Coyote Ridge FarmsWelcome To Our Rural Blog

What a busy day.  We did this, then that… sold a ram, a goat and even got ¾ ton of feed.

The m0rning started with phone calls… lots of them.  First, the person who wanted to buy Puga (poo-gah) our pot-bellied sow called from Wisconsin (6-7 hrs away), saying they would be leaving soon and that they would give us a call when they reached the Metro.  Another call came from a  local butcher who wanted to know if we had any ram lambs for sale.  Once the butcher heard that we had a couple, we would contact a client of his and come out to look at what we had.  Carol also got a call from folks from the Wadena, MN area.  They wanted to buy a breeding buck and maybe a dairy doe.   They hoped to arrive early in the afternoon.  I had called the neighbor to ask if he could help me with a some snow removal task, since our snow blower broke down.  He said he would have time to remove the snow tomorrow morning.

While waiting for our customers to show, Carol and I trimmed some hooves on a couple of goats.  We also tended to some goats that had some minor health issues.  It was such a nice day, it seemed as if we were looking for any excuse to stay outside.  Before noon, Carol got a call from the buyer for Puga, mentioning they have relatives near us and they agreed to pick-up the pig, saving them a trip.  It looks like Puga will be with us a short time longer.

Shortly after 2:00pm, our lamb customer and the butcher drove in.  After looking at both of the rams they decided to buy Simon.  Simon is 50% Katahdin and 50% wool sheep.  At a $1/lb, he was a good buy.  I told them that I would bring the ram over to the butcher shop in less than an hour… after I get the lamb loaded.  I had to pull the horse trailer out of the snow with the tractor, then hook it up to the van.

The ram weighed 155#… he was a good sized boy for only being 9 months old.  These cross-bred sheep grow extremely fast and I think it is worth mentioning that this ram was raised on forage only – pasture and hay only… no corn or other grains.  We are so impressed with these lambs.  I saw the carcass after it was butchered… it was quite lean.  It only had a slight covering of fat (about the same as a beef animal).  At about the same time the ram was being butchered, I went to get the custom feed we had ordered from an area farmer.  Before I left, the family who wanted a breeding buck showed-up.  Carol talked with them and showed them around.  They bought Bam-Bam, a young, stud, meat buck.  They decided not to get a producing dairy goat, due to the fact the one who would be doing the milking would be gone and the spouse didn’t want to do the milking.  Carol said they were a great couple and they were so impressed with how tame our animals were… Bam-Bam didn’t leave them alone.  He was enjoying all the attention he was getting… he loves people.

It was a great day.

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