Horses are good company -- The Witcher

j00j asked about sheep and/or 4-H. My family has had sheep and other animals for almost as long as I can remember. My parents moved us from town to a hobby farm before I was in school. We raised sheep as a hobby, showed them in 4-H, and sold them for meat. My parents still do this, only without the 4-H part. We did many other things in 4-H also!

Sheep are pleasant, easy going animals. I find them calming to be around especially in the winter when they are munching hay in the barn, snow is falling outside, and the whole world seems so peaceful and just as it should be. From year to year on the farm, very little changes. The sheep have their lambs, the lambs grow up, the seasons change. Some sheep are friendly and some are skittish. Bottle-raised lambs in particular will come right up to you since they associate humans with milk. (We have some older ewes that get mastitis or whatever and don't produce milk; bottle lambs are a pain to have to feed every 4 hours though, so this situation is best avoided if possible.) I did most of the animal chores when I was in high school, after I got home from school. I enjoyed this work and miss it; it's very grounding to be around animals and I liked the routine.

Shearing is done by a professional. He comes every so often and shears the dozen or so ewes that my parents own, and takes the wool away. Wool from sheep like these (meat breeds) is practically worthless, maybe a few cents a pound. Unprocessed wool in general is sold for very little; the expense comes in the processing, or so is my understanding.

It is neat watching lambs being born. They stand up pretty fast and make cute bleating noises.

The weirdest/most interesting 4-H and sheep story I have relates to "Lamb Lead". It is a competition intended to promote the sheep and wool industry. Contestants must wear a wool outfit (in the height of summer) while leading their well-groomed sheep in the show ring. Then they must answer questions from the judge about sheep and wool, such as the good qualities of wool, breeds of sheep and what they are used for, etc. I won this competition once at the county level; I wore a wool suit, and even got my hair done and wore high heels! So silly! I was *not* into putting a stupid outfit on my sheep though, which some people did. We did all scrub our sheep clean with soap and the hose, and once I used black shoe polish on a sheep's face where the shears trimmed some of its face hair a little too close. :O

Another weird thing about 4-H is that people could get really competitive about it, even though the stakes were pretty low. This was in all the livestock areas; parents would spend all kinds of money on animals to try and get their kids to win. I still don't get that. For instance people might spend hundreds of dollars on a wether (a neutered male lamb) to show at the fair, and the market price for this animal was maybe 95 dollars IIRC. Weird.

Mostly I have very fond memories of my family and friends associated with 4-H, the animals, etc. 4-H is very good program; it encouraged me to have friends of different ages than myself and to do a lot of different things. The fair was the absolute best time of year, very very exciting! So much stimulation! Sort of like fan conventions are for me now. And growing up on the farm was pretty idyllic, ngl.

Here are a few sheep pictures at my Flickr. :)