Free Hay!

Mr. Reece left about twenty round bales. We don’t want them. They aren’t suitable for horses and since we feed cattle and horses together we really can’t use it. Anybody want it? I’m asking around, if no one takes it I’ll run an ad on craigslist.

I went over to Edith’s and picked up the ewes we had visiting the ram. They were with him for six weeks so we’re hoping for the best. It’s Molly’s first breeding but Tilly and Bess or experienced moms.

I let them out at the truck gate.

This is the 4-wheeler I went to look at today. It’s a Honda Foreman 450. It has the boat motor option for when you get stuck in deep water.

It was clean, and the tires are in great shape.  It didn’t have a battery so we tried starting it with jumper cables, the battery goes under the seat which is why it is off in the pictures. The gas was old and the wire to the starter solenoid was broken so it didn’t start. We’ll go back with some clean gas and engine starter fluid to see if it will fire up. It belongs to Andy’s friend Randy. He isn’t in a hurry to sell it so he’ll give us time to get it running.

Forty-five Forty-six

44 had her babies late last night. She didn’t eat at feeding so she got locked in the stall. Sure enough that was the sign she was going into labor. Lisa went back out around midnight to do Lulu’s final feeding and 44 had one of the lambs stuck in the birth canal. Their front legs and nose are supposed to come out together, this one had its head out but the legs were stuck facing the wrong way. Lisa saved it by reaching into 44’s uterus and pulling it free. By the time I got out there she was done and the second lamb was on its way. The second one came out the right way and both lambs are doing well.

This is 45. He’s the ram lamb Lisa helped out.

This is 46, a ewe lamb, she’s a little smaller than her brother. They were up bouncing around. They are about 12 hours old in these pictures.

Samantha’s boys are doing fine. They have grown a lot since last week.

Andy named them Curly and Shemp. Shemp is the black one.

No Teeth

Animal husbandry isn’t all fun and games. There is a side of it that is as real as the cute little bouncy lambs. We banded the lambs today in order to dock the tails and castrate them.

Samantha’s Lambs

You may have seen Andy’s blog about Samantha and her babies. They are doing well. They were born early Wednesday morning. Serta tried to have hers Tuesday night, she had three but they all died. 44 is the only one left since Daffy didn’t get pregnant. Either Randy missed or she was too damaged by her ordeal with the stray dogs.

  The black one with white. They are both ram lambs, at least until tomorrow.

The white one with black. This one has long hair.

It was getting late and they were all tuckered out.

Lulu is living in the barn at night now. She was getting too big for the garage and could leap over the side of the x-pen.

44 is getting big. You can see how full her udder is getting. Turn up your volume and you’ll be able to hear her unique baa. Listen closely and you’ll hear it.

Broke the Fence

I stopped to open the fence and the parking brake gave out and the truck rolled backwards down the hill. It ended up across the pasture sitting on top of the fence. We put up some corral panels and went down today to work on fixing it. We had some other fence work to do today also. We decided to put a gate in the hole the truck made. We were wanting a gate between the pastures along there somewhere but hadn’t decided where. Chevrolet made our decision for us.

It spun around and hit the fence on the driver’s side. It hit two metal t-posts which became wedged underneath. We had to dig and pry the posts out so we could move it.

Lulu is full of energy. It’s going to be tough sending this one out to pasture.

Lulu doesn’t eat a lot of forage yet. She does like to bite off the flowers.

Lulu likes the girls.

 

  This is how we add concrete to a post.

 

We are replacing the t-posts with wooden posts on which to hang the gate.

Hanging out at the water tank in early evening.

The locust trees are in bloom. This is a beautiful time of year.

Don’t Tell Lulu…

…she’s not people. Lulu learned how to jump up on the porch today. She figured that since the dogs were running into the house that she should too. We had to explain to her that she is livestock and put her back outside. She hangs out in the yard when it’s nice out.

Lisa had the refrigerator open. The bottles in the door looked a lot like her feeding bottle. She was trying to find an udder, these looked like a good bet to her. She does look everywhere for stray udders, you never know.

Rosie had some more babies. There are seven of them in there.

Kate’s babies are doing well.

Andy came over this afternoon and helped us do post holes. The auger digs well but it needs help staying straight.

We are fencing off the area around the horse port.

Post before going in the hole.

Post in the hole. The holes were right at three feet deep.

Sheep Working Table

I designed the sheep table based on a goat milking stand. A sheep table needs gates on the sides and ramps. The head gate will catch their head and then we can work on their hooves and medicate them more easily. We hope. Today is a long post but stick around to the end.

   In my defense, it was windy out.

We got the rabbit cages set up behind the garage.  I made the table for it with pressure treated lumber.

It’s twelve feet long and two feet wide.

Rosie’s babies are in the smaller one on the left. The big cage is empty.

Our rabbit production area is growing.

The pond dam behind us is washing away from all the rain. You can see the big canyon where the overflow pipe used to be.

Louie was enjoying the nice weather.

We put the Wyandottes out in the chicken coop. They were getting too big for the baby chicken cage.

The neighbors have Holsteins this year, they came to see what I was doing.

  I disturbed Louie’s solace.

Lisa planted her cherry tree. It is a small variety that won’t get too big, but should still bear edible fruit.

It has rained so much we haven’t planted anything in the big garden. We have a few things in the small garden. Onions, carrots, lettuce and cabbage.

The strawberry patch is bigger this year. I didn’t mow too close to it because there is a lot of strawberry plants in the grass.

Kate’s babies are looking like rabbits now.

This is our new property! We bought Mr. Reece’s five acres. It goes from the close fence on the left over to the fence to the right of the round hay bales, down to the road and it shares the fence line behind our existing property. He isn’t taking the hay so we can use it to feed the cattle and sheep. It’s too old and possibly moldy to feed horses.

It’s the parcel at the top.

It gives us a total of fifteen acres. We already moved the cattle over there. We’ll get the minis and Heidi over this week. There is a lot of grass there.