The Best Goat and Sheep Part 2

It's been too long.  Since I've seen my favorite goat and sheep.  I think they have probably been eaten, actually.  However, I now know their actual breed!

To recap and bring folks up to speed:  Last post I discussed my favorite goat and sheep, Best Goat and Beyonce, respectively.  Since relating their exploits, I sorted both Best Goat and Beyonce into the correct pens and asked Farmer Bill about what kind of breeds they are.  I also quit sheep farming to become a carpenter.  In this post, I will relate the sorting of the livestock and how I feel about farming now that I am no longer a farmhand.  I will also include any pictures left over from the summer.

So Beyonce the sheep is probably some bastardization of a South Down - basically Vermont Sheep.  This is a joke among old farmers about how a lot of Vermonters just mix in any and all sheep breeds and bully the consequences.  Some farmers go for purebred sheep or goats, while others just go for sheer ovine volume.  South Downs originally came from Sussex, England in the early 19th century to Pennsylvania.  They are excellent breeders, but not the best milkers.  This makes them suitable for a farm where the sheep are bred for meat.  More lambs, more meat.

Beyonce

Best Goat

Best Goat is an Alpine Goat, not a Thuringian.  They are basically milk goats, but Best Goat, as a male on Bill's farm, is destined for pretty much one goal, stew.  Perhaps kleftiko, a greek recipe cooked in a coal pit, historically by bandits.  There is not much left to say about him really.

Beyonce and Best Goat were both sorted into the male and female pens by yours truly about a month ago.  Beyonce had to be flipped over in order to determine her gender.  Best Goat was so clearly a buck, his alpha male malevolence did not warrant a flip check.  Actually he had a ruff along the spine of his back, so almost definitely a male regardless of caprine temperament.

So once you've determined the goat and sheep's respective genders, you can sort them into male and female pens.  The ewes with lambs under a year old get their own pen (below).  Other separations can be new inductions to the herd (to quarantine until they've been dewormed), the feeder (described in a previous post for June 16th), or orphans (who demand additional attention at feeding time).

So sorting was one of my last tasks as a farm hand.  A few days later I moved down to Providence to start work as a carpenter's apprentice.  Perhaps I will write continue to write about the differences between being a carpenter and a sheep herder.  There are many.  

Anyways, about a month into not being a farmhand, I started to realize how much I miss being surrounded by sheep.  Here's why:

I visited the farm this weekend and instead of a hubbub of voices and cars, you hear the low murmur of sheep going "meeeeeh."  Occasionally other sounds pierce the sheepish murmur.  Tractor = time to hay.  Goat screams = babies soon.  Fighting horses = BAD NEWS.  Each sound carries a particular meaning, carries weight and relevant information.  But the cars and the hubbub of city folk have no meaning to the individual.  Petula Clark calls the meaningless roar of traffic the gentle bassanova of the city.  I felt more at home dancing to the slow exhausting waltz and occasional horse fighting duets of the farm.  

Of course, the city has bars and cafes and theaters and museums and music and a job with a future.  So, while I miss the sheep, they will have to wait for my life to slow down again.  Until then, farewell sheep.  It's been good.  

The Best Goat and Sheep Part 1

I've meant to do this for a while, but it's time to introduce you to my favorite individual sheep and goats.  While in the past, I have mentioned my favorite group of farm animals, the baby goats.  I might have discussed the pig Petunia, but she has long since become a temporary fixture on the Old Country Inn's lunch menu.  There are actually two animals in particular I think are pretty great.  One is a sheep and one is a goat and they are both pretty cool.  

This post is actually going to be less inclusive of facts than usual.  The reason for this is that Anne (my landlord/boss's daughter/friend's mom/raiser of sheep and goats) has gone to bed.  My boss has probably been asleep since 8, given that he wakes up at 4.  When I have a question about sheep or goats, either Bill or Anne will have the answer.  I intended to explain the breeds of my favorite sheep and goats, but alas, my internet research only revealed how difficult a task that is.  Without Anne or Bill, I must postpone that part of this discussion.  Even worse, I had to make up the name of the restaurant in which Petunia now resides.  

This is my favorite goat.  I think he is a Thuringian Breed, a German milk goat.  We deliver our best hay to a farm that raises these guys - purebred Thuringian goats.  Compared to the farm I work at, that place is Buckingham Palace - inbreeding to make even Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex jealous.  The rams at this farm have their sperm tested annually to make sure the Thuringian line is still pure.

It's royals like Edward and purebred goats who are going to be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.  

Right.  So why is this particular goat the best goat?  For one thing, he has a goatee.  For another, the fur on his back stands up when he is angry.  See that white goat munching away in the background?  When the white goat fought the best goat, Best Goat's back hair bristled like a mohawk at CBGB for ruminants.  Both goats reared on their hinds legs and clashed horns.  They actually use the base of the horns, so it's more of a coordinated head butt.  

In general, you want to burn off horns when the kids are young.  This is safer for all involved, but if you do it wrong, you end up with horns like Best Goat's, all twisted and stunted.  The base of the horns are still solid, so Best Goat is not defenseless and can hold his own in a fight.  

This guy is the best sheep.  I don't know why, but she tries to eat my gloves ALL THE TIME.  Even if I am literally feeding her and her bros their hay, she will try to eat my gloves.  This batch of sheep is all fat lambs.  Each one weighed about 60 pounds, which is a lot for a youngish lamb (I don't remember how old, but probably about 8 months or so).  I had to pick each one up and put in it in a trailer.  Meanwhile, the fat lazy son of the farmer we bought them from told me their names.  They were all named after singers.  I lifted Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, and Edith Piaf. I'm going to name the best sheep after Beyoncé.  

That's not because the real Beyoncé regularly nibbles at my Home Depot brand gloves, but because both Beyoncé and this sheep are top of their class.  Beyoncé the woman is both an amazing vocalist and dancer, consistently pushing the boundaries of pop.  Beyoncé the sheep, meanwhile, has gained at least 10 pounds in a week.  


NOTE:  This is part one.  I am going to fact check my assumption that Best Goat is a Thuringian.  I am also going to try and find out the breed of Beyoncé the Sheep.  In Part 2, I will discuss the results and explain the mysterious term "Vermont Sheep."  Finally, I give you an unrelated picture of my boss and some coworkers herding a newborn calf and her mom.

It's been raining off and on for the first month and a half of my life as a farmhand.  This means that we haven't been able to do the main thing I came up here to do: throw hay.

This week, however, we had a solid 5 days of sunshine with only a few scattered showers.  That meant that for 5 days, we worked like mad to get the hay in.  We drove tractors, tossed hay, loaded hay, unloaded hay, stacked hay and generally did everything conceivably possible with hay short of eating it ourselves.  In short, we made hay while the sun shone.

I really want to talk about the process of making hay.  Unfortunately, it's actually pretty boring.  It's alot of hard work and riding on tractors.  Someday, I will finish the infographic I'm designing in a perhaps futile attempt to transform haying into a fascinating conversation topic.  Today is not this day.  Today, I give you pictures of tractors, sheep and a cat.

Up top is the biggest tractor, hooked up to a baler.  This gather up hay and spits out square bales, already tied.  It actually has a catapult on the back which launches the bale into a trailer.  The dude attaching a new hydraulic hose to the gripping arms is Bill, my boss.  Below is a gripping arm tractor in action, lifting round bales.  Round bales weigh about a ton. 

So in the mornings and evenings on a farm, you have to do "chores."  This means the everyday feeding and watering of the animals.  I do the morning chores for Anne, whose farm I live at.  This week I'm also doing the chores for her sister's farm up the road.  It's pretty enjoyable, because the animals are always excited and the little goats are pretty darn cute.  Even though I haven't been the one to feed them in a while, the goats and sheep at Anne's always start towards me expectantly, only to stand there dejected when all I have in my bucket is water.  

Yesterday, however, the sheep's attention was captured by something that wasn't food or someone who might possibly have brought food ever in their short lives.  The sheep were fascinated by Hobbes, the barn cat.  I have no idea why, but the went up and just touched their noses to him.  Went up and just sorta...tap.  Almost a nuzzle but not quite.  This whole thing made me realize, I really have no idea what is going on with sheep.  I thought I got it.  Sheep are sheep, they eat hay and most plants but not prickers and nettles.  They have a four chambered stomachs.  They follow the guy with the bucket.  A dead sheep is pretty heavy and when the live ones are hungry, they are a resounding chorus of meeeeehhhhhh.  

But this list does not explain why the sheep seem to worship Hobbes like a tiny god.  

Today I'm going to talk about goats instead of sheep.  Well, mostly about goats.  

To be specific, I'm going to talk about THESE goats:

In case you're wondering, the guy on the floor is a cat, not a goat.  His name is Hobbes and he one of the barn cats.  Though a barn cat, he ends up in the house on a regular basis and we are bros.  Although he keeps sneezing and rubbing his nose on me.  And clawing up my leg, demanding love when I am trying to finish my coffee before work.  

Overall, Hobbes is not a goat.  The dudes sticking their heads through the fence are goats.  They are actually young goats (kids) and are being kept in the feeder.  A feeder is an inside pen where a selection of young ruminants are kept.  There are multiple reasons for their isolation:

• To keep them from drinking their tired mother's milk 
• To build up their strength on hay and corn, which has more fat and protein than grass
• To keep them from getting worms
• To prevent the male goats from impregnating their mothers (does)

Think of the feeder as a control room, allowing the goat farmer to organize the goats for the best results.  Also for the good of the goats, actually, as worms and inbreeding and continuous milk demands on mothers are not good for the herd.  

These specific kids are a mix of oberhasli and boer breeds.  Oberhasli are Swiss milking goats, while boer are South African meat goats.  Boer goats have some of the most muscle in the current goat market, according to Anne.  The mix allows for brownish coats with a white stripe.  The white ones are  more boerish, the brown ones more oberhasli.  Or such is my understanding.  

Anne is my employers daughter and my landlord/host.  I live at her house and work for her dad, Bill.  These goats are raised at Anne's, then shipped to Bill who will eventually take them to the slaughter house.  

Which is sort of sad, these goats are beautiful.  

WARNING: THIS NEXT SECTION CONTAINS MATERIAL NOT SUITED FOR YOUNGER AUDIENCES

Goats, however, are assholes.  This is the exact word from not one, but two farmers (plus Anne's son, who is not a farmer at the moment).  They are headstrong and unruly.  Some of the mothers won't let their kids drink their udders, so get really big, swollen udders.  Just because they are assholes.  

Aight.  That was it for questionable content.  

For some reason, of the animals I've been in contact with over the past few weeks, these goats are my favorite.  They are curious and playful and gorgeous.

So next time you are eating sausage, think of these young goats.  Shed a tear.  Remember that they were once fine specimens of boer and oberhasli and refused to stand still for the photograph below.  

I'm going to talk about sheep death again.  I'm working on an infographic about the finer points of hay making, but it's progressing slowly.  Until then, sheep.

Barns are huge and simple on the outside, complex and confining on the inside.  I imagine there are different barns for different farms, but my employer's barn works like this:

• The top level is a large hayloft.  There is a chute in the middle for hay which descends to the middle level
• The middle level is where the more demanding animals (carewise) are kept.  Also the shearing room and corn storage.
• The basement is open at one end for a small herd of sheep can shelter.  The rest of the pens down here are unoccupied except for a pair of evasive kittens.  

The middle level is fascinating.  The pens are divided by sheep category.  This is something I'll get into later.  For now, the important pen is for nursing mothers.  Only ewes with suckling lambs go here while all other ewes go to the basement.  Lambs who are suckling go in a different pen.

Two days ago, there was a sheep riot.  Like a prison riot, but with the lamb kind of shank, not the sharpened toothbrush kind of shank.  The older lambs got out and mixed in with the milking mothers. Once we sorted them out, we found a dead lamb.  She was either trampled or an existing condition was exacerbated by the shortage of food (that's just my guess I really have no idea).

The lambless ewe was moved downstairs.

Later that day, it was raining.  I was shoveling poop and dumping it out the back of the middle level into the pen of the basement sheep.  Sheep eat anything and will graze their poop piles for undigested corn.  As I took a breather, looking over the outside basement pen, I saw the xed out sheep.  

Blue x on her soaked back, she stood halfway up the refuse pile.  She was staring at the corner of the barn wall, a little down and to the left of the door.  I was pretty confused.  Then I realized that she was staring at the spot where her lamb had died.  So I turned around and went back into the barn for another  wheel barrow load of sodden straw.  

I'm doing the bi-annual cleaning of a pen.  In the pen are currently an ewe and her two lambs.  They are kept separate because the ewe cannot produce enough milk for twins. I told them my life concerns and they listened patiently.  The farmer said talking to the sheep is alright, the problem is once they start talking back.  

She was out there yesterday as well.  I accidentally threw a load of refuse on her and had to climb out down the pile to dig her out.  The farmer told me that once one of his farm hands did that and buried a sheep.  They didn't find her until four days later when the pile started to reek.  

So I've buried pets.  I buried a bunny we lost to a heart attack.  I lost many good fish to a black cat.  I lost a rat to cancer.  I lost her sister to a broken heart.  But I still have no idea what conclusion to draw from animal death.  

I don't know if she's still out there.  The farmer said they usually forget about their dead lamb after a few days.  So here's a picture of the puppy (Nick's dad's puppy, Molly) who keeps trying to interrupt this post to play ball.  In the movies, the dog always dies and the sheep...there isn't sheep death in movies.  This ain't the movies.  

Meanwhile, down at the sheep farm, everyone is asleep.  Somewhere across the driveway there is a pig sleeping, blissfully unaware of his future date with my knife and fork.  There are goats with distended udders dreaming of stealing from babies.  There are some chickens.  And then, having drifted off after counting themselves, are these guys.

So as it turns out, I have distorted the facts.  Goats don't dream of criminal activity.  The pig may not exist, I haven't actually seen him.  Sheep don't count themselves.  More importantly, everyone is not asleep.  Clearly I am awake.  

This leads the final distortion of facts:  At the moment, I am not down at the sheep farm.  Instead, the sheep farm is almost exactly 3.3 miles up the road.  Myself and the adorable sheep above are actually at a farm house owned by the daughter of my employer.  The sheep farm has way more sheep than the sheep in the above photograph.  It also had, as of this morning, a dead sheep.  

Today was my first day as a farmhand on the sheep farm.  After parking my bike and walking into the barn I was given two loops of twine.  

"Tie these around the hind legs of the dead one over there."

"Which one?"

"The dead one."  

So I did.  By the time I got back to the house with the currently sleeping lambs, I basically fell asleep, only to wake up at 12 AM.  

Allow me to recount a few things I learned today.  

• Sick sheep don't fare too well in the heat, the heat finishes em off
• Goats and sheep with kids and lambs are kept in the barn, as are mares being raised to slaughter soonish
• There are at least two cuts of hay.  The first time you mow a hay field, it's First Cut and yields twice as much as the second time you mow the hay field.  Second Cut is more nutritious with more leaves to stem.  
• Cows poop on the other side of the enclosure from their food
  

Now it's time for to rejoin the lambs, goats, chickens, and probable pig in sweet slumber.  Before I do, I am going to make a few promises.  First, I promise to provide some form of image with each post (OC).  It might just be more photographs of lambs, but that's not a problem amirite.  Second, I promise to follow up with in-depth discussion of various farm phenomena.  I have already begun looking on farming forums about why Second Cut hay is more nutritious than First Cut.  Third, I promise to update at least once weekly.  Finally, I promise that if you're okay with death and poop, this blog should be safe for small children (my youngest brother for example).  When it's possibly a tad risque, I will place a warning.  Like a black curtain in an art gallery.  Like so:

WARNING: THIS NEXT SECTION CONTAINS MATERIAL NOT SUITED FOR YOUNGER AUDIENCES

Basically sheep photography is porn for sleep.  A visual stimulus to make you sleepy.  Sheep Smut.