{"id":6189,"date":"2014-05-31T14:55:58","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T06:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/?p=6189"},"modified":"2014-06-02T15:49:37","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T07:49:37","slug":"weve-got-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/31\/weve-got-sheep\/","title":{"rendered":"We&#8217;ve got Sheep!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/20140601-006.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-6144\" src=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/20140601-006-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"20140601 006\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/20140601-006-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/20140601-006.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>A local breeder delivered our 12 ewes and a ram at lunchtime today. \u00a0 Fourteen months after seeing the <a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/27\/a-look-into-the-future\/\">advert for some Wiltipolls<\/a> in the local paper, we now have some easy care lawn-mowers. \u00a0 Their main purpose is to keep the grass short on the north of the property to reduce our fire risk. \u00a0We have had a couple of \u00a0neighbours &#8220;encouraging&#8221;\u00a0us to get sheep to keep the grass down, so we thought we&#8217;d better comply. \u00a0There are some large rocks in the area and I have never taken the slasher over it, so it is pretty wild. \u00a0As well as the rocks,\u00a0there is a lot of onion weed and lupins, which aren&#8217;t great for sheep, but when\u00a0they are settled they will be moved around with portable electric fences. \u00a0Once they have eaten\/trampled the area, we will be able to remove any large rocks and then\u00a0control\/slash the weeds and improve the pasture with native grasses and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fwi.co.uk\/articles\/17\/06\/2013\/139532\/sheep-grazed-on-chicory-show-reduced-worm-count.htm\" target=\"_blank\">chicory<\/a>. \u00a0The sheep <a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/20\/thinking-ahead\/\">will also be used<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/13\/tiller-the-oats\/\">tiller the oats<\/a> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/?s=%22new+oat%22\">new oat paddock<\/a> to get a bigger crop. \u00a0 The <a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/01\/wiltshire-horn\/\">Wiltshire Horn<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/01\/wiltipolls\/\">Wiltipolls<\/a> are seasonal breeders, so will only come into season in March next year with lambs due in August 2015, so we have over a year to learn about sheep before lambing. \u00a0With 12 ewes, we could easily get 15-20 lambs, so we will have to find out about markets and butchers before then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A local breeder delivered our 12 ewes and a ram at lunchtime today. \u00a0 Fourteen months after seeing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-farm","category-sheep"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/20140601-006.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6189"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6192,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions\/6192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}