Coyotes

It's 12:33am. A few years ago I would of been up taking care of my crying babies and even longer than a few years ago I would of been up dancing the night away. Tonight I am up letting dogs out of pens and putting sheep up in the barns and making sure cats and ducks and chickens are all where they should be safe. It's been a noisy fall around here. Coyote free-way Coulee is what this place should be called. 

Hopefully everything stays safe and sound!

Life and Death

Our girls, especially our oldest girls, spend quite a but of time outside doing chores and caring for our animals. One of our girls loves the goats and she has an elderly goat that she has cared for the last year. Last night her goat couldn't get up so we moved her to the barn out of the wind. This evening she had a stroke and our oldest said it was time to euthanize Nancy. 

Watching her care for her and say goodbye is tough to watch and it's amazing to see the maturity she has gained over the last couple years. I don't know how else this type of growth could be replicated (not the right word...). 

I am grateful for the lessons we learn and the character we gain. I am grateful for the good and the bad. Birth, life and death seem to be the constants in our changing world.

Night time

Everywhere around us is done harvest or close to wrapping up. It also is one if the most active times for coyotes. 

After losing our prize lamb last year, we have been diligent in our efforts of predator control. 

Our two maremmas are still young at only a year old but have earned their places this fall.

Tonight (from what we saw) they fended off 4 coyotes in the sheep pen long enough that I could get out there. Between the goats and the dogs and my ewes willingness to follow their call, we got everything moved into the barn.

Except the rams (who are in with a nasty horse and 2 donkeys).... Hopefully they make tonight. 

I sometimes wonder if I picked the wrong thing to raise here. I could of got a couple heifers or larger sheep (I am not sure if it would of made a difference). 

Hopefully now that everything is locked up I can fall asleep to the howl of the coyotes and the barking of my big white dogs.

Records.

Through most of lambing season I keep a page open for each of my ewes and lambs on my phone. I jot down anything I see. Most years it goes directly into their own little health book but this year I am just finally getting done today! 

This is the stack of health record for the sheep. I found using seperate duotangs were easier for me than a binder. 

Buttons is one of my unregistered ewes so at the front of hers and our other non-registered ewes I have a cover page with her information on it. The other record books have their registration papers in the front.

Then I just slip one of my health record pages in and transfer the info from my phone. 

It's come in handy so many times (every year we lamb). I try to put things like when their bags start to fill or when we put a teaser in etc. Things I would forget if it wasn't written.

Lambing Lessons

I am always learning things with our animals. I have been so fortunate not to have complications while lambing. It is one of the reasons I picked a heritage breed. I knew the time would come when I would have to do intervene during birth.

Last night was that time. I was home alone and my gut told me all day that we would have problems. Labor for poor Lily was taking a very long time. As 8pm approached she was in hard labor and nothing was happening. Then an empty sack came. I phoned my vet- not home. I phoned my neighbour who owns a feedlot- not home. I phoned my other neighbour (who has a gift with animals and healing)- not home. 

So I bucked up, said a prayer, and got in there. With the next set of contractions I saw another sack. It was a head- no feet.  So I broke the sack and pushed in the head as far as I dared and fished for feet. The lamb was so so so so big so I had to just use my fingers. I got one leg forward but couldn't get the other. On the next set of contractions I got part of the shoulders through and then the next we managed to get him out. 

He is hands down the biggest babydoll lamb we have had. He tipped the scales at 10lbs. 

She seemed off after she had him but we waited out there until 11pm and still contracting but nothing. We checked the camerA at 12am and sure enough she was pushing again. 4 hours after giving birth the a mammoth lamb she had a tiny little ewe lamb.

They are all doing great. And the ram lamb she had is absolutely stunning. He is creamy white with black ears, nose, and legs. He may even end up speckled because of his mother. 

Hills

This morning things are lookin a little better than they were last night. Sick ewe,starving lamb, and didn't bond. This morning was action time. I try to stay hands off as much as I can but by 5am this morning the lamb was in rough shape. I have lamb replacer but I decided to milk the ewe and syringe feed the lamb. Once he got the hang of it we were laughing! He's perked up again this morning and so hopefully we can keep this going!

Reality Check

We obviously sell lambs to people and every year I get phone calls from people wanting their own starter flock. Some people are really for the reality. They know what it entails but others.... Want cute baby lambs or to turn a profit.

Most of my ewes have been easy. Most of my first timers need some help with feeding for the first couple of times but there has been something every year we have done this. Death or struggle that takes diligence and sacrifice on behalf of the shepherd. Maybe some find a romantasized notion in saving a baby or being involved and hands on... It's not the case though. Most of the time the struggle and sacrifice come with no sleep and worry that you've done what you could. Tonight has been no exception. And there will be more nights and more worry with others and with this ewe. We are set up for lambs and ewes and all that this entails but on nights like this I imagine what my life would look like with a couple wethers....

Over Confidence

We've been doing checks at night on the cameras. We seperated out the ewes we expected to have eminent lambs and at night that's the camera we have blown up on the TV. Well, that only works if you are all-knowing... One of the ewes on the other side lambed. We walked out this morning to do morning checks and there was a fresh lamb just laying in the feeder. Someone had cleaned off his face and I am pretty confident it wasn't his mother. So an hour before the bus is coming, Ellie and I scrambled to put together a small pen for this very uncertain duo. The ram lamb is an excellent size (about 6-7 lbs) and is very determined to eat. The ewe is a little uncertain of what is going on but is one of our easiest to handle. We managed to keep her still while her little guy fed and I imagine we'll be handling the two of them a lot over the next couple days.

Updates and checks

I am much better at updating our Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/cattailcoulee/posts/1675789502670101

But I will try to get better at posting daily photos here too!

These were taken today.

We noticed a couple days ago that ram#2 had a leaky eye. Yesterday I started treating it. Sure enough this morning while I was out doing the eye drop I noticed debri. I tweezed it out and flushed it and it's already noticeably better. 

One of our other ewes is painfully close to delivery. I am going to try to get some good pictures if her to show someof the signs of delivery. 

New lambs

We have a pair of black Easter ram twins! These guys were born yesterday around 830pm and came out healthy and kicking. The both stood and ate and the ewe (Jackie) was PHENOMINAL. She lost her lamb last year (still born) so she was a first time mama to live babies. She cleaned them both and got them both up and was so patient in getting them to eat. 

She is young and I have no doubt she will be one of my champion ewes around here.

Both babies will be up for sale either as rams or wethers. Ellie has already claimed them so I imagine they will be the tamest little critters on the place!

Life

Dusty sent this to me this morning and I know there are so many homesteading women out there who are dedicated to their families, the land, and their animals.

(This morning medicating the sheep... It's been 15days and it feels like an eternity sometimes!)

The Wife

I’ve never met a rancher’s wife
Whose toiletries aren’t filled with strife
Cause when they want to take a bath
They have to move the newborn calf

Whose washing machine has quit again
And the clothes are hanging in the rain
I guess that machine just ain’t able
To digest the fencing staple

She must be able to drive a truck
Winch it out when it gets stuck
Grease the tractor and auger the grain
And in the morning, do it all again

It’s nice if she can charm the banker
Ride out that colt who’s a little ranker
And fix a meal for the harvest crew
Who comes in when it’s falling dew

Raise the kids and raise the chickens
And not be too hard on the little dickens
And not have a fit when the land payment’s due
But just count your blessings she’s in love with you

Cause poems are written and songs are sung
About the men and the West they won…
But none of them would be worth a damn
Without the women who gave them a hand

Unknown

 

T minus 14 days

We are less than two weeks away before night checks are back in the "to-do" list! Dusty surprised me with a gift to get ready for lambing.

That IS NOT an ultrasound. 

But it is a wireless camera system for the barn. It over looks the eons and I can check the ewes on my IPAD!!!! I am sure I will still have to walk to the barn at night but I am really hoping it works well and saves me a few trips!

Working relationship with the Vet

I consider myself VERY fortunate to have my vet as my neighbour! (And as an added bonus to the convenience.... He is actually really good too!)

We have seen him quite a bit over the past few weeks but he popped over again and gave the thumbs up on Clifford's eye. All the drops 4x/day apparently is paying off and it looks like we saved it.

(The below is a picture from yesterday)

Being the one all up in his grill, I honestly couldn't tell if it was better or worse. I am really glad that it's {slowly} getting better!

Now to keep that in mind while I am out droppering his eye for the next week in March's spring storms!

Sheep wrangling

Most of the time when something happens in this joint, I am flying solo. We are on day 5 of drops and shots and Clifford's eye hasn't shown dramatic improvement. I texted our vet this morning and told him I would try to get some pictures of the eye....

Yes, his head is IN the feeder. I roped him (which I am terrible at), straddled him, put him in a headlock and tried my best to get a decent sheep selfie. 

You may think that this should be easy considering they are MINATURE but it is not. He can carry me around like nothing and often in a headlock he will pull me down over top of him. Finally I put his head in the feeder and got the above.

Hopefully this eye heals quick and I can retire from wrestling with his 4 times a day!

Some days

Last Tuesday Clifford's (our black ram) eye was weaping. We watched it and Thursday night we noticed it was swollen and cloudy so I phoned our neighbourhood vet and he had us give the ram a shot of antibiotics. Friday morning he came out and gave him some anti-inflamitories and some eye drops to administer 4x/day. 

So at 8am, 12pm, 4pm, and 8pm we go out and dropper his eye. 

He wasn't the friendliest ram we had so if something good is coming out of this, it would be that his temperament has improved slightly. 

Dusty has been home for the first three days of treatment but now I am on my own. This morning wasn't too bad dealing with him BUT as I was out doing morning chores.....

Gimpy (our favorite female Peking) was looking a little worse for wear. Poor girl!

Zola

For the past few months, Dusty and I have been contemplating how to downsize some of the creatures on our place. Our pastures need a break and we needed to refocus what we wanted our little farm to do. 

We have been fortunate enough to own a few really nice horses and Zola is one of them. She doesn't get used enough around here. We take her on trail rides but that's about it so when our neighbours expressed interest in her we agreed to show her. 

We ended up selling her to them. She will have a wonderful life of big grazing pastures and light trail riding. 

Life rolls on

Winter here feels likes it's winding down. My ewes are fat and loving their pampered barn life. Our goats look like they will be kidding in the late spring and our horses are fuzzy.

This week we experienced the reality of colic. It happens to most horse owners at some point. Sometimes you get lucky with minor colic but the week that wasn't the case for us. 

Our family horse, Holly, had a displaced colon and we had to euthanize her yesterday. It was a sad day with many tears. Our kids had a hard time understanding the suddenness of it. We just rode her. She was just running around her field. And then on top of it, we had a gelding winter really badly and it was finally to the point where he couldn't sustain life either.

It's been a rough horse week!

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of their soul remains unawakened"

Anatole France

Does and Bucks

That little multi-coloured guy is the new buck in town.... Well at least on the farm. We REALLY didn't want to kid while we lambed or while it was cold so hopefully these girls will catch and we'll get some late spring kids!