The work does not end!

This morning, I woke up at 3am, to be to work by 3:50. At 3:57 an ewe had been in labor and and dropped her twin lambs (pictured above!!) Both are cute little wethers, and are oh so cute! This was my first actual solo lambing; I have missed quite a few give birth or had others alongside me.

The bigger boy, was up and nursing within minutes, but the second lamb was a slow starter. Mom was slow to clean her, but finally she got licked dry and stumbled around for a bit, but I held him up to nurse, got some IG's in him and he was good to go! Just an hour before I arrived, an ewe delivered triplets as well! One of our show lambs had a single and all 12 jugs were full of lambs, singles, twins & triplets! We have a handful (aka "several") ewes still to lamb.

At 7:45 I hurried to class. I park at the beef barn (a mile from my class) but was able to make it to class on-time. A 2 hour lab, an hour to study, and a midterm at 11. But, I am done with studying and exams for a week! (kind of!)

Tomorrow we begin the AQ contest. It starts at 5:30pm tomorrow and we are doing the written exam and group presentation part.
On Saturday is fully the Lab Practical and the Quiz-bowl, which should last from like 8am-6pm. We get fed dinner tomorrow and lunch on Saturday so not half bad right? Plus if we win here, we go to regionals in Utah!

Small Updates

Kristie has 5 Broken & 4 solid :) (Yes it takes me that long to get info from my parents!!)

Here are some shots of the sheep I shot at 3 am!!! I am running out of energy doing this, and I can't imagine doing it full time next year... but I am getting used to it. Tomorrow I have an exam at 7:30pm, and as soon as I get home, it's bedtime... up at 3 am again!!! The first is a little wether that was born on the 19th and the second are two club lamb wethers out of our Club Lamb Show project. They are about 2.5 weeks old and very nice looking! I can't wait to show them this summer! We still have lots of ewe's to lamb. One of our ewes made the state newspaper (link here: Drama at the OSU Sheep Center) because she lambed in front of a HUGE crowd in the day (which is rare for sheep, they like to do it at night). Thankfully, she lambed healthy twins!

Back to the rabbits.... and something I am very excited about.... I am getting a Fuzzy Holland Buck from Susie Cederlof (Wooly World Rabbitry: link). He will be coming on March 1st. When I go to bring Roxy home for spring break, I will breed her to him. He will then continue to reside up with me at my house @ school, since my parents are very dead set against a wool rabbit. I've always wanted one though!

That's all I have for now. School wise, it's Week 8. Two big exams and three big papers due this week.... *sighs!* But, I have my next term's schedule planned out and I should have a relatively easy(ier) term! YAY!

Kristie kindles!

Kristie kindled yesterday to 9 babies! There are some brokens but that is all I know for now.


I have news on Maid Dignified's litter... my parents get updates every 3 days or so. There are 2 brokens, 2 steels and 2 blacks. They are starting to hop out of the box!

My non-rabbit related rant +

Roomates!

I've had my share since coming to college. The good and the bad.

Last year, I was supposed to move in with someone from Texas. She was a very nice gal, but her hometown, Houston, got wiped out by that Hurricane -- so she went home, like two days before school started. I moved in with friend since I've known since kindergarten. It wasn't a bad roomate situation, but she took the "being away from home" very hard and wasn't very sociable. So I moved in with a girl who I had met at the beginning of the year. She was in my major and we got along very well.

In May, us and another girl had decided to move in together. We wanted a 4th roomate so we searched all summer and our friend had found a girl who needed a place very bad; we were her only option.

So, that we did. And it was soon we discovered our friend was not exactly the best roomate. So, in less harsh words, we made her move out. It was a mutual decision and it was rough; but it was something that needed to happen. That was around winter break.

Now, in the meantime the girl we picked as our 4th roomate wasn't the best either, but we lived -- because she was doing a lot better than our friend. But now new things have been arising and I'm not so sure if I am willing to replace these two with two new roomates, people we wouldn't know that well....

So.... I'm going to announce it, with hopeful wishes that my roomate and I can become the Sheep Unit Herdsman for this next year! I have already talked with the current herdsman and the manager, so they know I want it, but they don't make any final deicsions until spring break or so. Wish me luck! It's a bittersweet job, but its something I'd rather have than what I have now! If that happens, I won't be going to Michigan State this fall... which makes me sad, but its something I could live with.

Pictures!

I'm always picture heavy, but these last couple of trips we were far to busy "going going going!" with little time for picture snapping!

The college-age folks at the Pacfic Northwest Young Cattlmen's Tour! There were 120 "young cattlemen" who went on the Industry tour, probably 80% of those were university students. At the cattlemen's college on Saturday, there were over 400 people present as that's how many seats they had and there were still people standing. Thanks to the OCA, WCA, Simplot, Beef Northwest, Northwest Farm Credit Services & the many others involved for making this trip happen! 1/21-24/2010
The Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas! We were in Texas for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Convention from 1/27-31/2010. It was a very informative convention, filled with lots of fun and city sightseeing. We also visited Dallas & Houston, so I got to see some of the biggest cities in the US all in one weekend! Thanks to the YCA for helping us with our expenses. Sadly, Oregon State lost to Kansas State in the Academic Quadrathon, but we tried our hardest. We had a rough first round about 'history & politics'! The cattle judging was also very unique, a lot of classes with breeds we don't see up in the northwest.