Wooly Breakout!

Here's a look at our farm bell on Thursday night to give you an idea of what it's been like here since the last post. The temperature has ranged from 9 to 35 degrees.


All week long we've had snow, rain, snow, etc., so it was just a matter of time until we had a wooly breakout. The Wild Rose Farm Rambouillet ewes basically just walked over and out of their ice covered electric net fenced area and into the pasture. We keep them confined to smaller areas with access to round bales of hay to keep them from nubbing down the pasture grasses once they've gone dormant for the season. Sheep can really do a number on pastures with their ability to bite right down to the dirt (remember the western range wars with the cattlemen?), so this is a graziers way of avoiding that problem. Except when the fence loses it's charge! Grazing animals seem to know almost immediately when the electricity goes out.


Here are the happy grazing ewes wandering randomly around the field enjoying the sunshine. They got out yesterday. Today the temperature went up to 45 degrees, so we'll be able to re-set the electric net fence and put them back on their hay bales .....


The fence was pulled out and draped over the paddock rails to dry off.

Yesterday you couldn't see any grass under the snow & ice but with temperatures steadily rising overnight, tufts of grass are everywhere.