Sheep Breeding

<p>Breeding sheep is one of the most enjoyable enterprises on our homestead. Sheep were the first animals we introduced back in 2010. They have been a central part of our operation since then. I’ll talk about that today.</p> <p>Welcome new listeners and welcome back veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. Thank you all so much for listening. I’m so excited to share with you what’s going on at the farm this week.</p> <h2>Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates</h2> <p>Before we get to the sheep, what else is going on here on the homestead?</p> <h3>Creamery</h3> <p>The holes in the walls are still being filled in by Scott. Who knew it was going to take this much time to complete that task? Well, the building is rather large and parts of it are very high. That requires special ladders and scaffolding and such to be able to reach the tallest parts of the walls. Additionally, Scott is finishing the concrete block walls in such a way that they resemble stucco. It takes a bit more time and effort but the result is quite beautiful. I’m very pleased with the effect. I can’t wait to see it painted. Maybe a nice off-white stucco color to enhance the look. We shall see. I actually leave color decisions to Scott. I have no head for decorating. Thank God he has a wonderful head for it. Everything he builds reflects his eye for beauty, symmetry, style, color and so much more.</p> <h3>Quail</h3> <p>We now have seven breeding sets of quail. Count them, seven. We made a day of it. Somewhere along the line we lost one that I didn’t know about. The final count in the penthouse was 56 birds. We processed 32 of them and kept 24 additional birds for eggs.</p> <h4>Fowl or Foul?</h4> <p>After finishing the processing, we went back out to their cages and took every single bird out of their cages. Scott spent lots of time cleaning up those cages and getting them sanitized for the winter. Have you even wondered why birds are called fowl? Well there is another spelling of the word foul and it has to do with