McKowen Farms

A couple of months ago we bought eight Katahdin sheep, all supposedly pregnant ewes. Well, when 5 of our 8 girls failed to deliver (literally) the very kind lady we bought them from over at McKowen farms offered to give us 5 replacement lambs.

 When we arrived we met this impressive dude, a 4 year old Katahdin ram. This picture does not do him justice at all.

 She has a really nice chute system built with a bunch of small pens opening into it. This made it really easy to sort out our lambs.

 One of her working corgis getting some shade under our car. Sometimes short legs have their advantages.

 After we got the sheep sorted, we hopped on her 4 wheelers for a quick farm tour.

 Once we got out in the field, a little lamb started calling and running straight for us. It was Lambie-pie, her bottle raised lamb. Lambie-pie was one of the lambs coming home with us, but first we had to promise to make her a dairy sheep someday. Real homemade sheep feta? No problem!

 Her livestock guardian girl was super sweet and silly. 

 This couple of adolescents ended up on the wrong side of the fence. Oops!

 It's like sheep-topia!

Really cool looking tractor attachment. What is this thing for?  

 Then it was time to load up my car with the lambs. We were getting 4 ewes (including Lambie-pie) and 1 really nice young ram with a set of very promising....assets. If all goes well, he will be our sire for next year's set of lambs.

 Once again, my Honda Element worked great for livestock transport! We spread a tarp on the floor and tied a piece of cattle panel up behind the front seat to keep us from having lambs in our lap on the way home.

 The lambs made the trip just fine. Jostling a bit on the turns, but otherwise mostly unphased. They did take every opportunity to eliminate in the car. The smell was just lovely and by the time we got home, we were very glad we'd spread the tarp. Ick!

 We decided to rename Lambie-pie, Rhubarb. I think it fits. 

Once we got them home, Nina was the first to come and greet the newcomers. The others came over and checked them out, then went back to grazing as usual.

Our newly enlarged flock! 

15 sheep total: 13 ewes, 2 rams.