I've had a very successful lambing season.

Hi everyone!
I'm so sorry that I haven't posted anything in a long time. I just haven't had the time to sit down and blog for 20 minutes! I've been soooo busy! Let me tell you all the things that have been happening around here since the last time posted anything.

I am done with lambing! Today I had my last lamb of the season. I am all done. This year I had 17 ewes that were going to lamb. All of them were pregnant exsept one. I have 15 ewe lambs and 9 ram lambs. all together I have 32 ewes. That's a lot! They are eatting a lot of hay and drinking a lot of water!

As much as I wish I could keep all of my sheep, I'm afraid I can't. We just can't keep all of them forever! I'm going to have to cull some. Mom and dad said that I need to keep my flock down to around 25 ewes. So I am going to have to call 7 ewes and the 9 ram lambs this year. I am going to try to sell some of them. I already know a few people who would like to buy some. And the remaining sheep that I can't sell we will eat. I never get sad when we have to eat them though. We give our animals the best life possible and when we have to eat them we do it in a nice way that doesn't hurt them.

To those out there who are new to my blog and who don't know about Jacob sheep, I will say more about them.

Jacob sheep can have 2, 4 or even 6 horns! They are black and white spoted and are very easy to take care of. Because of all the horns that they have on there head they some times will run out of room and they will get split eye lids. (This only happens with the ones that have 4 horns or 6.) They're horns can curve all around and some times grown into the head. Some times their horns can break off. I have a sheep who just broke off a horn yesturday. Often when their horns break off they will sometimes grow back. But if they do grow back it may be in a crooked way. Jacob sheep are a great sheep for people just starting out. They are a very hardy breed that can lamb on there own with little or no help. They do not need a lot of shots like other breeds. In the few years that I have had them I have never had to give them one shot. They also have a lot of wool. This wool is more valued by hand spiners. Because their wool is black and white it is rare to hand spinners. If you ever want to buy some of these Jacob sheep, I have a lot to sell and will gladly sell them. Next year I will have so many of them I won't know what to do! The freezer can only hold so much!

Let me list the traits that are desireable and the traits that are not desireable in my Jacob sheep.

Desireable: Horns that are not fuzed. Fuzed horns are horns that are stuck together and may grow into the head. I have some Jacob sheep that have fuzed horns. If a sheep has fuzed horns that trait will pass on to its off spring. Jacob sheep need to have black eye and nose patches on the face. Some of my sheep only have the eye patchs and others have both the eye and nose patchs. It is not commen for them to only have the nose patch. Some times they will only have one eye patch. ( I will post pictures of this) Jacob sheep also need to have nice colering. They look like they are white with black spots but really they are black with white spots. If a sheep as 60% black and 40% white, this is good coloring. (No two sheep are alike. Even the twins look different.)

Not Desireable: Fuzed horns that curve into the face. Split eye lids caused by horns that are not strait on the head. Many of my sheep have strait horns that have symmetry with each other. Missing eye and nose patchs on a Jacob sheep are not what a true Jacob sheep looks like. this trait also will follow to there off spring. I am going to call the ones that are missing these patches. Jacob sheep are not suppose to be one color. They are suppose to be black and white spotted. A Jacob sheep being one color is rare. I have a Jacob sheep that is 100% white. I am going to have to get ride of her. I was going to get rid of her but then she lambed! Her lambs looked like real Jacob sheep should look like! But still I am going to have to get rid of them. The white gene is in there blood. I think the reason the that she is white is because we must of inbreeded. When you breed a sheep to its half brother or a second cousin, things like this may happen.

I am sorry If I keep going on and on and on. I just really love my Jacob sheep. Anyway. This year I have had a really good year for lambing.I have had all my ewes lamb but one. I have had more ewes then rams and more twin births then singles. None of the lambs have died this year and they are all healthy! A really good thing about my jacob sheep is that they are able to lamb on their own with no problems. This year I didn't have to help my sheep with their lambing. I think Jacob sheep are a great breed of sheep for people who don't know anything about sheep. I had a lambing year that other sheep people dream about! If you ever want to get some of these really cool sheep, talk to me first.

All the rest of the animals here are doing well. Nothing as really been happening with them. My moms cow did calf. But other then that they are fine and doing well. I am going to end this post with lots of pictures of all my Jacob sheep. I hope you liked this post! I can't wait until next year!

This is my little brother Josiah holding a lamb. I hope you liked this post! I will try to update my blog more often. My birthday is next week. I am going up to my grandpa's house for a week so I might not by able to blog until I get back. I get to Join Facebook and Twitter when I come back. You can follow me if you like. Until then. I will see you later! Wish us luck!

Timber Creek Kid.

New lamb!

Guess what! Josiah just went out side a saw that a sheep lambed! It was one of my sheep. She had one lamb that is a cute little baby boy. This is this sheeps first time lambing. I really don't have anymore to say. I said everything I had to say in the post I made 30 minutes ago. So I will just put some pictures out. Here are three.

So Cute!

Mess Around Ranch Updates.

This is just a post to update all the animals with words and cute pictures.

My sheep have been doing very well. Since my last post, we haven't had any new lambs. But we should have some more soon. They all look so close to lambing. You can tell when they are close to lambing when there udders start to fill up. They will also start to act diffrent. They may go away from the rest of the flock or not eat when the others do. Its so cool to wake up in the morning and go out side a see a new baby lamb on the ground.

I remember the very first lamb I ever had. I was going out to do chores early in the morning just like I always do. I walked by to check on the sheep and there was a cute little white lamb on the ground. It was so cute! And very strange. Jacob sheep are black and white and can have 2,4,6 and sometimes 8 horns! But they are not suppose to be only one complete color. I named her cupcake cause she was white like a cupcake. This was two years ago. I still have her today. She is going to lamb soon. She wasn't suppose to lamb at all! Because of her being all white, the white gene could pass on to all her babies Then I all I would have would be white sheep. But she broke out of the pen and got in with a ram. We will most likely eat her lamb. Even if the lamb was black and white like a real Jacob sheep, she would still have the white gene. Here are some more pictures of my sheep. I can't wait for more lambs!

The sheep aren't the only ones who will be having babies this spring. My little brother Josiah has goats! They haven't had any babies yet, but hopfully they will have them soon! We are going to milk them for a few months. Are milking cow is taking a rest until she has her calf. Until then we will milk the goats. Josiah has to milking goats and one Piggmy goat. The Piggmy goat is the goat that got us into all of this. First a goat them a pig them sheep then bunnys and more goats! Here is a picture. Can't wait for them to kid. By the way, a baby goat is called a kid.

Elijah's pigs are doing great! Elijah is so happy! He named his pigs Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. (From the lord of the rings movie) The baby pigs are still about the same size and are getting nicer. I think Elijah will do a great job at the fair this year. I just wanted to put some quick picturers out there of them. Just so you could remember how cute they are.

I wish it was spring! So do the ducks. We all have our own breed of ducks. My breed of ducks are Khaki Campbells. They are brown ducks who are great egg layers. The ducks are fine as always. I'm just putting out a picture.

The puppys are doing great! They are getting so big now! Its hard to pick them up! Its just so much fun to go out in the mornings to let them out and play with them. They will be waiting by the gate wagging there tails and jumping up on the fence. You open the door and then there gone. Every dog loves to run! The other two dogs we have love to play with them. They always are having races around the house. Its a lot of fun to watch. Maybe I should show one of them this year at the fair. I should ask dad about that. Each year dad helps out with the dog show at the fair. Maybe he will know something about it. Anyway. Here's some pictures of them. This post is full of pictures!

Sorry. It was really hard to get a good picture! They just kept moving!

Today mom orderd baby chicks in the mail. They will get here March 22. We already have a lot of chickens, but we need a few more extra roosters for fair time. I will have something to post about then. Hopfully I will be done lambing by then. Its just one thing after the other here at the mess around ranch. To end this post, here is a picture of one of my chickens and my turkey Tom. Thanks for reading this post!

I forgot to say how the bunnys were doing! I will just say they are fine and put this picture out. I am going to check on the sheep. Thanks again for reading this post!

The Three Little Pigs.

Last Friday we went to West Point Nebraska to get Elijah is very own three little pigs. Elijah already had a pig named Wilbur. But last week we got rid of Wilbur and Elijah was very sad that he didn't have a pig. So dad said he would get him a new pig. He got three. Three baby pigs all to his own! Elijah is very happy! His Pigs are Herford hogs. They are called that because they look a lot like a Herford cow. My dad has a Herford bull that I have to take care. I looked at the pigs then I looked at the bull and I think they really do look a lot alike. I think Elijah is going to show them at the fair this year. This is his first year in real 4-H and he likes it! But after that dad says we are going to have to eat the pigs. We asked Elijah if he would be sad. He won't be too sad because after we eat them we will have to get him more pigs!

Everybody on the mess around ranch as there own species of animals. For me its sheep, for Josiah its goats, and for Elijah its pigs! If we ever have another baby what is he going to want? Maybe he's going to want llamas! But most likely we won't have another baby. Its just thought. But if we did...

Pretty soon we will be going to Valley View. We go there once a month and show them what we've been doing in school or 4-H. This time we are going to say some poems for them. It should be fun. After we tell them our poems they give us ice cream or cookies. I'm going to go work on my poem some more so I don't mess up.

Here's a picture of Elijah's pigs. They are so cute!

Busted, with Garaffes and Elephants.

It happens to everyone! Your keeping a deep dark secret that you don't want anyone to know about and then bam! Somebody knows about it. I wasin't keeping a deep dark secret that I didn't want anyone to know about. I was just keeping a secret that I didn't want mom to know about.

We all keep secrets right? Of course we do! Everybody has there own little secrets that they keep to themselfs or share with a friend. It could be buying a soda with out asking your parents or breaking a lamp and hiding it under the bed hoping nobody will see it. Me, Josiah and Elijah all love playing poker. We're boys, Its in our nature! For the past couple weeks we have been having late night poker games. Last night we we're going in to our club house in our room to play when mom came in and busted us. Now, the reason that we didn't want mom to know was because we were playing with real money. Now, come on, were brothers! We don't like to cheat each other. We only play with pennys and nickles. Maybe I dime every now and then, when you have a good hand and you really think you are going to win. We don't always play poker in the middle of the night. We like to play in the day time when we can. But its hard when you have sibblings who like to be there with you. Sibblings that want to play like there big brothers! But now that we're busted we won't be playing any more poker in the middle of the night, or with money. Money just makes the game more interesting! what's the point if there's no reward in winning. And we never lose that much. Most of the time we give everybody's money back. But mom doesn't like it non the less.

Our animals are daring! They want to make the most of life, be daring, live live on the edge! For example, our chickens, they love to ride my dad's bull all around the pen!

This morning I get up, get dressed, and get ready to go do chores. The side door was iced shut and wouldn't open, so we had to use the other door. ( Mom hates it when we use this door. ) But we had no other choise. Anyway, we go out side to do chores and there I see, in the bull pen, at least 6 chickens riding the bull. They we're on his back as he was standing up and moving around! Now chickens are born being great at balancing. They have really good grip in there feet.

When people hear the words: They get along like cats and dogs! They think, they must not get along very well! Not at the Mess Around Ranch! Our animals get along like Peanut butter and honey! They dogs will go over to the hay and take a nap, and then the cats will come to join them! They cats will get right up the our dog Marry and lie down right on her! And Marry will just lay there and do nothing.

We have so many animals here at the Mess Around Ranch. But why do we have so many animals? Where did they all come from? What started it? The answer, is Josiah's piggmy goat.

For over 2 years my little brother wanted to get a goat. Mom and dad didn't really know anything about goats and they thought that Josiah would change his mind and not want goats. They were wrong. Josiah waited 2 years learning about goats and asking mom and dad when he was going to get a goat. This was before we had sheep or the pig or bunnys or turkeys or even ducks! All we had was one milk cow and a few chickens. They day we got Marry goat is a day I will never forget! After that Elijah wanted a animal of his own. His own species. He wanted a pig, and he got his wish! Then I wanted to get a species of my own! Sheep. I waited a long time. I didn't just want any kind of sheep, I wanted a special kind of  breed of sheep. After looking for a long time I came down to two breeds of sheep. Of the two I chose Jacob sheep. But the closest sheep for sale was all the way out on the west coast! I could see it was going to be a long time until I would get my sheep. But them one day we found a someone who was selling all her Jacob sheep for cheap! They were only about 4 hours away. I talked to mom and dad. ( Mainly dad cause he has the money. ) And they said yes! So we all went up to get the sheep.

I have had my Jacob sheep for two years! In one month they will lamb. After I got my sheep then we got bunnys for Matthas and Lilli. And then we got more and more cows. And then just last year dad came across three milking cows for a great price! As you can see, this really is the one and only Mess Around Ranch. It all started with a boy and a little piggmy goat. Who knows what will come next?! Will it will be next? Will it be Giraffes, or Elephants?

Zoo

Last week we all went to Omaha to the Henry Doorly Zoo. We got to stay over night on a fancy hotel with a in door swiming pool. The beds were great! And the view was nice! I always like to give the hotels I stay in a rating. I would give this a 4 star rating. Only for stars because the pool was closed! They didn't even tell us. We were all mad and sad. Lilli was in tears. Dad went up to the front desk and talked with the manger. They said they could take down the road to another pool but dad said no. Instead we dad took us to the family fun center. I think we had more fun there then we would of had swiming. We got back to the hotel very late at night. We left mom and the two little ones there. We didn't get to bed until so late! But that doesn't mean we went to sleep! We had to share a room with Lilli and Mattias. Lilli kept talking and talking and talking! But lucky for us we had are secret tool. We had out mp3 players all the way up! I didn't get to sleep until 12:30. And if that was bad I had to wake up very early to go to the zoo. Me and mom had some 4-H zoo training. The rest of the family went to the zoo but they had to come home early and do all my chores! But they didn't do a good job. The hose was on the puppys were out The bull didn't have any water. But other then that they did fine.

All the animals are doing just fine. In less then a month we will have baby sheep and goats on the ground. That will be great! I love taking care of all the animals on the farm. The only thing that I could live with out is not taking care of the dad's bull. He has it up at the house all the time now and I have to take care of it. He drinks a lot of water! I guess I don't mind but he's up here 10 months out out of the year! Summer is a great time to take care of the chores but in the cold hard winter all the animals water jugs freeze and then you have to take it out and fight with it. That's the big pain with animals if you ever want to get them. It will be the middle of june and you will want something to do so you will get some sort of animal say, a donkey. Its easy in the summer but then when the first winter snow comes it gets harder to take care of it.

Well, I have to go. Guess who has to milk again today. That's right! Me. I don't mind that much because when we milk we get the reward of playing pirate game on the computer. So its worth it. I need to blog more often then I do. bye.

No Band With.

I am so sorry that I haven't posted anything in a long time! My family has almost run out of Band With. I am sure I spelled that wrong. I haven't been able to get on the computer for 3 days! I wonder how the cave men made it with out computers. I don't need to use the computers everyday or even every week. Its just nice to go look up something or check my email. So know that I am on the computer let me tell you all that as been going on around here.

Mess Around Ranch. That is what the name of our farm is and for good reason too! We just got two St. Bernard puppys! Not one but two! What is the matter with us! We were only going to get one but one puppy leads to another. The one was so sad to leave the other. So now we have four dogs on our farm. Can you belive it? When dad told mom that we got two she didn't belive him! At first she thought it was a joke. They are so cute! You got to love a St. Bernard!

Today me and my brother Josiah went with dad to town to go get parts for the deck. A few years back we went to Taekwondo and came home to see that the roof came in! Dad is fixing it right now! In town we got to buy some cool multi tools. I think we will use them a lot. 

Elijah just came in and he says he has had all he can take with Josiah's goats! I have had all I can take too! They are still out roaming free! They got out of the goat pen when we got all the snow. They were able to just climb over the gate! In one month they will have goat babys! We will also have sheep! That's the cool thing about my sheep at lambing time. They can have twins and triplets! We will have a lot! We will have to get rid of quite a few of them I bet. I have a number of sheep that I can keep. I will pass the line. We will eat them or sell them. Or trade them. My ram died a while back. I haven't found a new one yet. There are good things about my sheep and there are some really bad thing about my sheep. One of the really bad things about my sheep is when they stick there head through the fence is their horns get their heads stuck and they can't get out! I lost a sheep that way. She had a big crooked horn and she stuck it in the fence, triped and couldn't get back up. Some of them can't get their heads stuck because of their horns.

Its time to do chores and stuff. Me and Josiah have been milking the cow for the last five days, mom has been feeling sick. So we have been helping her out. I am going to end this post with a pitcure of the puppys. By the way, the puppys names are Lucy and Susan. Here they are! They are so cute!

Freedom!

I'm free! My three day sentence is over! I got in trouble a few days back and I lost computer games for 3 days witch is not so bad. It is not bad at all! I just started playing on pirates online. I like the game a lot! Mom is liking this because I have been waking up really early in the morning and doing all my chorses and getting all my school work done so that we can play. The game is so hard! Ever key on the key board means something! Me, and my two brothers have to share some of the keys! We work togerher to play the game. I am not that much of a gamer though. I would much rather play outside with the animals!

Soon we will have baby sheep and baby goats! I am happy for them! They will lamb and kid in March! I will post lots of pictures! The weather has been really nice for them!

Sorry! My little brother needs me and mom is out milking! I have to go! I am in charge of the little ones when mom is out milking. So sorry.

Kearney trip

Well it as I thought. Dad didn't buy the bale processor! But we did get the bunny! I will put a picture out soon. Dad did not buy it and I don't blame him. He saw it going down the road on the way there and said that it was junk. Oh well. The trip wasin't all wasted. We stoped at Walmart. The big black hole of doom. We got a lot of food and stuff that mom or dad would think was cool. I love the after chrismas sales. I don't buy much because I think I have all that I need. But some times I do buy somethings but not often. The trip was not bad is what I'm saying.

The milk cow Midnight is giving us so much cream right now that we are making butter. It is fun to make the butter but very hard on the hands. You have to turn it around and around and around! The winter is so hard on us all but harder on the animals. It is hard for them but they are strong. Soon it will be Spring and then they will all start having there babys. We still have a lot of snow on the ground and I think we will for a while. It is already late. We just got home and had to do all the chorses in the dark and that has made me tired. I think I will go to bed. Her is a picture of  Midnight the cow that we are now milking.