Rialey to the rescue

  Everyday the dogs help around the farm in so many small ways. One morning I was getting ready to feed the birds. Normally I will just sling 4-5 scoops of feed and scratch grains out into the pasture for them to scratch and peck and hunt, but today I had some extra whey from cheese making so I had soaked their normal amount of food in the whey to give the birds a little extra protein and nutrients. Nothing goes to waste around here.

  So I had a full and heavy bucket in my hands, and I was trying to make my way through the throng of hungry, impatient chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys without a lot of success. I glanced over my shoulder where Rialey was standin by the gate well out of the way of the normally flying feed. Without my even staying a word, Rialey read my situation, saw my glance in her direction, and sprung into action. Within seconds she had pushed her way through the crowd of birds and circled around right in front of me. With a few forceful barks, she very easily cleared my path then walked with me out to the pasture keeping all those angry birds out of my way the entire time.

  I never said a word, not even a gesture, but that girl saw a needed help and jumped in without hesitation. It's these little ways that having a good working dog at my side makes living here so much easier!

BOGO Sheep

 
  After seriously debating the future of sheep on our farm, I think we've decided to let them stick around a while longer. So far this year we've only lost one lamb, and that was from a mother who we didn't realize wasn't making milk for her little one until it was too late. Things can go south very, very quickly with newborns. Our sweet, departed Pepper's daughter Marcie (above) is doing a great job of raising her daughter, Patty. She's even passed on Pepper's smattering of speckles and extra deep voice that inspired us to call her Peppermint Patty in the first place.

 
  After initially trying to reject him, Bonnie is raising Charger into a big strapping boy with really interesting color. Charger is the first of the lambs to need worming, and Charger was the second lamb that Bonnie tried to abandon, so we'll be seriously evaluating both Bonnie and her son's future around here.

 
  And our biggest surprise this year was that Nina gave us our first set of twin lambs! She had two little girls on St. Patrick's day that we decided to call Clover and Colleen. (Sorry for the chicken photo bomb!)

She lambed very early in the morning and we were lucky enough to walk out right as she was giving birth to the second of the two little girls and get it on video:

  Nina was a good mom from the start, and you can see here that she had a very large, full udder. We were actually able to harvest a little colostrum to store away from her.

  Since she has such good mothing instincts, has given us twins, and has a wonderful stocky body type, we will probably be keeping at least one of these little girls as a breeder.

  We were doubly delighted when just a few days later Louise gave us this mismatched set! The dark brown lamb is a little ewe, and the white one a ram. We decided to call the pair Ollie and Andy respectively (any Bob's Burgers fans out there?).

  Although Maggie has been an excellent mother, Little Ollie gave us some trouble from the start. She was very small and even looks a little...off.

 
  When she was just a couple of days old, she just disappeared. It was a weekend morning, and Big Onion and I had just finished chores. We decided to take a walk out to the back pasture and check on all the new arrivals. Well, Nina was there with Clover and Colleen. Louise was there with Andy, but Ollie was not with the group. We figured she was parked somewhere sleeping. It's very common for the sheep to leave their little ones napping in a safe place while they go off to graze. Usually you will find a group of the young lambs all napping together with one mother or auntie grazing nearby.

  Since she was so young and the rest of the the flock was up and on the move, we went into search mode. Just the day before Rialey had pointed out Ollie to me sleeping safely under some of the junk in the corner of the first pasture so we figured it would be a easy matter of finding and rousing the little one then sending her back to her mother's care. Well, we looked high and low, searched all three pastures, looked under, over, and around everything.We watched the dogs for any clues. We searched in the poultry pens and even walked the banks of the creek and ponds to be sure she hadn't fallen in. When we didn't find her, we looked everywhere a second and even a third time. We spent hours that day searching. Cancelled our plans and searched some more. I gave up, but Big Onion search until it was too dark to search any more.

  Finally, we gave up concluding that she had fallen prey to some predator, maybe a fox overnight or a hawk. She was so very small. With a sigh, we did our evening chore then went inside for the night.

  The next morning, we went out to care for everyone as usual. The sheep were sleeping up in the first pasture, when they got up there was little Ollie, right there with her mother and brother like she'd never been gone in the first place! To this day we have no idea where she was for all those hours we spent searching and scouring the property. All we know is that she is WAY better than us at hide and seek, and that her name fits her quite well! Ollie, ollie, oxen freed!

Like rabbits

   After a bit of a dry spell, I'm happy to say that the rabbits are back to the business of making more rabbits.

 We decided to keep two of Bluebell's daughters since she is a very large rabbit with a wonderful temperament. She also had a very large litter right off the bat with her first breeding and kept every one of the kits alive.

  These two girls just reached breeding age so they had their dates with our two bucks. I like to expose the girls to both bucks a couple of hours apart to make sure that they get bred. I think it also makes for larger litters if both breeding go smoothly.

Unfortunately, one of the two females was just not in the mood to bred when the time came with either guy. Now our problem is these two girls look so much alike that we're not sure which is which! We tried using a little Blue-Kote spray to tell them apart, but that stuff faded way faster than we expected. I guess we'll just have to keep a close eye out for nesting behavior in one of them when the time comes.

 Meanwhile, we had two more litter that were ready to wean. Unfortunately, it was raining so much that they had to stay in with their mothers much longer than normal.

 We are finally seeing some sunshine and that means the bunnies are happily living in the tractors on the pasture. This is where we grow them out until they reach about 12 weeks and are ready for processing.

  Aside from larger size, one of the things we have been selecting for is a calmer temperament. Big Onion and I are both tired of dealing with does who throw fits and threaten us when we try to do anything in their pen. Bluebell is the first breeding age female who not only tolerates handling, but solicits attention and petting when we go into her pen. Hopefully Bluebell's girls will turn out as nice as their mother in size, temperament, and mothering ability.

Introducing this year's lambs

 While I've been busy telling the story of each and every one of our goat ladies kidding, our sheep have been busy multiplying as well! Every year we try to start the lamb's name with the same letter, this year we are up to the lettter C. Of course, we don't always stick to that plan...

 This is Marcie. She was born to Pepper about 2 years ago.  We lost our sweet Peppermint Patty to an illness even the vet couldn't seem to figure out. We've decided to name Marcie's daughter Patty in honor of her grandmother.

 Fancy had a son who we are calling Patches after his grandmother Patch and for obvious reasons. In addition to the dark marking on his hock, he also has two spots across his shoulders that almost make the shape of a butterfly. This guy started pushing his way through the group of adult and eating grain at a surprisingly early age.

This little white fluff ball is Cassie. Every year her mother Maggie gives us a fluffy, all white, female lamb. This year was no exception. 

 Ninya one of favorite sheep for her size and her calm temperament, gave us a ram lamb who is going by the name of Cabbage.

 We decided to call him Cabbage because he has a big round head just like the vegetable!

 We actually had two rams running with the girls when they were bred. We are fairly certain all these big headed babies like Cabbage are coming from Angus since they all have heads shaped just like his. Let's hope they inherit his naturally stocky build as well.

Last but not least is Charger. Despite his rough start, the little guy seems to be doing great!

Overall, they lambs seem to be doing very well this year. All are growing at a nice rate and after some initial problems, all their mothers are doing a nice job of feeding and keeping track of their charges. We are trying to pare down the flock a bit to just Angus and the girls that are successfully producing and raising healthy lambs so we probably will not be keeping any of this group. We are keeping our figures crossed that this will finally be the year that we can see some returns from the sheep, but only time will tell!

Frankie and Georgie out on the town!

This pictures are actually a couple of months old at this point, but I have so many cute shots of the baby goats that I have to share them with you guys!

Frankie and Georgie were the first two kids born this season to Gwen. Since they were so active and so bold, I decided to take them out for a walk in the pasture when they were about a week old.

Auntie Rialey kept a close eye on her little charges and would not let them wander far from me.

They were a little apprehensive about meeting the turkeys.

 But eventually decided to approach the giant birds.

Again Aunt Rialey was right there to keep her babies from harm.

And shoo off those nasty birds before they got any funny ideas!

They also got to meet Lucia, who would be their cousin I suppose

Then it was time for a meal before heading back inside for well deserved nap.

But not before getting a quick bath!

CAE and OPP

  So, the story in my last blog post was a very sweet one, but as is so often the case in farming, there is also a very sad side to the story. We made a very big mistake that night that we let Chance nurse from Thea that we didn't discover until a few days later.

  I was researching why Rue's udder would produce that strange yellow waxy substance when I came across information about Ovine Progressive Pneumonia or OPP. OPP is the sister virus to CAE, which you will recall is something that we have been struggling with here on the farm. 

  OPP has a lot of symptoms, one of which is a dry, hard udder at the time of lambing. The most common expression of the disease though appears when the animal reaches about two years old, and they start to waste away and have respiratory distress. The disease is fatal and has no cure. What we didn't know was that sheep can contract OPP by nursing from a CAE positive goat.

  Back when we got all those bottle lambs, we were using Thea's CAE positive milk to feed them. I swear at the time I researched and could find no evidence that the diseased crossed over. Well, this time around the research was pretty clear that the transfer of the disease was a distinct possibility. 

  We decided to test a sampling of the flock. We tested an older girl who came with our original group of sheep, one of the second batch we brought in a few months later, then Rue who was one of those bottle lambs that grew up drinking from Thea. All the older sheep were negative, but sure enough, Rue came back positive for OPP. (We also tested the goat girls, Francesca and Lucia, who were born to CAE positive Josie, but were never allowed to nurse from her. They were both thankfully negative.)

  So what does this mean for us now? For one thing, it means that Rue, Annie, and Angus, the three that we kept from that group of bottle lambs, all have the disease and will likely die from it if we don't process them first. (We actually lost Annie's lamb about a week before Rue had hers. Now we know why.) It also means little Chance will have OPP. It means that no matter how cute she is tagging along after Thea, the decision to keep her as breeder is out of the question.

One of the hardest things about farming is that the animals have to pay for our mistakes. It was highly likely that we would not have kept Chance for breeding anyway as bad mothering instincts is something that is probably at least partly inherited, but now the decision is out of our hands. The good news is that for now she is big and healthy and enjoying a great life as Thea's one and only "kid."

Thea's "kid"

This story is continued from this post.

  That evening Charger looked great. He was up and active, and his mother was doting over him. Little Chance was not looking so hot. She did not seem to have nursed much during the day so we decided to give her a bottle, but to leave her with Bonnie in the hopes that somehow things would work out.

  The next morning, we again gave the little ewe a bottle then we both left for work. When Big Onion got home that evening, he sent me a message saying it was clear that Bonnie was not going to adopt Chance. She was caring for and feeding her own son, but she just was not up for a second lamb.

  I suggested that Big Onion bring Chance in while he was milking and let her nurse from Thea. We've used Thea in the past to nurse other kids and lambs. As long as there is food in front of her on the milk stand, Thea could care less what is happening at her other end.

  I arrived home late from work. Big Onion had just moved Thea from the milk room to the goat room next door. Chance was milk drunk and happy to cuddle on my lap while I sat and watched Big Onion finish up milking the rest of the girls.

  We were sitting there chatting about our days when we heard a strange sound, a low humming coming from the next room. It was followed by soft, sad calls that made little Chance in my lap perk up and call softly back.

 Big Onion and I looked at one another. I said, "Is that Thea? Is she...is she calling for this baby?" He shrugged and suggested we try putting the two of them together and see what happened.

  I carried the little one next door and placed her in the hay right in front of Thea. To our amazement, Thea and Chance started doing the mother and child call and response that all sheep and goats do when they have a newborn. Thea started grooming Chance then miraculously the baby hobbled her way back to Thea's udder and started to nurse. We were both certain that this was where the whole thing would fall apart. Thea had never let anyone nurse from her willingly away from the milk stand, but no, she just stood there and let that baby drink! She even squatted to give her better access then swung her head around and started grooming her new kid. Amazing.

  Not knowing what else to do, we left the new mother and daughter together overnight and by morning it was clear that Thea had herself a new kid!

Guess we should have called her Second Chance!