Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

BantyChooks said:

I can upload pics directly from my computer... Upload file button, right beside submit.

Click to expand...

Gonna try that...


Kewl...tis working...thanks BC...MEGA thanks

New format, new ijit here and old dawgs gotta learn new tricks...

Photo uploaded is my two Dorper gals that are preggers and getting ready to bust in June...so SOON!

CanuckBock said:

Gonna try that...

View attachment 544641​

Kewl...tis working...thanks BC...MEGA thanks

New format, new ijit here and old dawgs gotta learn new tricks...

Photo uploaded is my two Dorper gals that are preggers and getting ready to bust in June...so SOON!

Click to expand...

You will do OK!

CanuckBock said:

Gonna try that...

View attachment 544641​

Kewl...tis working...thanks BC...MEGA thanks

New format, new ijit here and old dawgs gotta learn new tricks...

Photo uploaded is my two Dorper gals that are preggers and getting ready to bust in June...so SOON!

Click to expand...

Great!!

Don't worry... Took me a week and a whole lotta help from the mods before I managed to get around the new format. You'll get it.

Tara will you have some nice lamb (Dorper it is !) Ready for processing this summer? I would like to read your thoughts about it!

Heel low:

So we are back eh...sure we all will do OK but we're gonna whine...fur a time I bet!

What are the girls in a fluff about...they relined the door foam on my bus doors and now the doors won't stay closed too well and well, Emmy noticed the bus doors were open and put up the "Girl DOG alarm!" because something wasn't quite right at the Ranch.

My sister Leeta, an opera singer, an actress, model, fitness trainer, writer, athlete (she travelled the world playing volleyball) and all round health buff also enjoys a good wine, good food, a nice car, hair & makeup, ...

Here she is in her own television series. I am told she had this on the internet for sometime before it was picked up by Joy TV...I don't do videos on the Net or get Joy TV...so here's a link if you do want to see some of her shows.

http://www.joytv.ca/shows/our-city-tonight/

She did a pilot on this topic, oh maybe 18 years back but had to wait until a good friend of hers got involved and now the both of them co-produce this show. Looks like alot of fun too and I am ecstatic for her success. She always was a social light, knew the latest fashions, jewlery, best places to go to get fabulous foods, etc. so to see her doing this...totally in her element and so proud!

And so we get this straight...my sis is the CITY mouse, and I am the COUNTRY mouse...she's a Bentley Babe...I'm all about trucks (and maybe ducks too!). VBG


Speaking of ducks, new Mandarins have settle in nicely, the new hen has laid about six new eggs in the tree nest box, expecting her to begin setting on them anytime. Ruddy Shelducks are laying still, tons of duck & chicken eggs. So yeh, spring is on the go.


Went to our favourite place for Chinese last night and came across this great metal art of a dragon. What first attracted me to this building and location was these rain chains which are huge but beautiful!


I have a set of watering cans...I was getting the green ultrasuede some time ago and Joan had these watering cans and I was not sure exactly what they were...walked into Crappy Tire and voila, there were many rain chains and costly...holy cow!


Priced at $115!!! for a short chain of them. Can you imagine what these large buckets would cost? There TWO strands on each side of the building that I could see.

I am truly excited to announce...I have put in an order (sent a deposit off) for an Australian Dorper ram lamb...he will be from semen brought here to Canada and inseminated into ewes from a farm that is truly focussed upon production of meat aspects. I am looking at rams like Mickey Mouse and gasping...what meaty beauts. Possession takes place by August of 2018...so a ways away but oh my, what fun. This ram lamb will cost us three times what we paid for Boss Man, but here's to hoping he is more than three times as good. LOL The farm is biosecure like we are and about a hour's or so drive. Planning on looking twice at ram lambs and dams before choosing and we get, YES, we get first choice of the ram lamb crop...should be way over the top and to me, be like Christmas, Christmas in the summer time.

Some of these rams have sold for $10,000, upwards too of $34,000! Good gack...for a Dorper sheep...hee hee. but then one only has to look at those MEATY butts and you are lost cause. I have named him already, he will be registered as, wait for it...FERDINAND!!! Ferdinand was a code name used by the Australian Coastwatchers in WW2 and it would begin with the letter "F" for the tattoo year 2018.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Ferdinand

Seller has agreed and noted it in our contract. Also the Walt Disney short film (and original book from 1936 which outsold Gone with the Wind too) on Ferdinand the bull---running around smelling flowers instead of fighting...we hope he breeds our ewes before he gets too lax a daisy and sniffs, lazying around do nuthing much! VBG



Hauling out lawn ornaments, bit by bit and also doing clean up in garden and flower beds. Spring is here and we need to get things going outside.


I began my swimming end of April. Began at 30 laps, then next week later, to 40 and now to 50. At first, had to rest a bit after each lap and then went to two laps and rest, then four, and now up to six laps and a rest. Also able to do 1/2 lap of butterfly which makes me happy...butterfly is difficult and glad I can still do that. Also adding doing some breast stroke laps fast as able. Should be good for my cardio and over all health benefits of upping your metabolism. I go twice a week and hope to make this a life long habit. Love swimming and love being able to do it again...after a 20 to 30 year break was like I never stopped it. I use a chlorine remover shampoo and good conditioner but expect my hair will still be paying a price for the pool dips, but oh well...better to have dry hair than have nice hair on a corpse, eh. LOL

Girls go with me in the summer sub and quite enjoy the trip. When it gets hotter, they will have to stay home as I expect an hour to hour and half will be too much for them when the heat of summer is upon us.

Emmy & Lacy both celebrated their two year old birthdays...Lacy had breaded cod fish on her B-day on the fourth and Emmy had beef burger on the tenth when she turned two years old.


My mother's day present from Rick was a small dragon statue with a ball, reminds me of Lacy and her love of playing. Son gave me twenty bucks and I bought an all red and pink fingerling set of seed potatoes in his honour. Six new varieties to try out. Glad I put the cart full of seed potatoes in the garage last night as the cold would have harmed them. Still pretty cold at nights.



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Part 2 of 2


Rick now has the fish pond plants in and fish swimming about. All good to go, and the Dolgo is getting ready to blossom, and that will be where I take a photo of all the dogs we own at that time, under the flowering dolgo.


Took my two old Jacob ewes to eat grass at the geese yard. Regina is from my 2005 lambing (six horned Jacob ewe) and Nascor (five horned Jacob ewe) is from my very first lambing in 2003 and she was a triplet. They are looking pretty good for oldsters and have all their teeth still. Love how well trained they are, simply put a halter on one of them, Regina and lead them off to eat new growth. Anyone that says sheep or other ruminants ruin lawns is not doing it properly...you can see the difference every spring where the grass has been grazed by sheep or even goose and see the GREEN success of allowing the land to be sensibly harvested, maintained and cultivated. Places where the creatures don't nibble, is still not getting too green compared to areas harvested with a thought to sensible management.


Heavy rains and in some places, snow or hail to make the ground white...so too wet to let the geese out. Swans and Ruddies were out as they won't drill mud holes in the grass.


The two most pregnant Dorpers are looking preggers. Peanut looks to be having big twins or smaller triplets...we shall see as she is due in June as is Snickers. She looks to be having a single, same she had last year. I had hoped she would at least give us twins but no matter...she herself is a triplet but sometimes that is not passed on genetically. No matter, one good lamb is better than two or more weak ones, eh.


I suppose one would hafta ask the girls...whaz with bitey bites?



Doing loser laps on the weekends like normal. Take the girls and get ice cream, grocery shop and view the sights. Enjoying life to the fullest. Busy, always something needing doing but also enjoying life.


I weeded out the herb garden while Emmy and Lacy chased each other round about the new orchard. Laughed at the critters because Emmy and Lacy finally jumped into the water plant pond for a cooling dip and the two old Jacob ewes had to b-line down to see what all the splashing and commotion was about. Yeh, nothing DUMB about sheep, they are just as intune to the world as humans and any other creature is. Curious and interested.


Raspberries overwintered nicely and are good and green, all about growing. Happy on that...sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Watering the Egyptian Onions inside the greenhouse now...things want to get going on growing.

I am off then...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Heel low:

And last but not least...thankful to be able to post again but not as thankful OR gleeful as sheep are to be on the new grass...

So how do I know, cause I can't pronk like they do...just lookit these...


Bottoms UP, eh!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Aww, so cute!

I'm envious of how green and lush your grass is.

Heel low:

Akrnaf2 said:

Tara will you have some nice lamb (Dorper it is !) Ready for processing this summer? I would like to read your thoughts about it!

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Hmmm...are you HUNGRY Benny????

Maybe I should make you a sandwich??

Process a lamb...can't. We won't have any "Dorper lambs" born till this June.

Expected lambing dates for June 8 for maybe triplets or big twins and June 12 for a single...

I posted here on Jan 19 , 2017:

So 145 day gestation sheep calculator says...

Peanut bred on Jan 14 means lambing June 8

Melissa bred yesterday on Jan 18 means June 12

http://www.sheep101.info/201/ewerepro.html:
Gestation (pregnancy)

The average gestation length in sheep varies from 142 to 152 days. The average is 147 days. Individual pregnancies may vary from 138 to 159 days. There are breed differences in gestation length. The earlier maturing breeds (e.g. Finnsheep) tend to have shorter pregnancies than the late maturing breeds (e.g. Rambouillet). Ewes carrying multiple births tend to have shorter gestations. Male lambs and heavy birth weight lambs are usually carried longer than female lambs.

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Click to expand...

A year ago roughly (got the Dorper flock in May 2016), we have the six ewes we bought as fun lawn mowing pets (Dito & Decor) and breeding stock and a breeding ram...not sure when or if now that I have such an expensive and high ranking ram lamb coming next summer...if'n I will EVER have Dorpers for actual eating <<shrug>> and that's OK too. The dogs and I would be the only mutton munchers.

Rick does not like the taste of lamb, kinda like how I don't like the taste of liver.

August 23, 2016

I also can work now at getting domestic purebred status for Duro when I thought perhaps her offspring were going to be unregisterable...Dorpers are one of a few breeds here in Canada that can be graded up so their registry is not closed.


Boss Man bred Peanut and Melissa back in January...


I can fall head over heels in emotional love with the sheep long term and not think of any of them as "lamb chops!" Like all our breeders, destined to all die here of old age...sorta like I am hoping to.

Not sure I personally am the sort that could eat chops from a former alive Dorper from a line that sells for $10,000 to a high of $34,000. That's "meat" out of my price range & budget and I do not have issues with raising sheep of a standard for breeding over consumption. I am a pretty tiny operation compared to the run of the mill feed lots that produce lamb in bulk for consumption. But never say never as a dud might happen and then milk duds are good eats, yes?

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

You're back Tara, I'm back - thank goodness. I don't think I have another website move left in me. I'm used to being on at all hours and there just isn't anyone to answer on my usual threads. Can't take the slow start.