Bridgemoof--Sheep & Wool festival

[Bridgemoof]

PurpleQueen, I am so sorry about your llama. Sixteen years is a long time to raise any animal, you had a good run and I'm sure she was loved and well cared for by you.

Brownsheep, thanks for sharing your philosophy on farm animals. That made me laugh a little I needed that

When I went to check on Beastie this morning, I gave him some hay and he ate a little! So I also offered him some alfalfa and some grape leaves. He nibbled a little of each. I was afraid last night that he had gotten to the point where he couldn't swallow or chew, but that's not the case I guess. I'm going to take him off that tendon repair herbal remedy because I am guessing it is suppressing his appetite and/or making him feel sick.

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

Poor baby So sorry!

 

[Roving Jacobs]

PurpleQueen, I am so sorry about your llama. Sixteen years is a long time to raise any animal, you had a good run and I'm sure she was loved and well cared for by you.

Brownsheep, thanks for sharing your philosophy on farm animals. That made me laugh a little I needed that

When I went to check on Beastie this morning, I gave him some hay and he ate a little! So I also offered him some alfalfa and some grape leaves. He nibbled a little of each. I was afraid last night that he had gotten to the point where he couldn't swallow or chew, but that's not the case I guess. I'm going to take him off that tendon repair herbal remedy because I am guessing it is suppressing his appetite and/or making him feel sick.

Starting with good stock really does make a huge difference. I have had very few problems my ladies couldn't bounce back from with a little TLC and I really don't stress about them at all. That said I have an 11-12 year old ewe who is going to need to be put down soon and I'm still sad about it. It's totally ok to feel loss and mourn your animals. You just need to remember that you still have other creatures that are depending on you so you can't let it drag you down. It really does get easier in time.

Sometimes a good dose of probiotics helps them get hungry if they're feeling a little off. My critters get some probios any time they get meds.

 

[Bridgemoof]

Yesterday was a mad, mad day. I can't even go into detail to all of the things that happened, this post would be toooo long, so I'll just recap.

Beastie was about the same, barely nibbling, standing staring now a lot.....rain rain rain...huge storms!. Tim decides during the downpour that NOW is the time to go build a shelter for my sheep, even though I've been bugging him for weeks. In our raingear, out in the woods, his idea of a shelter is completely different from mine. I just wanted to string a tarp over the corner of the fence so they had a place to go under. He wants to build a lean-to in the woods with old tree branches, cut a hole in the fence for the sheep to get through, rewire all the way around it. So he has the chain saw and is cutting branches and has me dragging them through the briars, over the slippery rocks, pouring rain and I can't even see anything. Then he decides this is probably not a good idea. So we walk around looking for a different plan. We finally decide to put the electro-web fence back up on the hill so they can at least go under the pines trees. So I got that done and we moved the sheep. Good thing because the storms were bad and they at least had some shelter. So the sheep re dry, I, of course, am soaking wet.

Go inside, try to work on my brochure that I have been working on for 4 days with a client that is driving me nuts with changes. Knock knock on the door. Some guys are here and want to check out our goats. They are livestock dealers. Tim wasn't here, they wanted to go walk around but I wouldn't let them. I told them the entire farm was booby trapped with electric wire because of the goats. So Tim gets home and they go look at the goats. Tim decided to sell them Little Ricky, the young boer goat. So they get Ricky in the trailer, and Tim offers them a rooster, too. The rooster gets loose and they are all running around the yard trying to catch him. Ink, our dog is under their horse trailer trying to bite the goat's ankles. Finally the guys get everything together and leave.

Tim tells me we have to make a run to go get some pigeons for his friend Dan who wants them to train his bird dog. So we go to the pigeon place, same girl we got the pheasants from. We come home with 12 pigeons and a hermaphrodite silver pheasant, lol. Don't ask

So we're trying to get all the new guys into cages, it's almost dark, still raining. Lottie, my bottle baby is standing out in the rain in a corner soaking wet. The other sheep are mean to her and won't let her into the barn. Patches the cormo lamb is crying. Meeee Meee Meee meeee meeee, Tim is yelling at me to get me to help him. "Where's the medicated chicken food?" Meee Meee meeee Patches cries. "It's in the feed room!" Meee meee meeee. "Help me find it! I can't find it" Tim screams. I go to the feed room, there it is plain as day.

So I gave Patches a dose of probios, pick up Lottie and put her in with Beastie for the night. Can't find the pheasants. We go in for the night and I look at the weather. Flood warnings in our area. I told Tim he better go check the creek because the goats are down there! So he begrudgingly decides to go check on them in the dark. He complains to me again that it would take a lot more water for the creek to fill up. I am thinking about somewhere here on BYH where somebody lost their goat in the creek (Marlow maybe?) So he comes back a while later and said "the creek was pretty high. I moved the goats up the hill. And all the electric fence is washed away" HA!

We managed to eat a nice pork roast for dinner with broccoli, carrots and a baked sweet potato. Ate my ice cream and went to bed. Whew! What a day. And I managed to get my graphics work done. Still have stuff to do today, plus I am going to my Garden CLub meeting up at my old house, so that will be an hour and a half trip. I'm still President until October.

The sun is shining, I will have a nice day today seeing my old friends. Tim is now on a mission to acquire some Finn sheep. He wants them because they are prolific breeders. More sheep. More lambs. More arguments, lol.

 

[Symphony]

 

[marlowmanor]

WOW! That's crazy day. BTW, nope I'm not the one who lost a goat in a creek. No creeks even near us. I can totally relate to the situation with the bag of feed. I swear that is a male trait. You don't even want to know how many times I have told DH, or even one of my boys exactly where something is and they won't be able to find it. I've even had my oldest son literally staring right at what he was trying to find and not be able to find it! It's a guy thing I swear! No offense to the guys who can actually find things on their own. We got a day full of rain here yesterday too and it's looking like the same may be going on today.

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

Oofta.... I need a calgon (((take me away))) bath just reading about your day.

Have a wonderful time at your meeting today!

 

[jodief100]

because you need one. I lost my Mollie in the creek. I still miss her.

As far as buying off Craigslist, you can find good animals that way, you might get garbage that way. Buying quality up front is less than trouble in the long run. Don't write off Craigslist but do keep in mind, if the animal is "cheap" there is probably a reason.

My aunt always said "lambs come in the world looking for a place to lay down and die. Goats get more creative about it"

 

[Bridgemoof]

{{{{{{Jodie}}}}} for {{{{{{Molly}}}}}}}

I was so sad when I heard about your little goat Molly. I told Tim about it, and I think your story helped save the lives of some of our goats, who might also have been washed down the creek.


I'm so busy with work work, that I will catch you all up later on what is going on. Later Gators!

 

[Bridgemoof]

OKay TGIF again? That was fast!

The garden club meeting was great, as always. Two of our members demonstrated how to make 5-minute flower arrangements, and they made some really pretty ones. It was a lovely day and we all sat outside. Considering the flooding rain the day before, it was surprising how nice it was out. I drove by my house for the first time since the renters were in there, and it looked great. The girl had big mums out in the planters and mums planted in the ground all over, and a cornstalk by the door. It looked warm and inviting and lived in. My feelings were bittersweet. Hard to believe I gave up that beautiful house for Tim, but actually I gave it up for the sheep

Then when I got home it was back to school night for parents at Annie's school. That's always fun and interesting to meet her teachers.

Yesterday I worked my butt off, and all my clients want something from me at the same time. That's good, but hard because I am only ONE person!

Last night was very interesting, we went to the county extension office for a Sheep Producer's Association meeting. I joined up earlier this year but hadn't been to a meeting yet. Tim came with me, but I think I would have had more fun without him! It was mostly women. The topic was....sheep. lol. It was just a general discussion about sheep, and it was fun fun fun! I felt like I was in a room of a bunch of Backyard Herd Forumers. No one had a clue what might be wrong with my lambs with the weak pasterns. No one ever had a similar experience. It was so funny though when I introduced myself and told everybody what kind of sheep I had. That took about 10 minutes, haha. Of course I told them that we got everything through Craigslist and there were quite a few eye rolls. Overall it was fun and next time I will go back without Tim.

Yesterday I moved my little chicks outside to the parrot cage. The parrot cage is huge, it's form when we had our Blue and Gold macaw Rio. He died earlier this year from gout. It was so sad, I cried and cried. We had taken him to the same vet, incidentally, as the one who butchered our Bengal Tiger cat. Needless to say we will not be going back to them after our bad experiences. So anyways, I moved the chicks out there and put the heat lamp on them. I was a little worried abut hem because it got pretty cold last night, but they were fine this morning peeping around and eating their food. When I went out there though, another hen, an mature Americauna, had something grossly wrong with her. I saw blood coming out of her rear. After closer inspection, but not too close, it looked like she had prolapsed. And it looked like maybe an egg was stuck to her as well. Her guts were sticking out and she was walking around like nothing. The other chickens were starting to peck at her, so I thought I had better at least put her in a stall til Tim got home. So I did, but then when I went back there a little while later, she was out walking around again like nothing was going on. By the time Tim got home, she was dead. It was pretty horiffic.

Beastie is hanging in there. He has been eating more, and yesterday I left his stall door open and he went down and joined the other sheep to graze. He can still walk around, despite his weak ankles. So I started him back on the tendon repair herbs, but a smaller dose.

Today it's work, work again, and I think Tim might be going to get some Finn sheep. Amazingly, he did NOT find them through Craigslist. And they are registered! Surprise.

Tomorrow we are going to a wedding, that will be great! Have a great Friday everyone!