Recent content by purplequeenvt

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the instigator….Shetland ewes can be VERY determined when they decide they want a boyfriend.

Just ran outside for a minute and found the gate into the front field had been knocked open and Triton’s group was all mixed up with the ewe lambs/retirees. I didn’t see Triton out in the field so I thought for a second that maybe I had gotten lucky and he hadn’t seen the open gate yet. Nope. He...

My baby chickens have started laying. I’ve been getting a few brown eggs every day for a month or so, but I just started getting a blue one. My big accomplishment a couple weeks ago was a fencing project. It’s always been my goal to eventually replace the 5-strand high tensile electric fence...

I put my sweet old girls, Valerie and Minnie, down last month. They were 13 and 11. Valerie very quickly went from mildly arthritic to extremely arthritic and lost a lot of weight. Minnie was only a little stiffer than usual, but she’d lost most of her teeth and was having trouble keeping weight...

Breeding season is in full swing/mostly finished. Rams went in with the ewes on 9/24 and there’s only 2 or 3 that haven’t been marked yet. I’ve got 4 groups this year. Triton got all my homebred solid colored Shetland girls Snap got all my homebred patterned Shetland girls Burr (homebred...

I’m also in KY with Shetland sheep.

The results of a dip in the pond, a wallow in the duck pool, and then a good roll in the woods. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Just too immature. He could have a growth spurt, in the next couple months, but I think it would probably be better to let him mature more first.

These two turned 9 and 5 this month. Belle the Jersey - future milk cow Elsa the piggy ringleader Corduroy - I’ll be growing him out as a potential breeding ram. I thought about using him on a few ewes this fall, but I’m not sure he’s going to be mature enough by then. The babies...

So my hydrant wasn’t *quite* fixed. Turns out the top of the plunger rod was bent. The good news is that part can be detached from the rest of the rod and can be replaced separately. The bad news is that no one locally sells it (unless maybe a plumber that isn’t open today) and it’s not...

I was planning to butcher the meat chickens this weekend, but they weren’t tolerating the heat and I lost 2 this week. I had the day off so I decided to do it today. It’s about 3,000,000 degrees out and the idea of standing outside to butcher sounded horrific. I’d decided I wasn’t going to be...

I’m not sure this is the horrible, contagious hoof rot everyone is worried about. I looks to me, at least from the pictures and description; that it is potentially just an infected injury instead. I’d do the LA300 as recommended, but stop the bleach and coppertox baths. A soak in warm epsom...

Piggies are here! They’re my BIL’s, but they are penned on my property. Sold 4 of the turkeys yesterday. Oskar had a few meltdowns recently. I temporarily put took his boys away from him and put him with the ewes. He’s back with the boys now. It also got hot this week with rain and...

I am sad about Jemima, but I did not have a breakdown. She was a good girl, but I was already debating what to do with her before she got sick. She was 7 and I have nicer, younger ewes coming up behind her and limited space in the barn. She was nice enough/productive enough that I didn’t want to...

She died sometime between 10p and midnight last night. I did a quick necropsy this morning before work and didn’t find anything glaringly off. She had hay/grass in her rumen, but nothing in the rest of her stomach or in her intestines so I’m thinking she basically had some type of gastroparesis.