Peters. Now we can start producing the UK famous Scotch Mules!
It was a most enjoyable trip! The fall colors and scenery everywhere were beautiful. After picking up the BFL ram, we crossed the Diefenbaker Lake on the Riverhurst Ferry which was a first for us.
It is a cable ferry on highway 42, linking the town of Riverhurst on the east side, to Lucky Lake on the west side.The ferry leaves the west side on the half hour and takes about 15 minutes to cross the 1.5 kilometers. It leaves the east side on the top of every hour and runs 24 hours a day till the lake freezes over, usually in December.
Arriving at the Riverhurst, Saskatchewan ferry.
Out in the middle of Diefenbaker lake on the ferry.
Arriving on the east side of the lake.
The Riverhurst Ferry is Saskatchewan’s largest ferry, with a length of 35.6 metres (117 ft), a width of 14 metres (46 ft), and a weight of 90.7 tonnes. It carries a maximum of 15 cars on each crossing. It is powered by a computer controlled engine and powers a central drive cable. There are three guide cables, two mounted one foot from the left and right sides, and a middle cable running underneath the hull.
“Riverhurstferry2″ by Saskjon – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Barn Burner Show, Olds, AB
Last Friday, I travelled out to Olds, Alberta with Teresa Walker and her daughter, Jo Walker of Furze Farms to attend the Barn Burner Show that is put on by the Alberta Sheep Breeders’ Association. We were made very welcome by the committee and the other producers. I would like to thank them for their warm hospitality and for all their hard work in putting on the event.
There were 3 classes in the show – Terminal Rams, Maternal Rams and Market Lambs. The Champion Terminal Ram was Jordan Livestock’s yearling Suffolk ram; the Champion Maternal Ram was Avery Katahdin’s yearling Katahdin ram and the Market Lamb class was won by Furze Farms with a Dorset ewe lamb.
We were pleased to have 2nd place in the Maternal Ram class with our January born Dorset ram lamb. Our Dorset market lamb wether was in the top 3 of the 80-109 pound category.
Blair Dow judged the ram classes and Randy Smith judged the market lambs. Thanks to both of them for judging at the show.
Also, thanks to Rolly Bateman for showing my other ram lamb for me.
Jelaine, Teresa and Jo
Showing in the Maternal Ram class.
“McDermit 404B”, placed 2nd in the Maternal Ram class.
Market Lamb wether.
Spring Lambs
Spring lambing is just about wrapped up for this year. We have 7 ewes left to go. It’s a good idea to carry a camera in your pocket when you go check on the lambs. They can be quite entertaining!
Shearing Day 2014
Yesterday was shearing day at McDermit Ranch!
A HUGE THANK YOU to our family for your help and hard work! Logan, Nolan & Sarah, Carson & Rebecca, and grandkids Brooklyn, Tyrell, Taylen and Hunter made it the most fun, enjoyable shearing day in 29 years!!! Missed little Cooper – maybe next year.
Also, thanks to the hardworking shearers – Lorrie Reed, Laverne Struck and Dave Hunter. I don’t know how you guys do it day in and day out!! Between the 4 shearers (including Logan) they did 345 ewes and 9 rams in less than 8 hours!
The weather co-operated with a nice, sunny, calm day. However, overnight we we got about 1/4″ of snow but it didn’t get colder than -4C so the sheep were fine.
(Click on the photos to see them fully)
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- Logan shearing a ewe lamb.
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- Left to right: Dave, Logan, Laverne, Lorrie.
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- Brooklyn (4) picking up bellies and pieces.
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- Tyrell (4) running the hydraulic wool packer.
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- Rebecca with 2 of her 3 cute kids, Taylen (2) & Hunter (1).
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- Sarah taking a turn filling the catch chute.
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- Nolan running the hydraulic wool packer while Rebecca manually packs the bellies and pieces in the bag. You can’t see him, but Tyrell was in the bag too, and you should have heard the giggling!
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- Carson filling the catch chute with ewes.
One Ewe Left To Lamb
We just have one ewe left to lamb for the winter lambing group.
Come on #802! Git ‘er done!
The next lambing group will start in April. Looking forward to the warmer weather. It sure has been a cold winter.
McDermit 802U Waiting To Have Her Lambs
Lamb Antics
Busy, busy – we have had 101 lambs born in the last 10 days! This young ewe lamb was standing on her mother’s back when the ewe stood up. She stayed there for about 5 minutes, trying to figure out how to get down. She finally got the courage to jump off, lol.
Lamb Gymnastics!
Some of the new lambs soaking up the sun in the barn doorway.
Snow Drifts
We have had a lot of wind lately, which has created some pretty cool drifts as well as a place for some of the ewes to get shelter behind. The drifts aren’t so handy to have around the bale stack though.
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- A Useful Snowdrift
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- Loading Bales Onto The Shredder
Lambing Time
We have a new crop of purebred Dorset lambs on the ground! The ewes started lambing around Christmas time so it has been pretty busy around here. Some of the weather has been extremely cold ~ like -35C ~ and the wind chill made it feel like -50C! It makes for lots of trips to the barn to check and bring new lambs into the nursery.
We had our family come for the weekend a couple of weeks ago, and our little grandkids, Brooklyn – 4, Tyrell – 3, and Taylen – 2 enjoyed feeding the bottle lambs.
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- Brooklyn
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- Tyrell
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- Taylen
We are excited to see how this year’s lamb crop turns out. We used 3 new rams aside from the Shaw ram, who is a proven sire. There are some very promising lambs again this year. We will have a pen of top quality ram lambs on offer by May so check back with us later for updates and pictures!
Lambs At Children’s Christmas Party
Randy’s workplace, Brandt Ag, asked him to bring some lambs to the Christmas party for the children of the employees. So this past weekend, we took a couple of lambs in for the kids to pet. There were also alpacas, dogs, goats, ponies and of course, hundreds of children! Oh, and I better not forget Santa, Gainer the Gopher (the Saskatchewan Roughrider’s mascot) and a “polar bear”.
Lambs at the Brandt Children’s Christmas Party.
Winter Feeding
Well, it looks like winter is here to stay. We got a big snowfall on the Saturday of Agribition – November 16. The ewes are still grazing out in the alfalfa regrowth and are quite happy out there. As long as they come in full at night, we will leave them out there. When the snow gets too deep for them to find the feed, we will start to shred hay for them.
We hitched the bale processor up to the new Kioti tractor and tried it out. It worked really well for shredding the hay down the fence line feeder for the market lambs. They figured it out pretty quickly.
Agribition Week
We will be at the Canadian Western Agribition later this week in Regina, from Thursday to Saturday, November 14-16. We are taking 4 Dorset rams and 4 Dorset ewes to show, as well as a pen of 2 commercial Dorset x Cheviot ewe lambs for the sale. Come visit us there! This is the first time we have ever taken sheep to Agribition so we are looking forward to it.
Coyotes And Wolves
Our ewe flock has been grazing on 160 acres of alfalfa regrowth on the quarter section south of our yard and the lambs are grazing on the quarter section west of the yard. This fall, even with the quardian dogs, we have been having quite a bit of trouble with coyotes killing big lambs and even mature ewes. Two weeks ago, our predation specialist confirmed that one of the ewes was killed by a wolf. We found another ewe on Friday that the wolf got, so we brought the ewes closer to home yesterday.
Driving The Ewes Home
Building Corrals & Windbreaks
Lately, we have been building some new corrals and windbreak fences. We want to at least get the posts in the ground before freeze up. We can always nail the boards on after the ground is frozen.
Logan Pounding Corral Posts
On Saturday, we completely finished the corral north of the lambing barn. It has windbreak on the east side and fence line feeder on the west side. Our worst winds in the winter come from the east/southeast, unlike when we lived in Alberta where the winter winds came from the north/northwest. The east winds here usually bring storms and precipitation.
Ready For Windbreak Boards
Air-Nailing The Windbreak Boards On
The Completed Corral, Ready For Sheep
Hauling Hay
We rented a Haukaas 10 bale hauler for the last two days and Logan finished hauling in our hay. It’s nice to have that job done. The Haukaas is a pretty slick machine. It is self loading and unloading and it just rows the bales in the hay yard. 
It’s Fall
It’s hard to believe September has come and gone. The leaves are changing color and the days and nights are cooler. We have had frost 2 nights so far. Hopefully we have a nice open fall and a long time before snow falls. Summer seemed so short this year because the snow didn’t leave until sometime in May.
We had a ram out with some purebred ewes this past week so will have some lambs born in February.
On Saturday, we moved the flock across the road into 160 acres of alfalfa regrowth. They should be able to get a month of grazing out there.
Ace – 3 Months Old
One of our Great Pyrenees dogs is getting old and slow, so we recently bought a pup who we named “Ace”. He was born the end of July and he is a Great Pyrenees x Maremma x Akbash. We put him with a pen of ewe lambs and he is bonding nicely with them.
Moving Sheep To New Pasture
This evening, we rounded up the whole flock……….
and moved them up the road……….
to their new, fresh pasture.
Spring News
Well, spring FINALLY arrived (about a month late)! So life has been very busy here on the Ranch. We have been pounding posts for more cross fencing…..just wrapped up spring lambing….. got pictures taken and posted on the website of some of the January ram lambs that we are offering for sale…..sheared the flock yesterday….. and hauled 9 big bags of the wool to the collection depot. Now we will be getting ready for our trip to Barriere, British Columbia for the 2013 All Canada Classic sheep show and sale at the end of this month.
Below are photos of some of the January born ram lambs. See our “2013 Rams For Sale” page for more photos and information.
Where Is Spring??!!
It’s been a really long winter and we have had record amounts of snow for our area. We weaned the January born Dorset lambs on Saturday. It’s hard to believe that a year ago, when we weaned the lambs, there was no snow at all.
Here is a picture of the newly weaned lambs.
Below are pictures comparing the handling system between this year and last year on the same day. Pretty crazy! Needless to say, we couldn’t use it to wean the lambs.
The Fall-Born Lambs Have Arrived!
The fall-born lambs arrived between September 29 and October 10. It was beautiful weather and they are thriving. Their mothers had lambed back in January…. were weaned in March…. and rebred at the end of April/first part of May. One of these “super-ewes” as we call them, is 10 years old! The lambs are sired by herdsire, Shaw DAE 09W.
Some of the lambs basking in the morning sun.
