For The Love Of Dog: May 2018

Scout lost her lambs as well. Though we haven’t an official cause for both ewes losing lambs, the vet suspects a toxoplasmosis outbreak. Apparently it’s very common. In all my googling, I hadn’t come across it. Though I found lots of information when I searched specifically for it.

It’s a disease that is carried mainly by cats and rodents, sometimes even birds. So the cat eats the mice/birds, then sleeps in the hay or does a poop near the sheep. The sheep eat the hay, or graze the grass near the cats business. Boom, dead lambs. From what the vet told me, it’s difficult to prevent, and there is no way to treat it. It’s basically chicken pox for sheep. After having been infected, they develop an immunity and go on to have healthy lambs in the following seasons. Knowing this didn’t make it any less sad to lose the four that we did. Other livestock owners have all told me not to be distraught, that having livestock also means sometimes having dead stock. Knowing that also doesn’t make me feel any better. You see losing a critter especially a baby makes you feel like you failed the animals. Or at least that’s how it makes me feel. I love my sheep, and losing them, even the ones I didn’t get a chance to pester with my love, is heartbreaking.

In their typical manner, the animals did not care about my sadness. They all still need to be fed and snuggled and pestered.

Good things happened here too. Dylan filled my heart with joy when he bought me dwarf goats.

This is Cher, trying to spark fear into Bella’s heart.

Gardening with goats is better than gardening without.

This precious boy is Chaz.

We got one female, she’s black with a little bit of white, I named her Cher. Obviously.

Her twin brother is Chaz, he’s a little grey and white precious baby.

The brown goat doesn’t yet have a name. So far I call him, Tiny goat friend, precious goat baby etc.

In June we pick up another unrelated boy, his name will be Sonny. Of course.

The puppies seem to think the goats are their best friends, the goats feel much differently. The puppies try to play and scare the pants off the goats, the goats run, the puppies chase. Then the goats stop running and jump up to do some kind of drop attack like they’re Hulk Hogan. This scares the pants off the pups and they run. Goats chasing. I still haven’t quite figured out if this is a weird goat game or if the pups are actually at risk of giving my goats a heart attack. Bella loves them, she tries to groom them they also do not like that. Bella gets the drop treatment as well.

Rocky and the goats have a good thing going, they completely ignore each other. Harmony.

We also welcomed a new baby yak bull to the farm, he is the first calf for both Elizabeth and Cameron. He is precious and lovely and I love him.

This weekend we will have to pull him to get him vaccinated and tagged, and banded. Cher be with us. Elizabeth is a very attentive and protective Mama. Fingers crossed we make it through.

Send me your name suggestions for my little brown goat!

A year ago today Dylan and I were trudging through snow and mud looking for Elizabeth and Mary our darling yak escape artists. I would also just like to point out that Mother Nature is a cruel and sadistic woman for making people contend with both mud and snow. There should only be one horrifying example of nature’s cruelty at a time. Though to be fair, the combination of the two allowed us to track the yaks for miles, so there is a kind of silver lining. If following bovine for days can be considered a silver lining.

This year, all critters are home so I only have to contend with mud and snow so far as the pastures.

Last week Calpernia delivered her twin lambs, they were weeks too early and were born dead. Which was a really great way for me to once again recognize that my cold black heart is neither cold enough nor black enough to farm successfully. I mourned the loss of those little babes. Now if we’re to see any happy bouncy lambs this year it is all riding on Scout who so far is 0 for 1. I’ve moved the sheep out of the lambing pens as my extensive googling has indicated that sheep unused to confinement are more likely to experience difficulty at lambing if they are confined. I figured we had nothing to lose really. Scout has lambed once in the pens and it was incredibly unsuccessful. Really how could it go worse than it went with Nugget? I should never say that, but I’ve said it. So likely now the sheep will surprise me with another horrible trauma I have yet to fathom. Cher be with me.

JoJos calf is a beautiful bouncy boy and I am endlessly thrilled at having another precious baby to love. JoJo, of course is not thrilled. I think it’ll grow on her. The yaks and cows are living happily together thus far. They didn’t give us much of a choice in that department. Eventually a person gets tired of broken fences and hooves caught in fences and just allows the herd to be together and fight it out.

Last week after Juicy was born I had seperated the yaks and cows because the yaks were treating baby as if he was a throw toy, scooping him in their horns and launching him into the air. They did the same last year to Jack the baby yak, and I was determined to change things this year. That worked well for approximately two days, then Dylan came and got me out of bed in the middle of the night to help him. The yaks had broken the fence between them and were in with the cows, all but baby Jack who was stuck in the fence. Of course. Why didn’t we see some kind of chaos ensuing with separation. You would think we would have learned by now, NOTHING GOES ACCORDING TO PLAN! NOT EVER! We spent a couple of hours in the rain chasing bovine through knee deep snow. (Another example of nature’s cruelty. Rain and snow, come on, for serious?!) eventually we got them seperated once again. The following morning I watched the yaks ramming the fence trying unsuccessfully (Thank Cher) to break the fence again. They were seperated until after Juicy had been tagged, vaccinated and banded. Once that was complete I opened the gates and prepared for a battle. There wasn’t one. All were friends. Full of surprises.

This is Dylan post bovine battle looking like a cool farmer despite the rain and snow. I on the other hand looked like a drowned sewer rat. There are no pictures of me for that reason.

It is unendingly confusing for me, when they’re together they appear to hate each other, when seperated they seem to want nothing more than to be together again. Not unlike some families I guess. Nonetheless they are reunited and the yaks have stopped hunting baby Juicy. We’re expecting Elizabeth to calf in the next couple of weeks. I’m truly hoping her calving goes the same as her sisters did last year. One day no baby, the next day, a happy healthy nursing baby.

We bought a squeeze a couple weeks ago, so our lives should get exponentially easier after we build a chute and corral for the critters. We may even be able to properly vaccinate and tag the animals. Which will be an exceptional amount of stress off us.

Spring seems to have finally arrived, the dugouts in the pastures are thawing, the barn and shop have flooded, so it seems we really have made it through the winter.

I did the spring clean of the chicken coop, a most unpleasant task. Last year I remember being excited about it. It was disgusting and miserable but I recall how thrilled I was at the prospect of getting chickens of our own. So thrilled I didn’t even loathe cleaning a coop full of chicken poop from chickens I didn’t even own. This year, the novelty had worn off. I was no longer thrilled.

Right : last year, fired up

Left: this year, misery

It is done now though, and I can resume cleaning the coop regularly. It is far easier to clean it after a couple weeks than after months of things being frozen. Horror. Disgusting.

Here are some photos of the last couple weeks on the farm.