True love and water
Pat unloading Rambouillet bucks
Red Desert, Sweetwater County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Bucks in their working clothes
Red Desert, Sweetwater County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Today we tooks to rams out to the ewes. A sheep’s gestation period is five months, less five days, so bucks in on December 12th means lambs on the ground starting May 7th. We raise our own Rambouillet and Hampshire rams, who basically hang around all year waiting for their six-week breeding season. The ewes have a heat cycle every three weeks, so they are exposed to the rams for two cycles. In our breeds and climate, the conventional wisdom is that sheep will breed in any month with an “r” in it. We have a long winter, so May is the optimal month for lambing on the range. Everyone was glad to see each other, although for the ewes, it means five months of pregnancy and another five or six months of motherhood.
True love
photo by Pat O'Toole
The drought has returned, and for the first time since we started wintering on the Red Desert, we are pumping and hauling water for the sheep. Normally, they survive through the winter months by eating snow. We are ready to hold a “snow dance” in hopes of enticing the heavens to bless us with exactly the right amount of snow. My Dad says, “More sheep have starved to death in a snowbank than on dry ground.” Still, hauling water is a time-consuming and expensive operation.
Dry conditions for December
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Unloading the water tanks
photo by Pat O'Toole
Guard dog puppies at camp
photo by Pat O'Toole
