Cattle Drive Us to Drink

Dylan and I are never going to be rodeo stars. I've been told that if you raise livestock, you're a rancher, crops and you're a farmer. Though I'm not sure the two of us are qualified to call ourselves ranchers. On Sunday we had to move the cows from one pasture to another we didn't really consider the logistics of this. I figured I'd lead them out the way I lead them around the pasture. A bucket of oats and they'd follow anywhere. Not accurate. 

We opened the gate oats in hand and the pandemonium began. The cows took off with the sheep close behind. We opted to chase the cows and worry about the sheep later. The thing about driving cattle is that they run faster than we do. Also, they are three and we are two. Two people isn't really enough to move one cow on the loose, let alone three. Despite this we tried. We chased and crept and ran and yelled and did our best to herd them away from the woods and back towards the pasture. After what felt like an entire lifetime we got them into the pasture. Low and behold our beloved sheep followed. For a hot second we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves. Until Calpernia and her lambs casually stepped through the fence and back into freedom. 

Neither of us have ever considered ourselves anything for mutton busting. Good thing, turns out we're trash at it. What we learned however is that in order to catch a loose sheep you must fully commit. A half hearted or wary leap towards them will not be successful. At last I fully committed. I leapt onto Calpernia managing to grab her with one hand tightly gripped to her wool and the other held fast to her back leg. I held fast as she drug me around the chicken coop until Dylan was able to get her around the neck. Finally I was able to get her haltered, which I thought would make pulling her to the sheep pasture easy. I was able to halter and lead the sheep quite easily from the lambing pens to the pasture just a couple short months ago. Turns out it was relatively easy only because they wanted to go that way. It is more difficult to pull a sheep that is determined to go in the other direction. While I was pulling her Dylanwas attempting to herd the lambs behind us. Until the moment Calps leapt up from the ground and managed to ram me with her horns. One in the collarbone and one in the throat. She managed to kick me in the stomach at the same time. From this I have learned that my sheep are possibly not ruminants as I once suspected and are more likely trained assassins. Despite my shock I managed to hang onto the lead though I very quickly rethought my decision to lead her through the pasture and tie her in the shelter. I decided that right where we were was as good a spot as any to let her off. Fortunately her lambs quickly came running to her side. 6/7 escapees were now captured. Scout was a touch more difficult. With Calpernia I at least had the benefit of her not hating me entirely allowing me to get relatively close to her, something I did not have with Scout. I am not a superhero so I could not leap the distance I would have needed to in order to catch her no matter how committed I was. Though there were a number of failed attempts by both myself and Dylan. I'm nearly certain my knees will never recover. I also discovered that Dylan is a touch less reckless than I when it comes to the possibility of catching a horn or a hoof to the face. We had long passed the point of leading her with oats. The frustration and stress of spending hours chasing animals around was getting quite intense. They say most couples divorce over money stress. I'm not so certain. It's possible that escaped critters are the leading cause.

Eventually we were able to work together, myself at the gate and him slowly guiding her towards the other sheep we were able to get our final prison breaker back where she belonged. 

We were tired at this point and ready for bed. But it was just past noon. Precisely wine o'clock if I may get specific. We had planned to also get our tagging and vaccinating done on Sunday. We did not. There comes a point when one must recognize their limits. I was fairly certain that if we spent another moment with our animals they would all end up in the freezer. Sunday our yaks were our most pleasant animals. 

Today I came home from work to discover that one of the lambs was out of the pasture. She had somehow managed to get herself tangled up in the fence and in the process broke off one of her little horns. Bloody mess. 

Catching a lamb much like the mature sheep takes a significant level of commitment. Though you must be more delicate as they are smaller. A difficult balance to achieve. Eventually I caught her and in my infinite wisdom I decided it would be far easier to carry her to the house with me than to put her in the pasture, get the BluKote and try to catch her once again. 

Molly and Polly are not like my little Nugget was. They are bonded to Calpernia and are most full of joy when I am leaving them alone. They are also far larger than Nugget was. They are easily forty pounds. Forty pounds doesn't seem to terribly difficult to carry until it's struggling in your arms the entire way. Molly was fully determined to escape. I knew if I let her down I would never recatch her, so I struggled the entire way. Finally we reached the house and I was able to get her wound sprayed. I sprayed my hands, legs and arms in the process. This is nice because I was always very curious what it would be like to be a smurf. I figured I'd halter her and walk her back to the pasture. Hilarious. The halters were both back at the pasture having been used and discarded during Sunday's escapade. Carrying her back. Endless Joy. One benefit of farm life is that I guess I'll probably get fit, or killed.

After getting her coated up and back to the pasture I checked the time. Wine o'clock again! 

Here are a few pictures. I love that whenever Bella goes to the cow pasture Brisket comes over to give her a little kiss. Melts my cold black heart every time. Also, it's possible that Brisket is the cutest calf ever to live. He knows it too, little bud is all too happy to get right up for a picture. 

Good, Bad & Ugly

I'm beginning to learn things that I suppose are important to learn but that I really would rather not. 

My little Nugget died last week after a heartbreaking 50 hours. On Tuesday morning she was her normal self, we did our farm chores. She followed me around while I fed the animals, raised hell with the chickens as I collected eggs. The norm. We went in the house and she had a little nap in the kennel while I made her bottle, when she got up to eat she was lame in her back leg and shaking. I held her under the heated blanket while she ate and shivered. I made the choice then to take her to the vet, despite the fact that they were closing and it would be an after hours emergency visit. We went, and the vet figured she had a fracture she sent us home after some antibiotics and painkillers. I knew it wasn't a fracture, and I should have been more assertive in my opinion. I explained how that seemed impossible to me, I would know as she's never further than about ten feet from me. Ultimately I figured the vet knew best and I must have been wrong. Nugget and I got home and slept snuggled up together, by the morning she was lame in both legs and not even getting up to pee. We went back in. The vet said it was white muscle disease caused by a selenium deficiency we gave her a shot of selenium and took her blood for further tests. We hoped she would improve. That evening the vet called me to go back once again, Nugget had no white blood cells in her sample which indicated that somewhere internally she had a massive infection. I drove to the vet as fast as my little car would go to get the antibiotics. We started her treatment but by the next morning she had no movement in any of her legs and her little neck had gone rigid. I laid beside her giving her cuddles and pets all night but by the wee hours of the morning I knew she wouldn't make it. I cried my little heart out. For the next hours I lay beside her trying to keep her as comfortable as I could while I waited for her to die. It broke my heart. I had become so confident that she would live a long healthy life as our little pet sheep, I knew she'd likely never be big enough to go back out with the others but we loved her the same as our dogs. A part of the family. 

Speaking of our dogs, while all of this was happening with Nugget, our baby Bella had disappeared. The dogs took off in the morning on Tuesday and were gone for about an hour when I started calling for them. Rocky came home but Bella did not. I started driving around calling for her, then Nugget and I walked down our road calling for her, nothing. 

We went back home. Dylan didn't go to work on Wednesday so that he could look for Bella. I made posters and began putting them up. I called the spca for the second time to finally learn that Bella was indeed there. She had been brought in by a neighbor. We have a very aggressive pyrenees in the area who has been chasing cows and bison and led to a number of calf deaths. Our little baby Bella had been mistaken for that dog while she was out visiting. So the neighbor caught her, easily of course. Bella is just a pup and a very friendly one at that so upon the neighbors approach she rolled over looking for some tum rubs. Our neighbor then took her into the spca. So our baby Bella was labelled as a bovine terrorizer and spent the night in puppy prison. I was hoping that had cured her wanderlust but this morning I put them out and she immediately took off down the road, so it seems her night in jail did her no good. 

It was a stressful three days between looking for Bella and looking after little Nugget. 

Here's the thing I'm learning but would rather have not. Antibiotic free organic livestock raising is what I had thought was the ethical thing to do. What I learned from Nugget is that especially in lambs, disease and infection are easy to prevent but near impossible to cure. Had I given all the lambs a shot of antibiotic when they were born and then again at a few weeks old, Nugget likely would have been okay. Previously I thought I was making the ethical choice, not putting unnecessary injections into my little baby cows, yaks or lambs. Now I'm trying to reconcile the morality of letting some die from easily preventable things rather than treat healthy ones unnecessarily. It seems to me that letting some die is not the ethical thing to do. 

This is a side of raising livestock that I had never really thought about. 

In other farm news, Bella is now living the grounded life, inside or tied up. This is not her favourite thing, but the chickens sure are happy. She killed another chicken last week, my one consistent layer. My chickens are the worst. Sometimes I have too many eggs and they lay like crazy, other times, they give me maybe a few eggs a day if any at all. Though probably Bella is causing them some stress. We've adjusted the coop and run though, so they appear to be much safer! 

Jo-jo, Bridget and Brisket (the cows) have really warmed up to me. Brisket comes right over for cuddles and scratches, he loves a good ear scratch. Jo-jo is an actual maniac. She is crazy for oats. If I go in the pen without oats she licks me. From my feet to my head. It's so gross. The first time it happened I thought I was going crazy. "No way she just licked me!!" I thought. The girl will barely tolerate pets, I figured getting close enough to lick me of her own free will would be out of the question. It was not. She will lick and lick until I either leave or give her oats. She is okay with either but prefers the latter. Have y'all ever been licked by a cow?! It's a most jarring experience. The thing about it is that she's about ten times my weight, which makes it nearly impossible to push her away. By "nearly" I mean entirely. So that has become her thing now, no longer am I afraid of being skewered, just of being licked. Particularly frightening if I'm wearing shorts. Bare leg licks are incredibly gross. 

She is beautiful, and I love her but the licking is a bit much. 

My other two lambs, Molly and Polly are doing really well. They're growing quickly and are super active. Neither of them particularly like my company however. I've been trying to win them over with oats. I am never above bribery. 

My little yak calf, Jack is also getting big! He's growing well and quite curious about me, much to his mamas dismay. I haven't yet braved the wrath of mom and tried to pet him, but my day will come. I will win his love. 

Did you know that sheep and cows love to eat leaves? They climb up on the tree trunks and eat the leaves. They'll even bend or break branches off trees or break the entire tree down if its small enough. They're all psychos. 

Look at this maniac. Absolute craziness. Never a dull moment. Yeah