Flat Aggie Visits a Lamb and Chicken Ranch

Earlier this week I got this in my inbox:

Dear friends,

Greetings from Chico, California!  Last week I made a visit to the Wookey Ranch where Richard and Baji Coon raise grass-fed lambs and chickens.  They graze their sheep all year on the natural grasses that grow on their ranch and surrounding acres.

During my visit, Baji asked me to help her sort out some of the sheep from the main flock. Twenty of the ewes (that’s the name for a female sheep) were close to lambing and they needed to be separated out of the 150 sheep that make up the main flock so she could give them special care.

First we brought the sheep up from the pasture to the working corral. Then we moved them into the sorting chute where we checked ear tag numbers and looked at the udders of the mothers-to-be.  When we saw a ewe from our list, we marked her rump with a special paint.

Then we opened or closed some small gates to let the ewes out of the chute one at a time. The main flock went through the south gate and back out to the pasture. The soon-to-be mamas went out the north gate and into a different pasture where Baji could keep a closer watch on them.  A few days later, the first lambs of the year were born!

Spray-painting the sheep was pretty fun, but the best part of my visit was getting to meet a baby lamb. The lamb in this picture is only 1 day old! 

I had a lot of fun helping at the Wookey Ranch.

Hope you are having fun adventures too!

Love,

Flat Aggie

Thank You Baji and Richard for helping our class learn about agriculture and for taking Flat Aggie on her adventures!  Baji and Richard are amazing people and I am so glad they were willing to be a part of this!  Please check out Wookey Ranch's Local Harvest page here.