I have a couple of cousins who are documenting their weight loss journeys on their blogs. I think it's a great idea because it give accountability and provides an easy to access record of their successes and can work as a wonderful tool for evaluating whether whatever method they're choosing is workable for them.
:-) I'm more in need of a diet than either of my cousins- but- that's not something I really care about working on at the moment. Maybe someday it will be, but today I'd like to use my blog to begin documenting our 4-H lambs and their progress through this summer!
Chris picked out his market lambs on Saturday and yesterday he and Sam went and bought breeding ewes. We need those market lambs to be over 110 pounds by the end of July in order to be able to sell them in the 4-H/FFA livestock auction at our fair. Judging by the frame size of our lambs I think he needs to shoot for 130-140 pounds in order to have his lambs finished (appropriate amount of fat cover) by fair time.
The ewe lambs don't have to make a minimum weight requirement, but we would like to breed as many of them as possible this fall. In order to do that they need to be fairly large and have enough fat to begin cycling (ovulating). The Dorset ewes are smaller framed than our black faced sheep. Chances are that they'll be too small to breed no matter how we feed them- but we're still going to do our best to grow them as well as we can. I suspect Chris will show his Dorset ewe for showmanship and he certainly plans on showing her in breeding classes at the fair. I'm not sure what kind of weight goal to set for them. They should be about 110-120 by fair time- I think.
This morning we brought out the new digital scale that Chris purchased with some of his market lamb money from last year. I think we need to make a box for it so that it's easier to keep the lambs on top of the platform without holding on to them (and skewing our weights). So... the weight in results for May 12, 2001 are (drum roll please...):
Lily (bum) 55lbs
Flora (1163, Chris's Dorset ewe) 55lbs
Brisca (1173, Sam's Dorset ewe) 45lbs
Tulip (1123, Chris's Hamp/Suffolk ewe) 80lbs
Brutus (801, Chris's Caldwell lamb) 69lbs
Sheepy (1047, Chris's Boise lamb) 60lbs
Lambchop (257, spare market lamb) 79lbs
We're planning on feeding Rangen lamb grower this year. The bag we opened last night looked good enough for the humans to eat and the lambs seem to love it!
Sam was so excited about his ewe that he got up about 10pm and I had to walk out with him to check on her. Chris was up at 6:30 this morning because he felt the need to check too. :-) So begins our year...
3 comments:
Its more of an exercise in will power than a weight loss attempt. What do I love? Can I give it up for something I want more?
Can we place bets on our favorite sheep's weight gain and win a prize if our sheep gets fattest? You could make the winner a quilt or a bag. Let us "donate" money to the cause.
My money's on Sheepy. GO FAT SHEEPY!!! EAT! EAT! EAT!
I could send you all the carbs I wanna eat and you could give them to Sheepy to get him fattened up.
Wait, Sheepy's a girl, huh. Sorry Sheepy. I could send my carbs to help HER achieve optimum fertility weight for a healthy, non-image conscious Ewe.
I <3 SHEEPY!
Nope, Sheepy's a whether and a market lamb. You can vote for him. He's got my vote too- pretty heavy bone and a large frame for as light as he is today. He'll gain a lot. My other bet is on Lambchop. He's going to be a really big boy before he's finished. Tulip could outgain all of them... it should be an interesting race :-)
I totally understand the will power thing. It's a good idea to challenge yourself every so often. Every summer we challenge our desire to enjoy air conditioning and sleep in against our desire to get nice lambs to the fair! LOL
Wow, it sounds like lots of fun (and work) at your house! I bet your boys LOVE it--I know Sophia would. Tell Chris to send us pix!
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