Dogs

To look at this photo, you'd think that all four dogs get along famously, all the time.

It's the power of a treat.

Rocky (husky) and Waldo (darker sable and white) think they need to be competing, constantly.  There are growls, dilated pupils, snaps and snarls.

Shadow (black lab mix) doesn't like other dogs near her tail or in her space.

Taffy sometimes snaps at the others if she thinks they are breaking the rules.  

But, enter Jake, Carrie and a jar of treats....

They focus.  They do what they're asked to do.  They try to anticipate what will be required next.  They try to manipulate the system.  They hit the floor so hard on a "down" command that their elbows resound on the wood...

Sometimes, they can all be good dogs.

 

Laura

Spring baby rush

Photos:  Violet, One of Fleur's babies, and Trilly

Babies born Monday morning in the rabbit room.
About an equal number alive....and dead. 

Mama Violet finally had a litter of babies.
Two of Violet's are dead.  

But she had a successful litter! More are squirming in the nest!
She won't need to go to the butcher after all.

First time mom Fleur is one of our larger bunnies, and had a bumper crop of babies.
Fleur lost 7 of her 13+ babies. 
She will be an amazing mother to future litters, I think. She pulled the most fur for the nest that I've ever seen.

Two more does are due to deliver within the next couple of days.
One of them has a problem with overgrown teeth, which I'll watch her offspring for...
But there will be more babies! 

So goes the drama in the barn, and especially with the fragile lives of rabbits. 

Miss Taffy was guarding the pan of warming little gray bodies in the oven yesterday morning, but there was no life in them... I had to try, just in case one gasped for life despite the odds...

On a positive note: This is the first batch of American Chinchilla rabbit kits AND I have good records on all of the parents, and that I can document pedigree info on. 
(Thanks to Erica Solis at Emancipation Acres for the beautiful breeding stock!)

And this morning....

Mama Trilly had her litter.  All are safely tucked in the back of the nest box, snuggled in a cloud of gray and white fur.  

Mama Violet has nursed and rearranged the bedding and fur in her own nest box.

Mama Fleur has done the same.  

One day this week I'll count all the babies and remove any that have died, but for now, they need to stay snug and warm.

 

Laura

Nighttime activity

Photos:  Brother and sister, born last spring, and mama cat.  New kittens are "coming right up".

By the yowling and meowing and crooning all night long....for the past 4 nights, I'd say we'll have kittens born to one or both of the female barn cats in about 8 weeks.  

I could have had them spayed before Christmas, and should have, but....  I thought the brother of one/son of the other had already done the deed and didn't want to end a pregnancy or two.  Silly me.  The brother/son was neutered soon after potentially fathering litters, but the females never had kittens.  And now they most certainly WILL.  

The noise level has been robbing us of sleep, not just the mating calls of lusty cats, but....every time they set off their sirens and unearthly yowling, the dogs in the house go crazy.  More reasons to jerk awake in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep!

Two nights ago, the cat noises stopped, and all was peaceful.  Because a pair of Great Horned Owls were hooting back and forth in our stand of white pine trees.  Try sleeping through THAT when your brain fixes on whether the second one will answer the first one....THIS time.  Nope.  THIS time....  Yes, she answered him!  For hours.  

It was fascinating, even though I desperately wanted to just....drift....back....to....sleep.  But at least the cats stopped their racket.

I should have expected this, but it caught us by surprise.  Cats yowling last night after dinner.  Dogs barking like crazy in the yard.  Cats suddenly go silent, but it's not owls causing the break in the noise this time.  Because....coyotes started yipping and howling out in the bare corn field surrounding our property.  Cats in heat must sound like tasty morsels to hungry coyotes.  (I wonder if this is why we lost our favorite tom cat last spring)  If the dogs could have gone any crazier, they did.  The coyotes kept right on yipping, not too far outside the perimeter fence.  Yikes!

Poor Spartan the barn cat is the man in charge these days, with his brother Charlie and the intact tom out of the picture (one claimed by the traffic on the busy road, one just disappeared).  He's come in twice now, beaten, bloody, covered in mud.  I saw him fending off one intruder on our front porch, and the next morning he looked like he'd gone through a washing machine.  Poor guy.  He's over 5 years old, which is OLD for a barn cat, but he's still one of our favorites.  I don't imagine that he was looking to fight off hormone charged male cats, and owls, and coyotes at his age.  He's been getting extra cat food on the front porch, to keep his strength up.  

If anyone wants free kittens....Now you know where to ask for them.  Jeremy is looking forward to kittens to hold and play with again, and if this year's babies are anything like last year's, Jeremy will have them snuggly and cuddly before they are even a week old. 

 

Laura

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.