Morning Chores

It's July 5th and the temperature will get into the low 90's today.  We decided to get out in the morning and do some work before it's really hot out there.  The ewes and lambs have been separated now for several days and the noise level is down, but they're still calling to each other.  Here's one of our good mothers with her lambs on opposite sides of the paddock fence.  We have to use the livestock panels to keep the lambs from slipping through the fence rails.

The ewes get shade in the barn and the lambs head up to the shade of the pine trees on the hill behind the barn. 

We did some work on our Rambouillet ram this morning.  He has small horns. or "scurs", and one of them was curving in towards his head just behind the right eye.  We removed the tip of the horn using obstetrical saw wire.  We slipped the wire behind the horn, held his head tight, and using a back and forth motion, sawed through the horn.  Care must be taken not to cut back where the horn is still alive and growing.  The horn is not "living tissue" at the tip, so it's like clipping a fingernail, but still rather annoying for the ram.  The things you learn on this blog!  

Saw Wire with handle grips ........