New life

This is the miracle that I was privileged to witness late last night. Hugely pregnant, Zaney started acting like it was time shortly after we got home from dinner. We knew it was close, because her official due date was on the calendar for Saturday, and her udder was showing us that she would deliver those kids sooner than that.
In the sequence, you'll see the bubble of fluid containing the first kid...  She was having a bit of trouble with the first one, although it is not the largest of the three she would deliver. 
One kid was born outside the barn, I scooped it up and brought it to the prepared small pen inside, out of the wind. Zaney followed the newborn's noises, and before she could lick the first one clean, the second and then the third were born. 
She is a great mother and has not had triplets before. There was so much milk in her udder that it was nearly touching the straw beneath her. The babies needed a bit of nudging and "suggesting" where the milk supply was, and then latched on eagerly as they figured out how to be on their knees with their little noses far underneath their mama, to get belly fulls of colostrum and warmth. 
All three had a good amount colostrum and all three were snuggling down for their first nap when I went inside around midnight. 
Mama Zaney was quietly munching her hay and slurping fresh water, as if the monumental delivery had not just happened. And this morning...all three doelings opened their sleepy eyes and stretched when I checked on them, then settled in to take turns nursing. 
I can't even put into words how much the birth of these babies is a blessing, and the high-point of the year on our farm. 
God is so good, and the blessing of new life at Easter is so exciting! 

 

Laura

Baby season!!!

The first ones.  Born early this morning.  I had been out to check on all the pregnant mamas, and no babies were born as of 1:30 am. 

 

This morning by 9, April had had twins.  One boy and one girl.  Daddy is Luther, who was a dark faced lamb himself when I bought him two summers ago.

So cute, and mama April is experienced, sure did a good job having them up and nursing before I even knew they had been born.  

April is the first babydoll Southdown lamb that I bought from my friend Michele, back in 2013, and all of our ewes are her daughters or granddaughters.

Pictures:  The "Before" photo that I sure am glad I took just yesterday afternoon.  Luther, the daddy.  Mama April and her babies, and a close-up of the ewe lamb.

Happy Spring! 

Laura

The first days of spring

The fainting goats are due to have their kids any day now.  They are enjoying some beautiful, sunny days, blissfully unaware of the flurry of activity that awaits them when their little ones arrive.  

Mother "Zaney" and daughter "Fern" (Zaney is hugely, enormously pregnant!)

Mama "Savvy" with daughter "Pearl"

"Dazzle" 

And one buck who was so beautiful in the sunshine that I'll include him too.  Teegan.

 

Laura

Crazy cat

Here, she looks calm....  

But she is really a crazy kitten, ambushing us and the dogs, batting at fur from behind the slats of chairs, dashing and leaping with...yeah...craziness.  

She is in complete control, as she certainly set out to be.  :)

The dogs are co-existing peacefully with her, and her life is no longer in danger with a certain dog in a new home.  

This little orphan kitten seems to have settled in quite nicely.

 

Laura

A good start to the day

5:00 this morning, still dark outside, Taffy and I wake up simultaneously to the loud sound of a chicken clucking/screeching outside of the bedroom window. The sound is traveling towards the road... I figure a fox got in somehow, but there are other birds to check on.
Boots and jacket on, flashlight in hand, we dash outside. I remember that the Bielefelder roo and several hens had not seemed willing to go into their coop the night before, and I hadn't followed up...
Taffy is off like a shot, pinpointing where the chicken left our fence and (likely) crossed the road...as we could still hear it cackling but the sound is getting fainter. It seems to be a lost cause (except that Taffy is still intent on the now-distant location). 
We start looking for the others, and my heart sinks when I can't find any of them. Taffy has found them, though. They are huddled next to the fence in a corner, far away from where they should be. She is whining and wanting to make them move (they need to be herded back to where they belong, don't you know...), but she waits for me to pick up the roo, carry him to safety inside the barn, go back for the others, carry them inside as well. Taffy is usually quite beside herself with concern when I have a squawking chicken in my arms, but I think she knew this was different.
She dashes back to the fence, and I have a small hope that the other one simply flew over in the darkness and will be back, but...I call her in and we try to get a few more minutes of sleep.
Once the sun is up, Taffy gives one insistent bark and fixes her eyes on me until I get out of bed (she is good at this)... :) Outside the window, I can see the stray chicken frantically searching for a way back inside of our fence. Right next to the busy road. 
Taffy does not get to join me in retrieving the stupid hen. I won't risk her life next to the traffic... But Taff is the hero of the day, for sure. 
No chickens were lost, and who knows what may have actually spooked their tiny bird brains before day. Taffy may have scared something off that put them on the run in the darkness. 
First thing after the lost bird was back to safety and away from the road, I let Taffy out, and she dashed along the entire inside of the fence-line, making sure all was well. 
It's a good way to start the day. Proud of our girl! 

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