Matchmaking, part 2

Officer (as in..."Officer Friendly") and Rose.
Rose is the hog that the vet remarked on "She is really 'correct'". Long bodied, although she has the AGH jowls. Rose has a bit of a pigeon-toed walk, so pairing her with Officer might improve on that ankle trait in her babies.
Officer is our "flopper" boar, very friendly and looking for ear scratches and belly rubs. Not too long into scratching behind his ears, he will sink slowly to the ground and roll to expose his belly. His official name is "Lawnmower", which fits, too. He is the registered full brother to our first boar, "Boris".
Rose's piglets with Boris were not registered, but are friendly, long-bodied, and easy-going, about 20 pounds when they were 12 weeks old.
Rose is rather opinionated with other pigs (except for Big Bea, who is truly the one in charge in any situation!), and mild-mannered Officer is in with someone much more pushy than his barrow-buddy was. There has been a bit of squealing behind the barn lately, but it's calming down now as they get used to being roommates. 
Piglets could be due in mid- to late-May. This will be Rose's second litter.

 

Laura

Matchmaking, part 1

Stanfield's Batman and Wandering Peacock Farm Cameo, two of our American Guinea Hog breeding adults. These two make the cutest couple, no fighting, always side by side. Batman is quite the gentleman.

Batman is from a breeder in Kentucky, and our daughter accepted the challenge to bring him back to Illinois (on her way back from vacation!)  He was tightly fit in a cat carrier in the back of her rather small car.  They gave him a superhero name, because he....um....held it the whole way back.  Usually all conversation in the car stops when the pig in back relieves itself.

Batman was rather spunky during the summer as a youngster, dashing full speed through the flock of ducks and geese to scatter them, and chasing sheep in the pasture. He's settled down and is very mellow and friendly now. He is a boar that catches your eye, because he is just so handsome.

Cameo is from our friends in Reeseville WI, who were closing up the farm and getting ready to travel the country with their family....for a year....in an RV.  They are loving it, and the people who received their quality hogs are loving the additions to farms around the area.  Cameo has my favorite body type in an AGH....rather compact, solid build, shorter nose, smaller ears, longer eyelashes and beautiful eyes.  I looked at her the other day and thought I should have called her "Elf" because her ears are so tiny and pointed.

Cameo was very indignantly squealy when we first got her, and did not get along with the two pregnant sows. She lived by herself for a while, but is now happy with Batman as her companion and much friendlier towards me. 

She has a solid compact body, compared to Batman's size and athletic build, and their piglets should be a nice combination of the traits of the parents. Cameo has a thicker black coat of bristles than any of our other AGH. 

There may be some white markings in the litter between these two, as Cameo's dad had a white nose and Batman's brother has a white nose and white front feet.

Cameo's first litter is due sometime in April.  AND, will be our first register-able litter of Guinea Hogs.  (Another first for us:  People have already asked to be put on the waiting list, and are wanting to put a deposit on piglets!)

And I'm still smiling about a comment from a friend, who calculated the "inbreeding coefficient" for the piglets from these two.  He said "You have chosen wisely".  For those who care about such things, the COI of the resulting litter will be around 5%, which is pretty good in the small world of breeding AGH.   :)  

 

Laura

Cattle

(Photo taken by my friend Joanne this month, and special effects done by her as well)

Things may be winding down for Miss Bessie, and for cattle in general, on the farm.

Spunky Prince Johan (affectionately known here as Jonny-Boy) will follow in the hoof-steps of his older brother, and go to live with beef cattle on an organic farm, in March.  It's all set up, the farmer will buy him from me and we'll buy back half of the beef a year later.  It works out to an almost even exchange of money, gives the farmer a milk-fed, grass-fed, no antibiotics steer to add to his organic herd. Makes for a good transition for me (time between seeing his beautiful face and seeing packages in the freezer), and a good situation for a growing steer who has outgrown the one-acre fenced area that we have available.

And Bessie....

Is still not pregnant, but has a cyst on her ovaries instead.  The last attempt at artificial insemination did not "take".  That was 3 weeks ago.  

Vet came out last Sunday, checked to see what was going on (the steer and his mama were behaving more like romantic interests, quite normal when the hormone levels are right).

She has developed a cyst.  She is not pregnant.

We have one straw of purebred Dutch Belted bull "stuff" left in the vet's deep-freeze.  It's expensive stuff, at least $12 per straw, which equals one try, and then shipping ($80) to get it to us, and about $60 each time the vet comes out to attempt artificial insemination.  A $20 storage fee each year to keep it in the vet's tank in colder-than-cold conditions.  

I can't afford to buy more if this try doesn't work, and....it doesn't make sense to keep trying after a certain point.

So we have one more try to hope for, pray for a calf.

Dr. M left me with a series of shots to give Bessie in the rump.  I've done it before.  It's daunting to stick a 1000 pound animal in the butt with a sharp needle, but a bucket of grain can work wonders to distract such a large creature.  Once the needle fell off of the syringe and the medicine went into the bedding.  Once she walked around with a needle bobbing out of her butt for a few minutes before I could wrangle it out of her.  It's an adventure...but I'll do it!

She was given one shot when he was here, will get one more on this Sunday morning (given by me), then another on Tuesday evening (again, me).  If I keep to the schedule and am successful, she will have a fertile egg ready and waiting for the AI attempt on Wednesday morning early. 

I want to hope that it will result in a pregnancy.  If it doesn't, we've spent more money on her this year than we should have, my farm bank account was depleted with vet bills after her unfortunate 2 incidents during the summer plus the attempts to get her pregnant, and we will need to make a difficult decision.  

She is too large to keep as an unproductive pet.  She costs me $5 a day just for hay, plus any extra costs for grain or vet bills.  It adds up.  And there are other expenses that need attention.

This year I have not milked her every day, and have not done a great job of keeping up with the manure shoveling.  It makes sense to have time for the smaller animals, since we have a smaller property than what a cow should ideally be kept on.  A lot of reasons not to have a cow make perfect sense.  

I'm just not ready for the decision to send her away.

Fingers crossed, hoping against hope at this time.  

My prayers are for this AI to result in a pregnancy, and one more calf.  

 

Laura

Safety returns, with a necessary send-off

The title will make sense as you read this story.

The first photo is from 2014. That adorable little black ram lamb was going to be our herd-sire for years to come. He was unrelated to the two white ewes, and we kept the smaller of the two white lambs for breeding, too. It was the start of a nice Babydoll Southdown flock.

Brock (named after a Pokemon character) was gorgeous. He did a great job of breeding in winter 2014, and sired the three beautiful lambs in the 2nd photo, born about a year ago.

He started acting mean towards me while he was with the ewes that winter. The shearer warned me this past spring that a ram like Brock could easily break my leg if I wasn't careful. This was uncharacteristic behavior for any Southdown sheep, but....this is how he was and what I needed to deal with. I should have followed common-sense a year ago, but...

I couldn't bear to send him to the butcher. He was *supposed* to be here for years.  

For my own safety, Brock was kept in a fairly large pen inside the barn. He didn't get his hooves trimmed more than once last year, and I didn't attempt to give him his CD&T shots. I didn't go in unless I needed to. That probably didn't help with the aggression.

When I moved him to a new pen in preparation for one more breeding match-up, he nearly broke my wrist. If I'd been next to a cement or wooden wall instead of a livestock panel, I could have been seriously hurt. Another time I broke a glass milk bottle over his head in an instant reaction to him making a run at me. It's what was in my hand and before I could think, I had smashed it on his head. Honestly, if I'd had a shovel in my hand, I would have clanged that on his skull without thinking.... That was the level of danger I was in.

He staggered back and then gathered himself for another run. I pushed him back behind a thick piece of plywood so that I could pick the glass bits out of his bedding, keeping an eye on whether he was making progress to get past that board and come at me again.  

I was home by myself that morning. It was clear that things needed to change.

So finally this past week, his appointment with destiny arrived and we sent him away. The writing was on the wall, there was no other choice.  I could not have sold him to anyone else and then worried about someone being injured. He couldn't be loaned out for breeding, because he had started being pushy and mean towards the ewes...

He was truly gorgeous, and I'm not happy that his life needed to end. It was, however, absolutely necessary.  

Jeff helped me to load him into a large dog crate in the back of my Trailblazer, and we brought him to our friends who were hauling some sheep and hogs to the butcher.

The next day, I drove to pick up his skin and the skin of one lamb our friends from Hillbunker Farms had brought in.  

This had seemed like such a common-sense, wonderful idea. Why waste the skin of such a beautiful animal? Why not have it preserved, and bring back a sheepskin worthy of display or of use? His chocolate brown wool was easily 2 or 3 inches thick. It was worth the cost to bring this pelt to the tanner and see how it turned out.  

Right?

Here is where the unexpected emotions bubbled up. I went around the back of the butcher shop, and there was his skin, unmistakably his, unceremoniously dumped on the concrete step. It was supposed to be returned to me in a box, but it was just lying there in a crumpled heap. I expected to be OK if I didn't actually see it, but there it was, in plain view. I asked for a bag, and the butcher deposited the white lamb's pelt and Brock's in a clear plastic bag and threw it in the back of my car...

Imagine those cartoons where the character has a red flush rising visibly up his face. (And then steam usually comes out of his ears) That was me. I could physically feel the stress level rising. My inner ears felt like I was under water, or changing altitude too quickly. I can't remember the parts of the conversation that my friend and I had on the way to the tanner's, or on the way back home. It's a bit scary to think of how much this one incident affected me. Maybe I shouldn't have been so casual about wanting his skin returned to me...

With the pelts delivered to Milwaukee, and back home, even a day later I felt like my stress level was rather high. Something about knowing Brock was alive just moments before, and then seeing his skin like a deflated balloon just got to me. I keep picturing it. I needed to type it all out and diffuse some of the tension. So here we are, and thank-you if you've read this far. This helps to sort through the reaction that didn't make sense, and to put things in perspective.

At least there are 5 months before this part of my ram will be returned to us, and then it will find a home at our son's place, not here in our house.

It's seems strange that I reacted the way that I did...when I think of how much it needed to happen.

It's such a relief that he's not in our barn anymore.

It's a relief to go in and not need to watch my back if I'm next to his pen, or feeding him, or bringing him fresh hay or water. 

He is not an animal that I loved, because I couldn't trust him. He glared at me or snorted and pawed the ground. He tossed his head or stamped his hoof. He would have knocked me to the ground without even thinking. He was dangerous, and I should have sent him away much, much sooner. I am very thankful that at no time did he have the opportunity to really hurt someone. I am thankful for our little farm dog Taffy, who I needed to call on a few times to force Brock to back down and move back where he belonged. (Which she did with tenacity and obvious glee, much to my own delight)

Brock's fresh skin crumpled on the cement step was not really heartbreaking, or gut-wrenching. It's hard to explain why the stress rose like it did, or why it hit me so hard.

The learning curve is still in full swing, apparently, with no end in sight. A good thing. I think it's just the question of life, and being the one to decide to take that life. The skin on the ground just hit too close to home... (For what it's worth, I think we WILL ask for the skins of future lambs or sheep that we bring in. It doesn't make sense to waste that part of their existence when it could be such a beautiful item, for sale, or for gifts to our children, or for us (eventually). I think I will eventually come to terms with it. 

I can't truly say that day-to-day safety is assured on this farm, but at least it's a bit safer than it was when Brock was here. He was the resident that hated me.  That was never going to change.

I don't miss him. I think I miss the promise of what he could have been, and regret how it needed to end when that didn't happen.

That last photo....his twin ram lambs from this past spring. Such sweeties, so calm and gentle, and so loved in their new home. Brock's babies did not inherit his mean nature, that's for sure. 

Looking not too far into the future: Babies should arrive in March. Some of them will be Brock's. New life will take the place of the life that is gone....  

And a little later still: A new ram lamb is coming our way to take Brock's place, maybe in late May or in June. I don't know if it will be black or white, but he will be a good genetic match for our three ewes: April, her 2014 daughter May, and her 2015 daughter Sunny.

Once more, it will be a beautiful flock (that I can safely walk through!), with a promising future here on our little farm.

Heat and water, absolute necessities!

Unbelievably, the goats are out playing, the pigs and piglets come rolling out of steaming nests of straw, the cow has frost on her whiskers but is bright-eyed and hungry. The sheep are breathing clouds of steam but are warm inside about 3" of wool...
I'm bundled up in layers, still quickly freezing inside my cocoon and gloves (wind chill of -25) and the warm water I'm bringing to all the animals is freezing within minutes as they slurp it up. 
Time to head back out with water installment #2...for about 70 thirsty beaks, bills and mouths...and wild birds too that swoop in before it all freezes. 

The 28 year old heater in the house was still going strong most of the time, but we decided it was time to replace it on the advice of the last tech who inspected it.  A crack in the plate (?) meant that it might start leaking carbon monoxide into the air we breathe....  Temps in the house are in the 50's right now, as the brand new heater is being installed.
Hoping this is the coldest day of the winter, so everything else can seem so much easier...

 

Laura

Overtaken by the hogs

The USDA farm survey arrived this past week, gathering info for a 2017 Farm Census. We haven't gotten one before, so the detail of the questions caught me by surprise.

When Jeff stopped and asked me to count how many pigs we have at the moment, I asked him to stop filling it out and let me think on it a while. We won't falsify what we report, but the numbers suddenly seemed a bit staggering....

Scary.....We currently have 5 registered breeding-quality adults, even though the plan is to only keep 3 of them as permanent residents.

We currently have 2 other hogs that will be served up as pork in June this year.

We currently have 2 litters of various ages (under 3 months old) totaling 15 piglets. Although most of them should sell or are already spoken for, they make it seem like quite the hog "population explosion" on our tiny farm.

By the time the survey is due a month from now, our hog numbers should be a bit more believable (meaning, many babies will have been sent to their new homes).

I'll report truthfully, although it makes us look like crazy hog farmers.

The survey sure did give me reason to stop and think about how those numbers look on paper!

 

Laura

Manure inspired thoughts....

Silly thoughts while shoveling bedding in the cow's area. 
"Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the candlestick"
Hint: Think of the board game "Clue"
The point of the game is...correctly identify the murderer, the location the murder happened, and the weapon. I used to think of myself as fairly good at this game until I played against Jeff. That's all it took to shatter the illusion.

So, thinking of my old favorite game:
Laura D, in the cow pen, with the pitchfork... (easy enough)
Laura D, in the hay loft, with...um...baling twine...
Laura D, in the pig pen, with the...shovel...? 2x4? 18g needle?
Laura D, in the goat shed, with the frozen water bowl...

Laura D, filling water troughs, with the Pocket Hose...

Laura D, in the mean ram's pen, with..whatever is handy...
(Actually, I had a glass milk jar in my hand one time and shattered it over his head as he came at me. His time here is very short, but not because I'll intentionially hurt him before butchering-day. He didn't even flinch and I had to force him backward with a board so that I could clean the glass out of his bedding!)

There could be a whole farming-themed Clue game with unexpected twists.
Not that I'm planning to murder or even clobber anyone as I fling the saturated cow manure... It was just a way to pass the time as shovel-full after shovel-full blended together into 5 heaping wheelbarrows-full. 

Like I said....  Silly...

Laura