It’s lambing season at the Circle R Ranch
By Joan Janzen
It’s a busy time of year for Michele and Kevin Rast and their family at Circle R Ranch, located between the communities of Beadle and Netherhill. It’s lambing season, and it’s been one of the busiest times the Rast family has experienced during their twenty years of raising sheep.
Before lambing season, the ranch has a shearing day. Similar to branding day for cattle, shearing day has friends and family gathering together to help out. “We hire three or four shearers who come in, and we sort and pack the wool,” Michele said. The wool is shipped to eastern Canada, where it’s sold.
“We have over 200 ewes,” Michele said. “We lambed out over 400 lambs in 21 days, through the coldest weather we’ve ever lambed through, with the highest amount of multiples we ever had, and with the least amount of manpower.”
Circle R Ranch has a large pool of manpower to draw from, as the family circle includes adopted children and their biological offspring. “We have fifteen children, but two-thirds are adults, and the baby turned 11,” Michele explained. “The kids are very adept at doing everything. I always say it doesn’t matter if our kids never look at a sheep again, but it is such good training.”
That training supplements the education the children receive as they are homeschooled. Michele explained how their 16-year-old was on night check and told her mom how she had successfully helped deliver a lamb the next morning. “It really helps give her a boost as to what she can do on her own,” Michele said. “It’s a good way to teach kids teamwork and how to reach for skills that they didn’t know they had.”
The cold weather presented an additional challenge, but Michele was happy to report that they didn’t lose any lambs to exposure. Many of the lambs arrived as quadruplets, triplets or twins. “When we bred last fall, it was beautiful weather; usually, breeding season is cold. Milder temperatures do increase the multiples,” Michele explained.
Lambs born as quadruplets, or quads, as Michele called them, become bottle lambs. She said her kids love having lambs that need to be fed with a bottle.
During the first 24 hours, the lambs receive their vital intake of colostrum, which the ewe stops producing after the first day. “Once they get that, the lambs just come alive!” Michele said. “They get up and like to shake, and then you know they’re good to go.”
After eighty days, the lambs are weaned; Michele said it’s a sad time. “We separate the lambs and the ewes, pushing the ewes out to pasture. The ewes cry for about thirty hours, and then they stop. The lambs will cry for about two days before they settle down.” The lambs aren’t weaned until they’re fully on grain.
In order to protect the sheep from predators such as coyotes, Circle R Ranch has a six-wire electric fence and three stock dogs. The Rast family trains their own dogs, and noted that anyone who breeds guarding dogs has a waiting list due to the high demand. Michele stressed the importance of having sheep that flock well, since predators attack animals that are lagging behind.
Some time in July or August, the lambs reach the weight of 80-100 pounds and are sent to market. Circle R Ranch works with the Sask. Sheep Board to sell their sheep within Canada, where the consumption is greater than Canadian producers can supply. “We have found the ethnic market to be increasing, which has changed our marketing,” Michele said.
“It’s a heart-wrenching day when the semi goes down the road. You will see the kids saying goodbye to the lambs that are sticking their noses out of the semi. The dog follows the semi down the road until he can no longer keep up. He is saying goodbye to the ewes,” Michele said.
The Rast family also butcher some of their own animals for their own consumption because that’s what ranchers do. They feed the world, one family at a time.
Photos submitted, click for larger images
