movin on out

after one week in the first two patches by the gardens, the sheep are on to the last patch. This one is a bit spottier, lower grass, more clover, and some sedges, perhaps 2 days in there at max, will be moving across the path tomorrow I hope. Lil Boy is kind of chubby at the moment, body score of 4, Jett is right around 3. I have been looking over my objectives for this study and at the moment I think Im most of the way there. I have gained more skill in the art of sheep body scoring, and in the process kept my fuzzy babies good and healthy. I have come to know far more then the original 12 pasture plants, and am still working on collecting the nutritional data for them. That will be included in my "final post" for the semester as well as any notes I have taken regarding my observation of my sheep and how they graze. Those are my 3 primary objectives. I have the list of plants, I just need to match their info to their pictures and that will be it, due by Friday the 10th at 8 am.

onwards!

Lil Boy and Jett are done in the herb gardens, did a pretty good job cleaning it up, still big dogwoods and bittersweet on the wall though. Jett learned that as much as she loves to eat bittersweet, it may try to trap her. I had to cut her out of it the other day. Now they've moved into a more open area next to the upper gardens. the pasture is the exact size of the fence perimeter so that was lucky, and they mostly have tall to medium grass, might be blue grass. Lil Boy has gone up to a body score of 4, getting a little chubby, Jett is still between 2.5 and 3. Soon they will move down a little,  where the plant variety is a little bit better.

And back to the beginning again!

All right, so the sheep are back in the herb garden where they started, doing a second round in there. The general make up of the pasture is the same save for a new prickly plant that Lil Boy demolished before I could identify it. They mowed through it in about 5 days, and they are now on to the next patch. same amount of space, but the plants are a little more mature, not having been mowed before. There is a lot of dogwood and bitter sweet, tons of bedstraw and speedwell. They are just following the wall down to Henry's property, and then they will be off again. I have started to compile a record of moves, and pasture contents, as well as a file of 12 plants that I have found most often.