Tomorrow is going to be a sad day. It is time to say goodbye to my lambs. They have been a real pleasure to have and I would love to be able to keep them but they are all boys and its only a matter of time until they get really butty and unpleasant. I’m also quite keen to not have many animals through he winter months for quite a few reasons. Not spending a fortune on feed and not defrosting water being a couple.
Never having had any sheep before its been really hard to work out if they are ready to go or not. I’ve been seeking advice and generally get the same answer – squeeze their back and if they feel too boney they aren’t ready. Seems straight forward but what is “too boney”and how hard do you press. I’ve decided its going to have to be one of those things you learn from experience. I think they might be thinner than ideal but we shall see. I wanted to take them before the butcher gets Christmas Crazy and is too busy to deal with them.
I’ve been investigating getting sheep skins cured as well so will be sending their fleeces off to a company in Devon who will make them into rugs. Hardly anyone does this anymore and the abattoir will usually take the fleeces as a perk and sell them on abroad. I’ve had to apply to Animal Health to get permission to buy them back from the abattoir. They were really helpful so hopefully all will be well and I will get a nice memento of my boys.
The turkeys are still growing and eating constantly. I’m hoping that they won’t get as big this year as we had a load of 10kg plus ones last year and that is just too big. We have taken measures to make sure that doesn’t happen and have much more girls this year and they don’t get so big. We also didn’t get the chicks till a month later than last year so things should be ok.
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