Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of the Shepherds who care daily for their flock. I could flood today's blog with a whole plethora of ewe and lamb photos, but I'll hold back on that one. Today is your day, my day, regardless of ever having human children or not......you are the 'mothers' of your flocks, or the caretakers, of your homes or farms, animals and loved ones... regardless of your gender, it is your day.

Happy Mother's Day!

Thoughts

Thoughts.......just some thoughts. Spring is a wonderful time of year but also stressful for animals and their keepers. Identifying problems can be difficult at best. A friend had a ewe she believes had a thiamine deficiency....some call is sheep polio. No, it's not really polio but it is a call name, much like goat polio, related to thiamine deficiency. The problem with animals is that there are so many illnesses with similar presentations, how can you possibly know what to give them to make them better! It's worthy of pulling your hair out, especially when it's a favorite animal that you care for or love so much. From dogs to baby chicks to lambs and ewes......yes, not only pulling your hair out but also getting grey hairs over it also. When you don't have a good vet to fall back on, you search the internet. I like going to the Merck Vet Manual online, but sometimes even that is vague. Then I start working my way through different species....if I can't find it under sheep, I try goat, then dairy cow. Lots and lots of money has been spent on research for dairy cattle, but not for goats or sheep, so once in a while you find relative tidbits there that are very useful. Goats - well, there is Goat 911...yes, an emergency network of people you can call on for advice in an emergency. It's better to try something, rather than nothing... sometimes you throw the whole kitchen sink at them to try and save them. You'll not know which part 'in the sink' actually worked, but the end result is what matters and if you saved the animal, you did good. Up here right now there are some people with goats battling Floppy Kid Syndrome. Others are fighting a particularly virulant bacterial infection and the goat kids are lingering but there's always a chance one might not make it. It's maddening.......here we are in one of the richest countries in the world and our sheep and goat research is mediocre at best. Australia spent more than we ever did on sheep, the middle east more on goats than we have here in the US. Heck, most drugs for cattle aren't even marked for use in goats or sheep - even the drug companies don't think we're worth the money for research. Amazing, isn't it? If you have a sick animal, just keep searching the net - find what you can, then ask your vet if any of it makes sense for your particular problem. Ask other shepherds, ask the lists, always seek help if you need to save the life of an animal you own and care for. Share what you find. Too often we are ashamed of loosing an animal, we feel we failed miserably. But we all need to share, if we can do so we may save another's animal. It is better to loose when a group of you have tried to save an animal than to loose all by yourself feeling that you never tried hard enough or that you didn't do enough to save it. It is a heavy burden to loose an animal you love, even heavier to try to go it alone. Seek out your peers and ask for suggestions, it's all us humans have.....the support and knowledge of others. We CAN do it together!

Just thoughts for the day......

oh, yes, we've had more lambs to our unregistered girls....so far my unregistered flock has produced 2 ewe lambs for every ram lamb. How did I get so lucky this year???!!

And I'm waiting on my Peeps girls to start lambing...I see sunken loins; nice filling udders; and they want my attention too. This is good.... I can't wait!!

The Other Side

Above, right face profile and front face photo....so, Krunet?? I don't think far enough down for a smirslet, but what do you think?

Sunday Pics

Dominique's ram lamb.....he seems to have nice wool on his head and nice uniform crimp!

Then we have Miss Fairy Slipper...with her 'face freckles' and hoof spats, she due pretty soon and soaking up what little sun we've had today. She's wearing a nice piece of straw on her face too, silly girl!

And this is Treet's new daughter, a lovely black girl (the first black sired by Barby), and a full Krunet. Her mom did a so-so job cleaning her up but most is brushing off of her now. Born Friday, she's up and running around outside with the other lambs now! She was non-plussed by the photographer tho....

Hope you enjoyed the pics!

My day

Found a neat photo of my garden from last year taken at the end of July.... now on to the blog...

It's my birthday! Yay! I did DHI milk test at 7am and will again at 7pm.....I bottle fed a lamb that will be going to it's new home today...I fed the sheep and dogs and goats. That was 120+/- mouths all quite happy. The fed the ducks and chickens in the small coop.......that's opposed to the big coop where up to 150 layers live. The small coop has 25 Indian Runner ducks in one pen as future herding trial ducks, the other side an assortment of Banties and my Chocolate Muscovy breeding group. The banties have hatched 3 chicks in one nest so far...lucky for them there are another 20 arriving today or tomorrow to keep them company. But the best thing of all is that, today, I can do what I want to do and not get a dirty look for saying no, I don't want to do that now....hehehehehe...You know 'the look'...it's my day and I plan to take full advantage of it! Yes! It's my birthday...my 51st....I've made it over the hump....yah!!!!

Maybe more pics later, perhaps of the new ewe lamb that arrived yesterday.....if I feel like it.... :-)

Barbados has done well!

No photos yet.......sorry! Another registered lamb born early this evening to Silveraurora Treet. Treet is black, her little lamb is either black, gray, or very dark Moorit...too wet to tell! Since she's a first time mom, I wasn't going to spend allot of time fussing over her lamb....just letting them be in their jug alone together to bond well, just enough touching and looking to know what sex....

it's another girl! And with a small Krunet AGAIN! Woohooo! (no Peeps, not woo-woo).

So far, of Barbados's 6 girls bred, 4 have lambed and we have 3 girls and a boy, all single easy births with no assistance needed.

What a good guy!!

It's almost Friday, where have I been?

Aren't they beautiful? These are a pair of Sandhill Cranes that call our farm home in the warm months. They definately own the place, strolling to all of their favorite spots collecting goodies along the way. If you look closely, you can see the difference between male and female...the male is in the foreground, the female behind.

Nothing much new here, it's still fairly chilly, no new regsitered lambs born yet but we're at least getting closer. I've been potting up roses for the summer's enjoyment, and picking up all the stuff that seems to fly around a farm during the winter months that was buried by the snow.

Thanks for stopping by!