A fond Bon Voyage (to a pet who never should have been part of our farm life)

Not really a farm-post, although it affects the whole farm in one stressfilled way or another. 
Our husky, Rocky, has been here with us for almost 7 years. He is a....husky... Prey drive, wander-lust, incredible intelligence, everything. And I have micromanaged his existence so that he can stay alive, and safe, and not be a threat to any of the fainting goats (horrors, to think of them keeling over in front of him chasing them!) or barn cats, or any of the other creatures that also rely on us for their safety. 
He will be on his way to a better placement by the time this posts, being accepted into a foster home selected by the shelter where we adopted him from back in 2011. 
A foster family is excited to have him with them for a while, and...a potential adopting family is already asking about him, having looked for quite a while for a husky that fits his description. No husky rescues would take him, unless he was already in a high-kill shelter. And I refused to subject him to that by relinquishing him with no certainty that he would be sprung in time to live.

Thanks, everyone, who kept this concern in your prayers, everyone who sent suggestions of rescues to check with. Rocky has been part of our farm experience and family, but...he is not suited to this life, or to life on a dog cable (what his "freedom" has been reduced to.)
If he had stayed, there are so many bad scenarios that would have ended his life prematurely. And they were all in the back of my mind every time I opened the back door of the house, every time he got loose off of his dog cable, every time he clashed with Remy through the sliding glass door, every time the family of ducklings waddled too close to his cable...every time he side-stepped as the puppies excitedly scampered over to meet him.
Bon Voyage, Safe Travels, you loving, crazy, true-to-your breed husky boy. You have our hearts, and we wish a much better life for you in a home where you can live as the majestic and beautiful Siberian that you are.
May you find your perfect family, one where you can be cherished and loved without reservation, and where your rather wild beauty and strange shows of affection will be part of a select few pets, or maybe, dare we hope, the only one for your new family to adore. 
Thank-you, shelter folks, and foster family, for making it possible for our Rocky-boy to get a second chance in life.

 

A few more pup-dates

The beautiful Smokey, known for a short while as Vader, is loving life as a city dog in Chicago.  He has passed the Canine Good Citizen class with flying colors, and may (?) have started on the next level with his owner.  He has matured to be a beautiful, well-mannered dog who is very much loved.  

I just received the second photo from Morty's owner in Tennessee.  Morty's puppy pic was nearly identical to Smokey's at the same age, but look at these two now.  Still similar, but Morty is taking after his sire, Smoke, in different ways.  Morty is on a farm down south, and his owner is so pleased with him.  She had worked with English Shepherd rescues before, and finally came to the decision to buy a pup, since what she wanted an ES for was more than she was finding in the rescues.  He has acreage, American Guinea Hogs, a Great Pyrenees to learn guardianship from, and is just a natural at keeping his owner in sight.  A nice bond between the two of them, that makes me happy to hear about!

Next up is the photo sent around Christmas, of Maggie (now known as "Abbie).  She is in the New England area, with a retired couple who adores her.  When I had typed out her info on Facebook, this is exactly the type of life I envisioned for sweet Maggie.  She could have gone to almost any type of family, but when she so quickly formed an affection for my parents during a visit when she was just a pup, that was a good look at how she could be for a couple with a little bit of land and retirement time for a pup.  

Ellie is in obedience class with us.  I have Taffy in the class (she is a stubborn thing when she is off leash on the farm...sure that she knows better than me when to herd, when to come, we both needed a refresher course!), Jeff has Rocky the husky in class, and we walked in the first week and there was Ellie with her master.  Ellie proves to be just what I hoped for her.  She is a natural at obedience training, and is likely going to be the star of the class.  Scott has worked with her so much, takes her into stores, takes her for walks.  There is a beautiful bond there between owner and pup.

An older pup with the same look:  Shiloh is from the 2016 litter, on a small farm south of us by about an hour.  I haven't heard from his owner for a while, but he was smart, smart, smart.  When Allison would be gardening, Shiloh would find a spot in the perimeter fence where he could wriggle through...go the long way around...and pop up near the gardening site.  I think I remembered that little story correctly.  He was best buds with a cat, and they came to our farm last summer to adopt another barn kitten.  Shiloh was such a sweet boy, and I am glad he is in a home where he has room to run and learn about farm things.

Well, I think that's all the time we have, folks.  At least....that's the extent of photos I have to share.  

There was Molly/Zelda who went to Madison Wisconsin, Nutmeg who went to northwestern Illinois, Dewey who is somewhere near our area but who we've not seen since he left in 2016.  Misty is in New England with an owner who is thrilled with her, Gage/Teddy is in North Carolina, there are more who I'll write about when I get photos of them.  

In other news:  A goat in the barn is ready to have kids.  I wasn't sure until yesterday...At one point, I was going to take a trip to Cambodia in March, and toyed with the idea of breeding all of the sheep and goats for January babies.  After just a few hours, the decision was made to NOT have babies in January, but it looks like Zaney was the buck's favorite for a few hours in August.  

The sheep and goats should have babies in late March/early April.  

No baby bunnies this year.  Even though a few American Chinchilla rabbits have been given back to me, I don't want to raise litters of them just to lose half of each litter to sickness.  We are likely done with breeding them, but will set up an outside pen for the ones that get along together in the spring.

Baby chicks...I am going to cut WAY back.  I've only offered hatching eggs to one teacher.  I won't hatch incubators full of eggs.  We have a freezer full of heritage breed chickens, and I have started cutting up a chicken every couple of days to feed to the dogs.  This is expensive dog food, so...we will allow the hens to hatch their own babies, but only as many chicks as we want for ourselves and any customers who speak up during hatching season

Ducks...we may allow one duck hen to hatch a clutch of eggs, but we are feeding a dozen Cayuga ducks through the winter and do not want to keep raising them without a market.  I will likely house the extra drakes in my garden this year, once it's established, to keep down the slugs and crickets.  But we don't need dozens and dozens of ducks parading all over.

Geese...no more geese.  I traded all of my geese to a friend.  She loves them, I was tired of hearing the complaining of my family about them.  And the dogs are happier, and able to run free without a hissing gander hot on their heels.

Remy had his expensive hip-testing x-ray yesterday.  Results may take a couple of weeks to get back.  

We haven't decided if there will be puppies again this year or if we'll wait.  The dogs may have other ideas...  No, correction.  The dogs WILL have other ideas.  It's up to us to decide if we will allow free access between Taffy and Remy in about 5 months. 

Two years in a row...we love the pups, but it is exhausting.  :)  We'll see.

 

Laura

Pup-dates!

Just a few pics of puppies who are doing so well in their new homes. 

 

First is Wilma with some of her family and a neighbor's farm dog.  Her Mennonite owner borrowed a grandmother's computer to e-mail me this pic of her.  Wilma is now "Katie", an 18 month old beauty.  If they stay with their original plan, Katie may have puppies around her 2 year birthday.  She is on a small farm in Illinois.  It was amazing to hear the family talk about why mother and other sisters were not able to come to get Wilma with the others....the corn harvest was ready and ripe for canning, and they were putting up enough for their family and several others.  Hard work for sure.  We almost kept this one, she was so special.  

But, instead, we waited a year and kept....Star!  Second photo...little Miss Star, with her wonky ears that are so expressive.  She is a fabulous pup, very aware of the people and dogs around her.  At the puppy class, she was quite tuned in to the instructor's dog which was making very sad noises in a crate on the other side of the wall.  In the morning, when it's time to let Remy out of the barn, Star is waiting at the back door to eagerly dash out and greet her friend.  If Rocky is whining or howling outside on the dog cable, Star is whining inside the house to go out and sniff noses with him and keep him company.  She is quick to learn, smart as a whip, and will crawl into your lap if you sit on the floor.  Love, love, love this pup.  

Puppy "Captain" is now "Murphy", and is within an hours' drive, closer to Chicago.  He is doing wonderfully, growing like a weed, having a great time with his family and their other two dogs.  At his obedience class, on the first night, he figured out when the instructor would come by with treats and anticipated (and sat nicely to wait) the walk-by and was rewarded with lots of praise and....of course...a treat.  You can see how tall and lanky he is getting.  Such a beautiful boy.  And looks so much like Taffy!

Trace (running dog in photo) is from the first litter.  His owner lives nearby, and she describes him as her "heart-dog".  :)  Trace is in tune with his owner, happy to go on trail rides or cross-country skiing, just a beautiful, all-around wonderful dog.  I saw him in December, and all of his owner's rave reviews were proved to be true.  Makes me so happy that the puppies we loved here are so loved by their families.  

Photo with two dogs...  Pippin from the 2016 litter and Sprocket from the 2017 litter.  This was a photo posted by the owners...Pippin is staying in Illinois with his owner, and Sprocket is moving to Colorado with the rest of that family.  This pic was from their last day in the house that the owners' family grew up in.  I saw these two in December, also...so much alike, and yet...Sprocket has much more energy than laid-back Pippin.  Sprocket and his littermate Murphy had a grand old time that day in December, play-fighting, snarling, showing their teeth, and running around in sheer delight at seeing each other again.

I think there is a limit to how many photos I can share, so I'll continue tomorrow or the next day.  

People thank me for their wonderful pups, but in reality, the thanks needs to be directed to the breeders that the parents came from.  Taffy was from Tish Toren, who has produced so many beautiful English Shepherds that can be found across the country.  Elaine Reynolds and Tish work closely together, and Elaine is the one who recommended Smoke as the match for Taffy.  Elaine's daughter Erin, and another young English Shepherd breeder, Travis Heidtman, produced the dogs whose great pedigree and wonderful personalities were passed on to their son, Smoke.  If not for Elaine and Tish, and my neighbor Katie who is now the owner of Smoke, none of these pups would have happened.  I am proud to say that it is only through extensive mentoring on Elaine and Tish's part that I have learned anything at all about training and breeding these beautiful pups!  

Today looks sunny, and the temps should be around freezing.  Makes for a comfortable day, and I can already see the young pigs milling around outside of their shelter, enjoying the less frigid temperatures.  Enjoy the sunshine, if it is shining by you.  

  

 

Laura

New Year update

I'm just going to type...not even sure where I left off!  But there has been a mental block and I need to get past it.

First picture...Star and Remy.  Star has been a joyful presence in this bleak Midwest winter.  She completed puppy obedience class with flying colors.  The other pups in the litter are doing great, as well.  I think I wrote that Kitty was placed with a family whose son went to high school with Michael.  She is doing great, too.  

Hmmm....something more interesting.  Writers' block...  

There was a genetic question about the brother and sister American Guinea Hogs that I built our breeding program around.  In some litters of piglets birthed or sired by their siblings (and a few piglets here as well), there were some traits that should not show up in purebred guinea hogs.  Mitch sired 3 litters here last summer, his sister Razz had one litter.  In one of Mitch's litters, there was a piglet with white front legs all the way up to the chest, and a white strip across his chest from one leg to the other.  That white coloring turned a bit orange at the end of summer, which caused a bit of commotion when I mentioned it on the facebook group.

Another piglet from Razz's litter had chest-high white boots on her front legs, and a definite white blaze down her face.  Guinea hogs typically are black or have very minimal white on their front legs or noses...  And her white turned orange about the same time that the white on the other piglet was turning.  (It should be noted...we received buckets and buckets of black walnuts, and the adult hogs crunch them up like candy.  These two piglets with orange front legs were in a pen with the walnut-crunchers...and it could easily have been stain from walnut residue.

And from Mitch again...two of his male piglets are getting white hairs in a pattern...one has a growing white patch on his belly, one has a shoulder that is turning white.  There IS a thing, with black guinea hogs losing pigment and turning white instead.  They are called "blue"...and it is rare.  But it usually doesn't happen in pigs under 6 months old.  I'm a little intrigued to see the white hairs turning up here, but the breed association wanted to find out if it was because they were not pure guinea hogs to start with.

Because, on another farm, in a litter sired by Mitch's brother, piglets with wattles were born, but didn't survive long.  Definitely NOT a guinea hog trait.  But the mother of that litter and Mitch's brother were purchased after that sow was carrying the litter, so the mystery deepened...

We had to send in 30 hairs from both Mitch and Razz, because the breed association wanted to test paternity of their entire litter of siblings.  It isn't TOO hard to pull out hog bristles with pliers, when the hogs are nose-down and eating, but it was a bit strange yanking hairs out of my hogs and sealing those hairs in sterile plastic bags...  

To the tune of $40 per pig, we sent in hair samples to UCDavis, to get the results back that yes, indeed, Mitch and Razz were sired by the father that their pedigree says, and were born to the mother that is on file for them.  Money wasted.

So...where did the excessive white and then orange coloring come in?  The wattles in the other person's litter...that could be explained by a sire other than Mitch's brother, since the previous owner of that pair admitted to having trouble to keeping their hogs contained...

Which brings us to the breeding line-up here on our farm.  What better way to test purity of genetics than to breed brother to sister...and see what comes of it.  I am the only one who owns siblings from that litter.  I have put them together for an inbred, incest litter.  

I'm not setting out to disprove the purity of either of the parents of my Mitch and Razz, but...just curious to see what traits show up in their piglets.  If it's nothing, then it's nothing.  If wattles show up, then it is something to mention to the association.  We may end up with a litter of very nice, pure-black, fat and sassy piglets, which would be fine with me.  

The hogs I have are just a few generations from the ones which were chosen to keep the breed alive...why not test to see if the preceding generation was in fact pure American Guinea Hog as the founding  members of the association hoped they were...  

We'll have some "results" in the form of their piglets, due in April.

(Photo #2, siblings enjoying some hay yesterday)

We had something weird happen with last summer's piglets.  A few of them started wasting away, a few weeks after weaning.  I thought it was worms, or maybe even mites, but the others were robust, fine, eating well.  All were on the same feed, in the same housing, with the same deworming schedule.

These few were eating, but still losing weight.  We set up the old trampoline frame with fencing around it, and made a sick ward, and I called the vet.  He suspected a virus, but I didn't have $200 to send in a little piglet body for testing...  So with an over-the-phone diagnosis, I ordered a bottle of medication and treated all of my hogs.  

By injection.  Not fun, but easier for the large hogs than the little ones.  The big pigs...you dump their feed in front of them, jab the needle in the fleshy part of their neck, inject the medication....hardly any problem except when I hit the bony shoulder plate of one boar as he shifted.  The needle bent.  With fresh needle and re-loaded syringe, he got his dose.  Yes, I'm an amateur.  

The piglets needed to be caught, hoisted, held while squealing...  Not fun.

I couldn't bring myself to cull (kill) the three sickly ones, so I treated them too, just to see if they would recover.  They didn't.  Jeff and Jeremy shot them one day, as humanely as possible, because the vet stressed to me (again) that I needed to get any sick pigs off of the property ASAP.  

The others are happy, healthy, and never developed symptoms.  Supposedly, the medication takes care of the virus for good when you treat all of the pigs on the property, but I will believe it when the next round of piglets is healthy and doesn't come down with it.  The instructions on the bottle are to vaccinate all piglets at 3 weeks of age...which has me wondering how long we will need to keep up with the medication, through how many generations...and will it pass on to other people's breeding stock.  

Going by the vet's advice on this.  

We lost a 4 month old pig(let) in early January to possible hypothermia.  I brought warm water out long after dark one night, and it seemed that there were fewer piglets eagerly slurping it up.  The next morning, one was cold but still alive on the edge of their "nest" inside the shelter.  I brought it into the barn, set it up under a heat lamp (in a barrel designed to give warmth to new-born goats and lambs), brought it warmed up flannel sheets, tried to raise it's body temp.  It was at least 40 pounds, difficult to even hoist over fences and carry to the barn, but it if was smaller, I would have brought it into the house for a warm water bath and to try to raise his temp even more.  Despite the hot coffee with Karo syrup...and other remedies that we tried throughout the day, he died soon after I left him alone so that I could feed and water all the other critters that afternoon.  Sad to see such a robust little pig fade so quickly.  He had been out and scampering around just 24 hours earlier.

Side note...never try to warm flannel sheets in the microwave.  A scorch mark on one of the sections was an eye-opening reminder of that.  I guess it's like trying to re-heat a bag of microwave popcorn and setting off the smoke detector.

And...now that I'm on a roll with the pig update...  One sow had a miscarriage the other day.  I think that it usually happens (IF it happens) and the evidence is quickly "removed", so to speak...because Cameo was in with the boar, and he was already interested in what I saw.  

I moved Cameo to the adjacent pen, where she slipped a tiny fetus and the sting of tissue that I assume was the placenta.  Just one little piglet, not more than 3 inches long.  I did not see her lose any more, but it's likely.  The boar is very interested in her again through the fence yesterday, so...pregnancy lost, most likely.  She would have been due at the end of March, which is still a bit cold for a litter of piglets, even inside the barn.

I won't put her back in with him until at least 3 weeks from now, and the vet has sent in the little body to the vet at University of Illinois for testing, just to see if we need to be aware of any reasons for that miscarriage/abortion.  

I suspect that the boar, who likes to throw his weight around, was bullying her because of the new and attractive gilts (young females) in the other pen, and he couldn't get to them, so he was shoving her around.  He had given Cameo a cut below her eye a few days before, and one day in December she had a cut on her side...  

But the weird thing is...he bred her in early December, and although that appeared to be wildly successful, there was evidence of breeding again 21 days later (the usual length of time between cycles), and this little miscarriage was 21 days after that.  I'll be curious to see what the vets at the university find, and they are testing for 7 different things.  Cameo was the first of our hogs to go to Lincoln Park Zoo last summer.

(Third photo...tactful photo of Cameo with barely visible miscarriage....as the sun set and that particular day ended)

Well, enough typing about pigs, I'd probably better get outside to care for them.  

This winter, our pens are full.  It's probably good that sales were slow this past year.  We need to find out if there is any health issue brewing here, or if everything is fine.  

As I walk out to feed (and haul water to) almost 3 dozen pigs of various ages, imagine this scenario.  (Most of them are still quite small...but still....it's a lot of pigs.)  I am greeted with squeals, shrieks, back-and-forth pacing and foaming at the mouth...until the feed is in front of them and then it is blissfully quiet.  The second round that I haul out to them is warm water from the house, usually 15 gallons of it twice a day.  The good days are when it is not freezing as they try to drink enough of it.  When the piglet died of hypothermia, it was -20 for days on end.  This week has been a pretty good week, as the water has stayed liquid in the middle of their bowls until the warm water is brought out at about dusk.  It is cold, but not so cold that the pigs don't linger outside their shelters or nose around in the snow.

After feeding, I baby them, if it ins't too cold.  I scratch the boars' shoulders, the sows look up at me for a scratch on the jowl, the piglets still tend to squeal and scamper away in surprise that I would try to touch them...but that will change as they get older.  

They won't all stay here, and once I know that the general health of our herd is not in question, I'll list quite a few of them for sale again.  Or we'll have a lot of pork in the freezer.

I love the pigs, but next winter...we will have less of them as we go into winter!  And even now, putting them together for the piglets to be due in late spring and summer, I am planning for one litter from each sow, not two.  And downsizing from that for the following year.

Dogs are eagerly waiting for me to close the computer and suit up to go out.  Cold weather, here I come!  

 

Laura

 

Pictures from a sunny afternoon

Almost set for winter.  These warm days have been such a blessing.

The hog pens are finally arranged the way I need them to be.  All the pigs seem a bit itchy, so the warm weather may have triggered an outbreak of mites...time to deworm them anyway, and the medication will take care of any external parasites as well.  

Pens are set up in a large "L"...20 feet square for each pen, adult boar Chips at one end of the L in his own pen (he needs a few barrow-buddies, but that will happen when I get to it), adult sows in adjacent pens to Chips' for now, for easier introduction at the right time(s)..  I'd like babies to be born starting in April, but...I need to be able to open gates and introduce sows to boars at the right time during the dead of winter, those sub-zero days in January. Ugh.  The planning is just about in place, open one gate, sow trots into the boar's pen, they co-habit for about 3 months...  Sounds easy.  

Along the "L" of pens...past the adult sows' area, we have the young gilts.  These are the females who were born this past season and haven't sold yet, or are being kept for evaluation as future breeders.  They are too young to be introduced to Chips, or to the boar at the far end, so...with a buffer of adult sows in between them, they are in a center pen where they can imagine shopping at the mall or trying on clothes at the boutique, chatting endlessly on their phones/Snapchat/or whatever else is the latest rage, or decorating their A-frame hut with pink and purple and sparkles...  Ahem.

Moving along, next up are the barrows or young boars.  The young boars can't be housed with the adult boars, so they get to spend the winter with the barrows (males who can no longer reproduce).  There is playful body slamming, ears flapping as these guys dash in circles like little puppies, once in a while there is a squabble.  For the most part, this is a happy group, lying in the sun, sleeping like warm sardines in their little A-frame hut, and just enjoying life.

And at the far end of the L, our other adult boar, Mitch.  He has two barrow buddies in with him, and it took a few days for me to be sure that he was not going to toss them right out and over his fence.  But they have happily settled in, and are set for the long cold winter

Besides the hogs, (Yes, there are a LOT of hogs left here after a slow season of almost non-existent sales), the sheep and goats are set for winter.  

In the photos, you'll see one breeding trio of our Southdown sheep.  Luther is set up in a roomy pen with April and Sunny, since mid-October.  I assume that both ewes are already bred.  Things happen within the first 21 days, usually, and Luther was quite serious about his task.  That puts lambing season at mid to late March, possibly early April, which is what I hoped for.

This year, we have two breeding groups of sheep, and Boy Blue is in a different pen at the south end of the barn, with May, Merry, and Easter.  Easter was just born this spring, so might not have lambs for another year.  We'll see.

The young ram lamb who we brought back from Minnesota will have to wait for next year, too.  I just didn't have enough fencing or shelters for him to be paired separately with any of the girls this time. He is with a buddy, a wether (neutered male), and they are hanging out with the young goat girls who need to be kept separate from the male goats...  

If your head is spinning by now...that is how I feel sometimes, when I think of all the arranging and rearranging we've done to make all of this possible!!!

That still leaves the goats.  Ready?  :)

Here is the force of the buck in rut....  I had two groups of goats, one in the pasture, the other in an adjacent grazing area, separated by typical field-fencing that is used for livestock.  One day, a doe was rubbing against the fencing that is between the two areas.  By the next morning, the wrong buck was in the pasture with her.  There is a hole in the fencing that is large enough for dogs and goats and even a large deer to push their way through.  Wires were simply snapped, or stretched to the breaking point, in the buck's advances towards the "lady".  Luckily, it is on an interior section, and none of our animals escaped into the fields around our place...  

Assuming that Zaney was bred that night, we'll need to do DNA testing to see "who's your daddy".  Sigh.  If she has bucklings, I may just sell them as unregistered.  Sigh, again.

So the goat groups....now the one group of 3 does and one buck is in with the sheep at the south end of the barn, co-existing nicely except for just a few odd days, when the females of either species think that they need to challenge each other.  

And the other buck who barged through fencing, and his two ladies, are in the old blue shed with a little pen set up outside.  He lost his grazing rights when he ruined my fence.  Baby goats are also due around the end of March, beginning of April.

We briefly entertained the thought of looking at a property that is for sale...  40 acres, mature 200+ year old oak trees, sedge meadow, artesian natural springs...  Adjacent to conservation areas that are already protected and maintained by the conservation district.  Two houses (duplexes), two summer cottages that are currently rented...  Existing trails through the property for ATV's, horses, hiking...  Plenty of potential.  

But...  No existing barn.  No fenced pastures.  It is within 5 minutes of our farm, but...having set everything up here for winter, put up enough hay to get us through to next summer, planned for all the breeding groups and the babies that will arrive in 5 months or less...we just can't pick up and move at the drop of a hat.  I love the idea of preserving oak savannas that have been in the area since before European settlers came in and divided the land into 40 acre sections.  The pigs and goats could be used for taking out the buckthorn, eating the invasive garlic mustard, gradually the land could be reclaimed from the invasive plant species that threaten to choke out the native plants and wildlife.  There would be areas that offer an abundance of acorns, hickory nuts, and walnuts every autumn.  A water supply even if everything else ran dry.  6 acres of tillable land, lots of wildlife.  But that will be put on the back-burner until spring, and maybe not even then.  

That's quite a whirlwind of a lot of thoughts going through my mind...  

Back to the photos.  That's handsome boy Luther, wearing the collar.  He gets a little bit fiesty, and I wanted a handle to grab him if he acts a little challenging sometimes.  He is gentle compared to Brock, the black ram who we were not able to keep.  

The white ewe with him is April, our first Southdown sheep who we purchased as a lamb back in 2013, I think.  And the black ewe is her daughter Sunny, from 2015.

Dogs of course, are Star and Remy.  Taffy had decided to perch on the back step and not be in the pasture with us by that point in the morning routine.  

Time to get out there and get some more work done, with the sun shining and the unseasonably warm weather on it's way out later this week!  Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  

 

Laura

Too close for comfort

Coyotes. I'd never heard them so close, like they were right in our backyard...

Taffy was going crazy, the pups were barking with her inside the house. Puppies put safely away (first order of business!), I let our little blonde (and furious) whirlwind out and had planned to get Remy to help her...

Taffy was answered by a chorus of coyotes as she reached the fence at the far end of the pasture, and I saw the big hole that they had dug UNDER our fence in some soft soil... They were LITERALLY right in our backyard...!!!

Remy was clamoring to join in (from the barn where he'd been eating dinner), but...Taffy was still growling at something(s) just outside in the cover of the corn field, and I couldn't risk losing either of the dogs to a daring scramble under the fence and into the territory of the waiting pack...

A large old stump was hurriedly rolled into the hole, and as I turned around to go and get Remy, the pack started singing to Taffy who was still raging on our side of the fence... They had just been inside of our pasture for the first known time in 7 years, and they were daring Taffy to come out and fight them. Unbelievable.

Remy dashed to join her, and I went to get Jeff.

They were gone by the time we got back, Jeff had the gun, Jeremy and I had the shovels and flashlights.

I set up an electric net-type fence after we filled the hole, just to give them reason to pause when they come back later. The guys peed on it, for good measure.

The goats who were free-ranging in the pasture were put in with the breeding trio of sheep. Safer there than out in the open.

And now, to try to get some sleep. Tomorrow we'll add an electric line to the bottom of the fence, but if they're really determined, it will not stop them.

 

Laura

Puppies, puppies, all the time

Photos:  Gage, Maggie, Misty, Kitty, and an old but joyful picture of Remy with little Star

We're coming into the last 2 weeks of Puppies!  Puppies!  All!  The!  Time!  :)

Sprocket (Skip), Murphy (Captain), Sky (Goldie), Fenimoore (Morty), Wisp...  All of these have left for their new homes and we've been getting such nice feedback from happy families.  

Here just until the end of this week is Gage, whose placement fell into place as if it was simply meant to be.  He will be picked up this coming weekend, by a family who is DRIVING UP from North Carolina because they want this particular pup.  

Here until November 8 are Maggie and Misty.  These girls will have homes in New Hampshire (Maggie) and Vermont (Misty). Their ride leaves from a farm two doors south of us, on Nov 8, so they have two weeks more until their big adventure begins.  

Kitty has had some interest, and we are waiting to see which family or farm she will go to.  She is a sweet pup, a little overwhelmed by all the boisterous play of the other pups, I think.  She is happily asleep under my chair as I type, while the other pups are still running off some energy.  We started crate training, so...there are a couple of pups who spent the night in a crate by themselves, in the puppy play area, and they area bit wound up.  :)  No accidents in the crates, so that is a great achievement.

And then little Star, who gets to stay.  Her registered name will be "Evening Song Starry Night".  Jeff played a song for us on his phone, Starry Starry Night, which is about Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh.  When we chose Remy's name, we had Dutch artists in mind.  Remy is not named for "Remington", but for "Rembrandt".  Star's name will make reference to another Dutch artist, and one painting that Van Gogh is famous for.  

I was testing her a bit this morning.  With a handful of tiny cat treats, I walked around the kitchen island and she trotted eagerly behind me.  When I stopped, she immediately sat on the floor and looked up expectantly.  We didn't train her to do this, except in what we've done with all the puppies to stop the popcorn jumping when they want our attention.

She is eager to please, attentive, and should train very easily.  Her sparkly little eyes looked up at me each time I stopped, and when she was rewarded, she wiggled with glee.  This is going to be a good pup to have in the mix, here at the farm.  She is now working the system, sitting quickly and looking up expectantly whenever she has the chance, to see if she will be rewarded.  What a good girl!

So...two weeks to go until Maggie and Misty leave.  One week for Gage.  Kitty should have a home lined up soon.  Training with Star will begin in earnest then, with her getting used to the crate in the house, and no brothers or sisters to romp with.  

This time period is bittersweet, and yet...  It has obvioiusly become time to let them go, so that they will bond with their new owners and learn their jobs on THEIR new farms, or in their new homes.  

The timing is right for little pups to venture out into the big wide world and to start their lives in earnest.

 

Laura