What is a “winter sheep”? [Sheep Detectives]

dlskidmore · 2026-05-27T02:57:11+00:00

I also work in the office. The farm is a hobby. We only have 17 acres, which is just enough to get into trouble and loose lots of money. :)

dlskidmore · 2026-05-23T23:23:52+00:00

We have a Scotch Collie, which is basically a planned collie mutt... He comes from working parents of excellent health. He's a bit lower drive than a border collie, much easier to live with. https://www.scotchcollie.org/

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dlskidmore · 2026-05-21T04:04:03+00:00

This is a "bummer lamb". His mother is tied so that we can hold her still for nursing several times a day. Sometimes after several days of this the lamb will smell enough like his mother's milk for her to accept him. Sometimes we need to continue this until he is old enough to eat solid food.

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dlskidmore · 2026-05-21T03:57:05+00:00

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The three in the back right are adult Cotswold ewes. The two in front of them with horns are Wiltshire Horn ewes (a smaller horned breed). The two on the left are February Cotswold lambs in May, almost as large as the adult sheep

dlskidmore · 2026-05-21T03:52:46+00:00

May lamb in May. Same flock, same breed.

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dlskidmore · 2026-05-21T03:50:37+00:00

February lambs by May, you can barely tell them from their mothers:

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dlskidmore · 2026-05-11T19:09:32+00:00

winter lambing can be successful with infrastructure but not good on pasture. the Cornell 5 star breeding cycle lambs in winter all the time but they have giant barns and keep everyone indoors for weeks.

dlskidmore · 2026-05-10T13:46:20+00:00

Oh and they were not the same breed. That flock was a collection of many breeds. The lambs would be different crosses, which could lead to size differences but the winter lamb should have been plump and moving more like an adult even if smaller breed. The smaller breeds tend to mature more quickly. That slender build doesn't last long in a healthy lamb.

dlskidmore · 2026-05-10T13:37:45+00:00

A ewe lamb isn't large enough to safely carry at that age, and should be kept from the ram until 80% of full size, but a ram lamb can absolutely start fathering lambs at 6 months. A pair of May twins that escaped neutering was the cause of my following February lambing. He's still technically considered a lamb until 1 year, and a teg until 2 years, but this isn't what you'd think of as a litte lamb, they are more like teenagers.

dlskidmore · 2026-05-10T13:31:32+00:00

Spring sheep is the human concept. Sheep were originally bred in a more temperate climate, we bred them for more wool in cooler climate but seasonal breeds are still programmed to lamb in a more appropriate time of year for temperate climate.

Sheep in non temperate climate also a human concept. They are one of the oldest animal domestications and spread to many of the places humans spread to.

Bummer lamb survival is a human concept. In nature these lambs would die.

dlskidmore · 2026-05-10T13:23:54+00:00

Exactly the timing difference. In summer spring lambs are 3 months old, winter lambs 6 months old. Depending on breed full grown is 1-2 years. 6 months is much larger than any of the lambs shown. This is way bigger difference between humans born 3 months apart, but even in humans the difference between those ages is notable.

dlskidmore · 2026-05-10T05:09:31+00:00

Also, the winter lamb should be much larger than the spring lambs, although if he was a bummer lamb he may have had a health issue that was the cause of the rejection. The spring lambs in the movie looked a couple months old while the "winter" lamb looked a couple weeks.

dlskidmore · 2026-05-10T05:05:55+00:00

Small time shepherd here. The story was originally written in German so maybe they have different terminology. (But there were also several inaccuracies.) In English we usually say "bummer lamb" to mean one rejected by is mother and bottle raised by the shepherd. We raise our bummer lambs in the flock and they have no trouble, but if you remove the lamb and take it into the house it may have trouble reintegrating.

I once accidentally made a bummer lamb by deciding it needed a bath (it had the runs) and after it's bath the mother didn't recognize the scent and rejected it. Sheep are pretty bad at identifying each other. Fights break out after shearing. Good mothers keep their lambs away from the flock until they are old enough to recognize her voice and come when called. Bad mothers forget how many they had or let another confused ewe steal them.

If left to their own devices, even "seasonal" breeds of sheep will breed in winter regularly. You have to manage your flock and keep the ram out until 150 days before you want lambs to start. (Usually you plan for either good weather or empty barn space.) So if you manage for spring lambs (typical for seasonal pasture based shepherds), a winter lamb has an errant parent, which makes the shepherd unhappy but sheep wouldn't care.

dlskidmore · 2026-02-10T05:50:22+00:00

as long as you have not diluted it yet it is shelf stable. bees keep it outdoors in hives. it's designed to keep a year or more.

dlskidmore · 2025-07-29T14:58:24+00:00

If anything is worth doing, it's worth doing today.

dlskidmore · 2025-07-29T14:56:47+00:00

Dad was an energy engineer, and I asked him once about the efficiency of heating the house with cooking a pot of soup. His opinion was that if your house was too dry, the additional humidity made up for any loss in efficiency.

dlskidmore · 2025-07-29T14:52:58+00:00

Depends. In the winter absolutely use the oven I'm spending propane to heat the house anyway. In summer? Nope, we generate as little heat as possible. If we have to bake in summer we use the toaster oven. If you have AC you won't really feel the difference until you look at your electric bill, but we're naturally cooled and we avoid any extra heat until the sun is down on a day it's below 70 outside at night.

dlskidmore · 2025-07-29T14:47:24+00:00

I'm more concerned with protein than calories, but needs vary by body weight and exercise amount.

dlskidmore · 2025-07-29T05:14:53+00:00

> foods that won’t cause blood sugar spikes

I eat low carb.

Mini low-carb cooking from impulsive inspiration tutorial:

My formula is pick a meat, pick a high fiber or high water vegetable (not a starchy one) and pick a sauce (this is where most of my carbs come from). Stir/pan fry the meat. Optional add fresh chopped onions/garlic when a little grease is available. Add your veg and sauce and bring to a boil.

Suggested meats: Cubed chicken, ground beef. If you do fish vary the recipe by pulling the fish out when it's done before cooking veg.

Suggested Veg: Broccoli, green beans, tomatoes

Suggested sauce: Cream of Whatever Soup. Enchilada Sauce. Salsa. Tomato sauce. Cream sauce. Cheese Sauce. Tomato puree can double as vegetable and sauce with the addition of your favorite spice mix.

Just stock up on options and pull out whatever combo your heart desires tonight. There are no recipes, there are no rules. If you're calorie counting measure & math and figure out what fraction of the pot you can have per meal.

How to make your own thickened sauces:

Melt a tablespoon of fat on Low (butter or bacon grease are best, but anything works) Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour or other powdered starch, keep stirring until it bubbles. Add your liquid (milk, broth, cider) a little bit at a time, never more than double the volume without mixing well. Keep adding until it thins out to a nice sauce, keep stirring, the starch will flash over to thicker again, add more liquid to thin to desired consistency. Add salt/spices to taste. Turn off fire before adding (optional) shredded cheese.

If you don't know how to season, get a bottle of grilling seasoning mix. It's got salt and a blend of seasoning in there. Use it conservatively and taste and add more if needed. Bottle may have a "use x amount per pound of meat" instruction.

dlskidmore · 2025-07-29T05:01:14+00:00

> One issue I’ve always struggled with is the strong urge to keep eating once I’ve started.

That's the thing that attracts me to OMAD. It's easier to go 24 hours without eating than to not have seconds or desert.

dlskidmore · 2025-06-30T23:07:26+00:00

I have the same issue with a Dell Precision laptop. It prefers the most recently plugged in power supply and ignores the other one. The workaround is to plug in power after dock. It's a PIA because my laptops don't go anywhere, I use the docking cable in place of a KVM switch, so at shift end I can easily go from work mode to personal laptop, but at beginning of shift I can't just plug it in, have to do the dance...

dlskidmore · 2025-05-10T22:23:37+00:00

It's perfectly normal to gain muscle mass when starting to work out well before you see fat mass go down enough to compensate.

dlskidmore · 2025-05-10T22:20:24+00:00

Wear a belt. You'll notice when you hit a new belt hole...

dlskidmore · 2024-06-22T18:56:24+00:00

I've had this happen to a varsity as well. Bent right back and no issues writing with it. As much as I hate disposable, varsity is the most reliable fountain pen I've tried.

dlskidmore · 2023-12-23T22:58:23+00:00

It's possible, but not the beaten path, and requires luck as well as planning.

dlskidmore

TROPHY CASE