WHAT DOES A SHEEP FARMER DO? | A WEEK IN MY LIFE. Vlog 334

it looks bad yeah it's dark flooded everywhere no one would buy this anyway i'm gonna make a shearing film today are we quiet say hi boys [Applause] [Music] [Music] i have company today say hi boys i won't show dad because he's shy give him your names travis family travis and cameron dad surprised him this morning they live not very far from us and he's shipping our corn so they he surprised the boys with a trip to the farm and they knew exactly where they were when they drove in didn't you yep cool so now you'll be on on you on youtube you're okay with that i have their permission i have dad's permission awesome [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] out here [Applause] [Applause] that was easy [Music] [Music] okay that job's done so they're all separated now i got to figure out numbers to make my pen sizes right and then make a feed sheet for carissa so this is gonna just stir stuff up again so there might even just be some breeding some random breeding in the next few days that aren't even really on a cycle um but the females probably aren't ovulating so it won't really matter they're just figuring out life and partners [Music] [Applause] okay just printed off some new feed sheets for karissa uh we i basically change a feed sheet every time i rearrange those pens because it just does change uh how much each you know each group is getting so anyway it doesn't take long all right i'm gonna give this to her and then i'm gonna run across the road and start weighing market lands [Music] okay i'm over in the other barn and i have to weigh all these lambs they are about they're just starting their fourth month now uh they were born in april may june july august and i have shipped a few already but not many i'm not and none to the stockyard yet so tomorrow i've got three that are sold to a store and the rest are gonna get weighed and if they're 105 pounds and over they will uh they will go on the truck on wednesday night to get shipped to the sales bar so it needs thinned out this side's really full this side's not because it's my u lambs that i selected [Applause] so they've got oodles of room what i'm gonna do is put up this gate across there and those girls are going to go to the back of the pen and then any that are ready are just going to come into this into this catch-all pen and then they're easy to uh easy to load out of this pen so i'm just going to set up now and get working away at that and then i'll catch up with you guys when i'm done they're uh they always act hungry and they've got like full feed all the time they're just chatty like me i guess so i had to cut my weighing i just got done but i don't have anything torn apart we're getting mark just got a tornado alert on his phone so we're running over to the other barn and getting it all shut up so we don't get water in it and so it stays upright hopefully hopefully it looks bad yeah it's dark all right tornadoes yesterday in eastern ontario really yeah i guess i didn't go on twitter this morning i feel like i'm out of the loop okay i got my curtains up manually just because on automatic they are working but they're just a bit slow but it's getting dark and i just checked the radar it looks like it might split and go north and south of us like that the worst part chris has to mix one more load of feed and i said as soon as she's done bringing the telehandler shut the shut the door so everything's shut up and then that's about all we can do marx is putting equipment away kids we have had so much rain in the last 10 minutes or so we've had over an inch and a half we had like an inch and three quarters and we are flooded everywhere so we took a half an hour little crop tour just to make sure everything was on the up and up and standing up standing up in the fields uh we did get quite a bit of water so over the weekend and today we've had three inches of rain which is i think all of july we only had two inches so pretty significant i would say i'm just running into the barn making sure this barn is dry and then i'm running back over across the road and cleaning up the mess that i left over there before lunch but whoa it's wet we have a dry barn so just getting those up in time i think helped uh the only place where it kind of came in is just just straight directly under the curtains which are just directly under the chimneys which isn't the end of the world that'll dry up in no time [Music] i got everybody fed up and vetted up and cleaned up and now i can almost hear myself think so i was able to get this morning before the storm i was able to get 15 lambs ready so three will go uh tomorrow i'll get up early and get the trailer hooked up and head over to my abattoir those three will head to the store that i deal with and then the other 12 all load up wednesday night and they will go to the sales barn right now uh it is a holiday monday i need to get groceries and the grocery store is open thank goodness but it closes at five and we're sitting around four right now i cleaned up slightly i changed my clothes and i still cannot find i have like two nice t-shirts like t-shirts i can wear to town and i can't find them so i just put on a clean t-shirt of jacks arkells go arkells our counties are all mandatory masks so i am sporting my i have some viewers that have sewn me sheet masks so i've been wearing them loud and proud ever since well since i've been allowed out in public groceries food i hate putting them away [Music] um [Music] so [Music] okay what i usually do is set up my handling system and and put the lambs up a ramp uh but because i only have three in this group i think what i'll do is just put a halter on on them individually and just let them kind of run onto the trailer with me dragging behind so i'll uh put the camera on and give you guys some early morning entertainment at my expense of course [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that was awful i won't do that again all right let's go well that unload was much better than the last time i got here and i had a huge audience probably because i don't have an audience uh so yeah just dropping them off here it's about i'm going to say it's a 25 minute drive from home but it's a nice little spot and they do such a good job on our meet so happy to give them the business this is where i go [Music] well i am off to the parts store for the second time today i forgot to grab a an actual pod so the actual cutting pod and uh we got the wrong one so there's there's counterclockwise ones and and clockwise ones and i and i told the guy i wanted counterclockwise but we got the wrong one so i have the probably almost hour round trip 40 40 minutes round trip of this again [Music] hey we have it fixed again so hopefully this time we stay clear of the stones but it's all effects timed uh so one of those splines we call them splines i don't really know the term proper terminology that run in between these pods that spins the knives uh when he hit that rock it cut they basically cheered broke it sheared it right off uh and then the timing was all off and then the knives went flying and all the things went flying so um yep it's all fixed now he's grabbing the loader we're gonna hook up the loader get the cutter bar back on which is probably maybe worth turning off the camera for every time we fix this we say uh it's good as new we're not selling it now no one would buy this anyway this is when i shouldn't it doesn't pay to share no one's gonna want this when we're done with it i think we fixed it that means our day here is done we'll see you guys tomorrow good morning it's wednesday today is shearing day it's a big group and he's all by himself and uh i don't think we're gonna start till about 10 30. today are we [Applause] [Music] all right um [Music] um well this was unexpected but mark got the hay vine out and i guess we're cutting hay today as well as everything else that's going on today it's a good thing because our hay went from just bud last week when we first tried to cut it and broke the habit to now like flowered [Music] that rain just went boof and brought it on so yep we are now cutting hay which is exciting [Music] how was your first day with third cut hey well it didn't break we're not done yet why would you say that because we're almost done see when you say stuff like that breaks my bad well i was gonna say that you did a good job fixing the hayback that's what i was getting i always do good job [Music] good morning i'm just uh building up the nerve the courage the energy for a good three days of trimming so i'm just running in to grab my new hoof trimmers that my lovely friend megan sent me so here we go [Music] we are all set up ready to go my my ladies are ready for their pedicure so i'm going to get going here the other thing i'm going to be doing is giving them their clostridial vaccine um and they'll get two mils of tasbach it's all gonna get put in the gallagher and that's just so i can keep track i like to keep track anytime i give a medication or a vaccine and just to know when i've hoofed from them so i think there's 24 here i'm hoping to have those pretty much wrapped up by lunch and then if i have and then maybe i can start on the next pen and then i can get a real good like a third of them done today would be would be kind of the goal um see how they are they just got sheared yesterday i do shear them try to shear them before i hoof trim these ladies get large and they go in this turntable and the problem with this they just sometimes think they're too big to get in and then they'll put on the brakes and fun fact sheep have really good brakes and really good reverse when you're trying to make them go where they don't want to go so when they're all nice and sheared like this they just go right in and i rarely rarely ever have to get in behind them and push them which is nice so yeah a little bit about the table this is a vino turntable i don't even know if they make this anymore i've checked their website and i don't see it they've kind of got like a flippy one now so i don't know if this is discontinued you'd have to maybe contact someone from vino it's a vino unit out of holland uh but my guy is a local dealer about 10 minutes from me so i've had it since the first year i had sheep so i've had it since 2012. and it's been i really really like it yeah so we'll put the u in i kind of tighten everything up i'll flip her upside down and i flip them upside down it's easier on me i can do it a lot faster when they're upside down they're not flailing and kicking so a little like shearing when they're on their bums or upside down they can't move as much and then i can trim her feet real quick these are the shears i'm using today thanks to megan from quebec she gave me the falco shears these are my favorite but they're really expensive so i have also [Music] been using these ones which is a virgin and ball it's a little bit smaller so i kind of once you start getting dull i'll probably switch back to these ones but they're kind of hard when you're getting used to one it's hard to get used to the other because your hand just becomes muscle memory but yeah those are the tools we're using today and the turntable so sad face my brand new shears were they came broken so it's like bent i don't know if you can see it see this and it's like doesn't even so sorry megan i can't use them i was really excited okay i got one upside down here okay i'm gonna take a little bit off the off the very tip and then all i'm gonna do is take the sides of the nails off and then it'll make it just nice just like literally like a pedicure i'm just trimming up their toes so they walk nice and flush and it doesn't doesn't hurt them it's just it's all nail if you go too low then it then it would it would be like hitting your cuticle which is never good right that's why it's important to keep them still [Music] so you don't want to go too far [Music] so sheep's toes curl a rat some curl around that's why you got to keep them trim they don't really grow they grow like a tootsie roll instead of like just just nicely out but they're not bad they're very soft this makes my job easier quiet [Music] [Music] so can you see that so something like that [Music] so this taz back sub cue so i just put it i just slipped a little bit of her skin in her armpit and that's where i do it while she's upside down she's not she's not doing this because then sometimes you get too deep when they're really moving around so it's nice to do this job together okay i'm just going to scan her tag so i know she is [Music] good [Music] well we finished i think about i think i'm just shy of 50 today they were a dream i actually timed myself on a couple and it looks like just the normal ones where i don't have to work real hard are it takes me three minutes i had 24 done before lunch and i just did another 20 here in a couple hours there you are what are you doing what are you doing oh hi the one thing about the summertime and these bunks i love them i do love these bunks but summer management can be a brute if they leave even just a layer of feed on the bottom it turns to like muck so every morning or every other morning that needs cleaned out and then i have to bed because then the pen goes mucky [Music] um [Music] i just remembered that actually yesterday was day 17 for that breeding group that i started well 17 days ago so that was i divided these breeding groups in half so yesterday and today i should see some action if if they missed on their first cycle and if they're cycling at all right because in the summer they might not even cycle so i didn't see i didn't see too much activity yesterday so i'll have to keep my eye on them today while i'm hook trimming and i'll let you know if i see anything let's feed shall we [Music] [Music] chopper [Music] okay chores are done so i've got all the u's that were left over of the second pen they're in here i'm gonna do these before lunch even though it's already 20 after 11 and i'm getting hungry but i'm gonna get these guys done put them back grab that last pen of 44 and hopefully get them done today and then that group will be my whole group will be done in two days which is a record and goes to show you if you keep up with the hoof trimming it's much easier who would have thought [Music] chief [Music] [Applause] [Music] my [Music] okay guys it is i think my watch just died i think it's just after six o'clock uh i finally got everything cleaned up as good as i can do and everything's fed all the pens that i didn't get at this morning uh are fed now yeah it's been a busy week this is just a typical week when i'm not lambing and and i think a lot of people wonder if like when i'm not in the field and i'm just in the barn this week was a good week just to document how things quickly can change i don't plan half the stuff that ends up happening in a day but yeah so monday what did we do monday monday was the storm i guess but i had to weigh lambs tuesday i was trucking all over the place and i think we fixed the disc mine maybe tuesday wednesday we sheared and then yesterday and today we hoof trimmed and apparently today might also be frisky friday because there are a couple ladies that are attracting some boys they've been kind of running around all day i haven't seen [Music] i haven't actually seen any jumping but they've definitely got their sniffer going and a lot of panting today so that should be interesting guys thank you so much for hanging out with me this week next on the agenda looks to be hay mark is going to rake that tomorrow and we have danny lined up for sunday and we have cody our rapper lined up for sunday so i will take you guys along for the journey but for today i'm tired i'm gonna go to the house thank you for being here as always like subscribe we love having you guys a part of our life and our journey take care have a good weekend

Channel: Sandi Brock

Views: 137,140

Rating: 4.9399657 out of 5

Keywords: a week in my life, a week in the life of a sheep farmer, a week of sheep farming, what does a sheep farmer do, is sheep farming full time, fixing a discbine, weighing lambs, shipping lambs, shearing sheep, how to hoof trim sheep, how to feed sheep, what do sheep chores look like, modern sheep farm, modern sheep barn, sheep, grain, hay, third cut hay, hay 2020

Id: 6Hf_MIBRgdg

Length: 30min 1sec (1801 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2020