Elias called and said that they have moved him out of the high country and he is on a ranch in Cimarron for two weeks before they move him again.

Yesterday we went to visit him for lunch, and it was a spectacular day.

Before we left, we had our second ewe of the season lamb, so now we have three babies on the ground.

Just so you don’t worry about those two new wet babies, I’ll explain. We like to lamb out in Nov/Dec and in March/April. I know it sounds crazy, because that is when the snow is on the ground. First of all, it is not that cold right now, and they spent the night in the barn and Luit had just let them out of the barn and she went down to the lower meadow to lamb. He kept an eye on them and they were brought in the barn, dried off and put under a heat lamp right away. We are not set up yet with all the corrals… to keep all the soon to lamb moms and babies in the nursery pen/barn, but we will finish that next week.

Anyway, usually they lamb in the barn, and we immediately pen them up together in a pen with a heat lamp, hay and water, so the lambs and mom can bond well. They stay separated this way for 2 to 3 days, so we make sure the lambs are strong and nursing well, sometimes we have to help them nurse to get started. This way we have completely eliminated the dreaded “bottle lamb” but Nonny always tries, saying “oh, we HAVE to take this lamb in the house!”

If we lamb out in the late spring, summer or early fall, those sneaky ladies will always go hide to have their lamb somewhere remote, and we can lose the lambs that way, or if the lamb is strong and doing well, they still like to eat and then fall asleep in the meadow, the herd moves on then a coyote can sneak in and snatch the baby.

Next week I have the last of the fat lambs leaving, 12 for breeding ewes, 12 for a fancy restaurant, and a few more, whew, then we will have more room in the barn.

Elias was on a 1600 acre, gorgeous ranch, that they lease out to graze his sheep, for a couple of weeks from time to time. (hint for those looking for a spectacular ranch, it is for sale.)

He was so happy to have visitors, and beer

and food

His 1500 or so sheep, as they have already shipped his lambs to the feedlot in Denver, graze on the higher ground of the ranch

while the owner of the ranch has about 200 fat sheep that graze lower down.

They were as fat as ticks.

It was amazing to see the difference in these pasture raised sheep, as compared to the “wild” sheep of Elias, who are constantly moved and have to work so hard for their food and warmth.

Elias is so sad, because his dear Princess was killed up on the high country before they moved to this ranch. He does not know what happened to her, and all he has left is baby Toby, who is not much help in herding the sheep.

Toby was happy to have more friends, and Elias was happy to have music. Non played Nakho in the car, and sang every verse. 🙂

Elias then showed us around the fancy barns, sheds and working pens of the ranch.

They lamb out inside these sheds in the early spring, and have pen separators and cute feeding areas.

It was extremely hard for me not to covet their covetous sorting and working chute, which I failed at of course, and gave Non the task of finding the manufacturer.

She found it, and the man is worried what is going to show up on his credit card. Ha! For those interested, the manufacturer is Sydell, in South Dakota.

Then we had to get home to put up everyone. His turkeys are almost ready to go to processing camp for Thanksgiving. (for those who are on the list, look for an email about when…)

This is the first lamb we had this season, born two days ago.