January Farm News

Year of the Sheep:

When we left the Earle Family Farm, we brought to our new home in Cornish “Otto” a two-year-old ram, I had become quite taken with.  Otto was born on the Earle Farm our first winter working there, and he was immediately a very friendly lamb, an unusual trait for a sheep.  I was determined to keep him that way, and spent a lot of time in the sheep pen indulging his desire for chin scratches.  I eventually put a halter on him, and would lead him around, sometimes just for fun and sometimes using him to help guide the other sheep from pasture to pasture for rotational grazing.  Unfortunately, the eventual fate of all little ram lambs is the butcher.  As the fall slaughter date approached in the fall, I felt heart pangs, and was desperately trying to find a way to keep Otto alive.   The morning before the lambs were headed for slaughter, Tom Earle came out of the back pasture and told us the big breeding ram was dead.  We had no idea what happened, and it was completely unexpected.  Tom just found him belly up in the field, but it meant Otto could stay on at the farm another year, as his breeding replacement.  So, Otto stayed.  People warned me Otto should not be trusted after being allowed to breed, that he would become unpredictable and mean.  We always kept a shepherd’s crook next to the sheep stall, and taught never to turn ones back on a ram, or you might lose your knees.

  Kyle and I took a couple of months off from the farm as a winter break before returning in February for our second year there.  It was on my mind while we were away Otto might have changed into a big mean ram, but I found him unchanged, although now substantially larger as a full-grown ram.  Of course, during that next year my attachment to him grew.  We acquired our dog Homer that year as a puppy, and he spent a lot of time licking Otto’s face, and Otto even would stand still for Homer to jump up and over his back to fetch a frisbee.  A good party trick at the very least I figured.  But summer skated by, and the inevitability of Otto’s death neared.  He could not stay on for a second winter of breeding because he would be genetically too closely related to those ewes.  Tom suggested we look for someone to buy him, since he was now a proven breeding ram with an exceptional personality.

We posted an ad for Otto.  We got a response, and the day the potential buyer was supposed to show up Otto went lame.  No one wants to buy a lame sheep.  The vet diagnosed it as likely foot rot an unappealing diagnosis for any buyer and it seemed Otto’s destiny was again the butcher.  He limped around for about a month, until out of the blue Kye and I found and made an offer on our farm here in Cornish.  I don’t remember the exact timing but seemingly overnight Otto stopped limping.  When our move was finalized, Tom told us he would give me Otto as a parting gift.  It would be perfect we thought, our farm was coming with 6 ewes that the previous owner used for sheepdog training.  Before bringing Otto home, Kyle spent a lot of time building a fence to divide him from the ewes as we didn’t want our sheep numbers to multiply. We would decide on castrating him or not at a later time. I did have a passing thought that the fence Kyle had built looked a little low, but didn’t want to be critical of his first project on our new farm.    We put a tarp down in the back of Kyle’s jeep, and stuffed Otto in for the ride down to Cornish.    

The next thing we learned about ewes that haven’t been around a ram for a long time, is they all go into heat simultaneously within 24 hours of being in proximity of a new ram.  The ewes were shameless.  Within a day of Ottos arrival, all six of them were standing with their butts rubbing back and forth against the dividing gate to entice him.  I came home from being out and called Kyle in a panic, Otto was out with the girls.  Kyle had last checked on the sheep no more than an hour before I found him loose, and they were still separate.  I rushed out to the field and grabbed him by the neck and dragged him into the barn where I locked him behind a solid door. We later found hoof prints on the dividing gate, he had climbed up and over it.   Kyle called Fryeburg Vet and we put the tarp back down, put Otto again in the Jeep and took him to be castrated.  The vet told us after waking up from surgery he hung out in the aisle with the resident cats enjoying kneading his wool.  The vet also told us to keep the sheep separate for at least three months to let the procedure take full effect.  Of course, I felt bad for Otto and imagined him being lonely only a few weeks in to his recovery.  I thought to myself “what’s the worst that could happen”, and I let him out and stood there to monitor things.  He immediately walked up to a ewe and tried to mount her.  I dragged him back in by the neck and waited the full time period like we were told.  

Time went by and Otto and the girls got to live together, one big happy family.  On April 1st I walked out to the barn to do morning chores and heard the unmistakable sound of lambs in the barn.  We had dismissed the long-ago hour free for all, and had completely forgotten there was a small possibility of offspring consequences.  Two lambs!  Kyle thought I was playing an April fool’s joke on him, until my face told him I was serious.  As panic was setting in about the potential increase in flock size we were looking at.  Before my mind could run totally out of control Kyle wisely suggested we should go hiking for the day and worry about flock size later. 

We are going into our seventh year here in Cornish, and although our animal menagerie has shifted from 9 sheep and a dog, to 1 horse, two sheep, a dog, two barn cats, and a human child, Otto is still here and friend to all creatures of the farm, and has never been lame again.

It was a crazy year with more demand for produce than we have ever experienced in our short farming careers.  We are considering a couple potential changes for 2021 to meet the increased demand, including possibly attending a second market, hiring part time help, the flower share, and a few more small things in the works. 

SUMMER HOSAC FARM CSA sign-ups are open  www.hosacfarm.com/csa

-we are offering 20 spots for a flower Bouquet share this year with help from a friend with experience in growing and arranging flowers.  You can add this into a CSA share or just do flowers….

Thank you all!