A Little “Lamb Love”

Posted on April 24, 2012 by

I’d say our Finnsheep lambs are well socialized.  Wouldn’t you?  Only two left to sell.  They went fast!

Bryn and Cailinn plus lots o' lambsCailinn and lambs

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Help Us Choose a New Farm Logo!

Posted on April 20, 2012 by

We looking for a new logo and would love your input!  Vote for your favorite and feel free to post comments as well!  

Black Pig LogoRed Pig Logo

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April Newsletter

Posted on April 18, 2012 by

Rolling Bay Farm’s awesome newsletter!  Great happenings to nourish you body & soul

Rolling Bay Farm April Newsletter

Farm News

Our big news is that the renovation of our farm stand is complete.  OK, it’s awesome!  From the 1920′s enamel cook stove snugged into a corner, to the bead-boarding and rustic wood floors – it is a fresh and inviting place to purchase your food and sundry essentials. This honor stand is the corner stone to our vision for Rolling Bay Farm.  A wonderful place to leisurely come, purchase the freshest foods and handcrafted items while being surrounded by the farm.  We’ll be slowly ramping up our offerings over the next few months.  Available over the course of this month:  eggs (always available!), handmade Soap Butter in lavender, sage lavender, bamboo, cucumber mango and a few other fragrances, and organic produce from Sol Farm – a CSA run by Kevin Block just down the end of our street.
Over the course of the summer we hope to expand our offerings to pork by the pound, more varieties of produce, Rolling Bay Farm logo wear (ya gotta look snappy!), fruits from our small orchard, jellies and jams, Finnsheep fleece and home baked goods.

April Happenings

All lambs have made their way into this world and are thriving out in our lush pasture.  We are all addicted to them and our daily lamb snuggle time!  Lucky about half of them are sold to either “fiber families” or as breeding stock and I hope to find the rest of them qualities farms to live on.  I would happily fore go lamb chops this year.  Lastly, in sheep news, I’ll be getting back my processed fiber from our very first shearing.  I can hardly wait to get it hand-spun and then knitted up into a garment that I will definitely wear with pride!
Mark has most of the garden spot prepped and has planted 3 kinds of potatoes, onions, carrots and beets.  He grows lovely beets!  More plantings to follow as the weather continues to warm.

Can’t get enough of Rolling Bay Farm news?  You can follow our active blog at http://www.rollingbayfarm.com

Upcoming Events

May Fresh pork will be available by the pound!  Starting around May 7th
June Sheep shearing this month.  Date to follow and viewers and fleece worshippers (I meaning buyers) welcome. New piggies should be arriving this month, too
July Let’s see what the garden grows Heritage turkey poults arrive
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Blinky’s Brush with Death

Posted on April 5, 2012 by

My day begins at 5:15 AM feeding the sheep their grain and the lambs their bottles.  I almost had a dead lamb at 5:30 AM.  Here is Blinky’s story.

I uneventfully put down three pans of sheep chow this morning and picked up snuggly little Vanilla to do her bottle feeding.  Most of the lambs are now nibbling at the grain.  Blinky, in particular, is a bit of a chow hound.  With Vanilla in my arms I watched them eating.

And then I noticed Blinky.  Because in all of the chaos he was standing stock still with a glazed over look in his eyes.  And then he started leaping in the air and shaking his head.  He did his standing still and then leaping numerous times.  I knew exactly what was going on.  He was doing the sheep version of a Heimlich maneuver on himself.  I figured he’d work it out.  But he didn’t.

After about the fifth rearing up and shaking his head session he just slowly sank to the ground and closed his eyes.  I unceremoniously dumped Vanilla on the ground and knelt by Blinky.  Shallow breathes, then nothing.  I rubbed his chest, nothing.  I couldn’t believe that he had died right before my eyes like that!

I pried open his mouth and stuck my index finger as far down his throat as possible.  While I didn’t feel an obstruction but it must have done the trick because Blinky started to gag right away and opened his eyes.

And I’m not kidding, within 10 seconds he has baaing at me for a bottle!

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Get to Know Our Lambs (bios on our babies)

Posted on April 4, 2012 by

Since we have a small amount of lambs this year it’s been wonderful to get to know all of them individually.  Here’s a little bio on each of them.

Luanne’s Lambs – the oldest Triplets (for sale)

These are 3 boisterous and confident boys!  They have excellent crimpy fleece and are all growing really well.  The two white lambs (Homer and Blinky) are noisy and curious.  Very acclimated to people.  L’il Blackie is a bit quieter and a little more bonded to his mom.  He is her favorite!

Snowball’s Lambs – Mixed Triplets (for sale)

Snowball’s litter all have a more open fleece and are generally very calm, grounded lambs.  The biggest lamb (Spot and black and white ewe) has stayed larger than her litter mates.  Groucho is an exceptionally mellow little ram.  By far the tiniest is a little white ewe named Vanilla.  She is mom’s favorite so you’d think that she’d be catching up in the growth department.  She’s getting lots of people time since I’m actively bottle feeding her twice a day.  Each time she chugs down an entire baby bottle!  She’s so sweet!

Mary’s Little Lamb (held back)

Well, she ain’t so little!  Lady has gorgeous fleece and is being kept back for our breeding program.  She is 2 ½ weeks younger than EVERYONE and she is the largest of them all!  At this point she is only 2 weeks old and very bonded to mom.  Her mom is a flighty ewe so I’m working super hard to make sure Lady gets tons of handling early and often so that she is friendly and easy to work with in the future.  Just a beautiful ewe lamb.

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Ride ‘em Pigboy!

Posted on April 3, 2012 by

I spent most of last weekend painting the inside of our new farm stand.  It is going to look sharp!  At one point Mark asked me to come out and help him give his sows a shot.

He had gotten Black Betty into a homemade squeeze chute.  So far so good.  Unfortunately she had been in there for a bit with Mark trying to inject her and she was a bit pissed off by the process.  The shot he was trying to give was a subcutaneous one.  OK folks, pig skin is TOUGH!!!!  The only easily accessible soft part is around the ears or the ear itself.  You try getting a needle subcut into an annoyed 500 pound sow!

Mark decides that I’m going to give Black Betty her  the shot while he tries to keep her still in the chute.  He figures the best way to do this is to sit on her back to weigh her down more.  Picture this:  he eases himself over the fencing and settles himself on her butt – just like the rodeo cowboys do in the horse and bull chutes.  And just like a bull she starts to try and buck and dislodge Mark.           

Now Mark starts to tell me to squeeze my hand through the fencing (holding a big sharp needle) and grab her ear for the shot.  Ummmm, no way! I totally know that given the thrashing head and no room to maneuver I’m either going to get my hands smashed or bitten.  I try to do it by reaching over the top of the fence but my arms are too short to really get in there.

Black Betty won this round and didn’t get her shot.  Mark must have felt really badly about tormenting his favorite sow.  When last I saw them he had out his pig back scratcher.  He has scratching her into total pig oblivion.  She literally swooned over onto her side and fell asleep where she had stood.

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Lessons Learned from Lambing Season 2012

Posted on March 26, 2012 by

Our first lambing season is over and I’m happy (and a wee bit surprised) to say that it all went well and every lamb is thriving.  It felt a little bit dramatic at the start, but I learned that most of that pain was self-induced and I will NOT do that again!  Here’s what I learned:

Use a Lambing Pen

I saw how quickly the sheep will play favorites with the first born lambs.  A lambing pen forces the bonding with multiple births and really minimizes the midnight feedings.  I keep my sheep in them for a week – until Mom get good and restless.  Keep in mind my pens are bigger than most.  They measure 6’ x 12’.

First Feeding and Bottle Feeding

Make sure all babies get that first colostrum.  Which might mean holding Mama for babies after the first born one.  I’ve totally perfected the” get on your knees facing the ewe’s butt, get her in a head lock with the right arm and put a lamb on the teat with the left hand” technique.  The ewes are pretty calm with that one.  I also found it helpful to be willing to do some bottle feeding while Mom’s getting her milk production up.  Supplementing a few times a day makes sure all are happy and you get to handle the lambs.

Heat Lamp = Good

If your stall is clean and the lamp adding warmth (not HOT) this is a nice place to take the lamb chill off.  Also a nice nightlight for the babies.

Be There for Lambing

All my lambs were born without my assistance.  Meaning, they all hit the round just fine.  But I would have lost one if I wasn’t there.  It was the last of a set of triplets.  Mom didn’t really pay any attention to it and it was born in the sack.  If I wasn’t there to tear it open it probably would have died in it.

Lastly

Lambs are way too cute!  Really!

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