Bridgemoof--Sheep & Wool festival

[SheepGirl]

Congrats on your new ram!

Hope you had a good weekend

 

[Bridgemoof]

Wow I'm so behind on my journaling, and reading everybody else's! I've been so swamped with work, all my clients have stuff they want right now.

Saturday was the wedding day, and early that morning I was out feeding the sheep and noticed Po looked off. Well, she wouldn't come and eat and by golly it looked like she was going into labor! I new that couldn't be right, because I calculated that she would be hopefully due in November. So I got Tm and we brought her up to the bran. I was really concerned by this point because she had no milk, and we were supposed to be leaving for the day. I didn't know what to do, so we just put her in a stall with some warm water with molasses and lots o hay and hoped for the best. I called my friend Irene to ask if she could stop by in the afternoon to check on her.

We went off to the wedding hoping for the best and hoping Mother Nature would do her thing. The wedding was nice, but I just couldn't help but worry about Po the whole time. So I didn't enjoy it that much. Irene texted me about 5 and said they went to go check on Po and she had just been finishing up labor, and her little premature baby was dead next to her. They picked up the baby and took it away, and Po just baaaed baaaed "What are you doing with my baby?" Well, that totally ruined any fun I would have at the wedding. :-(

So when we got home we checked on Po and she was till baaing but didn't seem to be in labor or anything. She had just a tiny bit of placenta hanging out of her. Sorry if you read all of this in my other thread...

Anyways, to get to the end of this discussion, we finally had to pull the placenta from Po last night (with consult from our vet). It came out just fine and she seemed relieved, but today there is more coming out and she seems very bothered by it and is laying down a lot. She is on antibiotics, so hopefully there won't be any lingering infection.

Yesterday we decided to bring the Pekin ducks down to the pond to live. I'm sick of them making a mess of the water troughs. So Tim and I grabbed them up and brought them down there and Tim flung them into the pond, much to my dismay. They swam around for a second, got out, made a mess of the sheep water trough down there, and then made their way back to the barn after I had cleaned all the troughs up there. Those ducks are going to be dinner, I'm afraid.

So, Tim informed me today that somebody on Craiglist, some non-profit organization, was getting rid of a bunch of goats. Six boer and 2 pygmies or something for $650. He is on his way right now to go pick them up, then he will keep the ones he wants and bring the rest to the livestock auction. Let me tell you why this makes me mad.

1. I signed over a $200 something check I had today to him so he could pay for his health insurance. I was having a weak moment of feeling sorry for him, and we also need to buy corn for the animals. So next thing I know, he's off buying goats with it!!!

2. He ran off without feeding any of his horses or goats, and by the time he gets home it will be too dark.

3. I asked him to help put the gate back up on the sheep pen before he left, he had taken it down to get the tractor through. He SCREAMED at me that he was in a hurry and he didn't have time to screw around. He helped me put it back up while we screamed at each other, and he said that I woke up in a bad mood.

4. Po won't get her shot of antibiotic tonight because it will be too late when he gets home.

5. I said "What about Annie?" (his daughter takes the bus to another farm after school and rides) He screamed at me "YOU PICK HER UP>" I said no, YOU PICK HER UP. So who knows when they'll get home.

And I should be working instead of blogging because that was the point of me staying here and not picking her up. Ok enough for now. lol

 

[Bridgemoof]

So I woke up in the middle of the night thinking "Is Finneas 360 with the flock?" Oh man, I hope he didn't get out when they had the gate down. I remembered hearing a far off baaing and wasn't sure who it was. I thought I was hearing things and it seemed like everybody was accounted for, but I forgot about Finneas because he's new! If he got out down the lane, he is down by the creek by himself. It's dark right now but as sooon as the sun comes up, I'll head out and make sure he is there.


Also, Tim got home pretty late last night with Annie, close to 9. She went right to bed, I went to bed too before he even came in the house. He was out in the barn I guess unloading his goats. It's 6 a.m., so soon the sun will come up. I'll report back on the barnyard situation.

Today I am going to the spinners guild meeting. I am soooo excited! I will just have to finish a few jobs this morning before I head out.

 

[Bridgemoof]

Okay, everybody is accounted for, whew! Finneas 360 is with the others and doing fine. I must have been just having a dream that he was loose. I hate waking up in the middle of the night with farm worries and there isn't anything you can do about it.

The new goats are a nice looking bunch! They are very healthy looking and some of the boers are BIG. There are 2 or 3 little guys, too, that look only a few months old. They are pretty cute.

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

I don't know where you get your energy from. Wow! ;-)

 

[Bridgemoof]

Energy is born out of necessity, Goat Lady!

 

[Bridgemoof]

I went to the spinners guild yesterday and joined up. Those ladies are so creative and talented! They actually MAKE stuff out of their yarn they spin. I spin my yarn and just look at it "ohh isn't that pretty" lol. I'm not very good at knitting, or maybe I should say I don't have much patience for it. It takes too much concentration to remember where you are in a pattern, and I am too easily distracted with animal issues. I can make a scarf and a hat, and one fingerless glove (two would be too many!). But their items inspired me to get going on something, anything. I think I'l make some hat tassles out of the smaller skeins of handspun. They would be cool.

So, after I got home I got caught up some more on some work, and I'm able to breath a little easier now. Most of the big stuff is out of the way, and I think I've made enough extra money this month to buy that drum carder I've been wanting.

Tim brought the boer goats up to meet the new goats and to breed Mikey to the girls. So much for quarantine! Well they all got along great and he sent them all back down to the creek together. The boer population is growing down there! He kept back 3 mixed whethers that he is going to take to the livestock auction and hopefully get his money back.

Also, yesterday we got a visit from the "Huntsman" who is in charge of the hounds of the Middleburg Hunt. Yes they still do fox hunting around here. This area is famous for that. I'm not much into horses, but to see the hunt take off on their horses, and the Huntmaster dressed in his red jacket blowing his horn is really something to see. There are about 50 hound dogs that chase after the scent of the fox. So this Hunstman was just so cute, he was a young guy with an Irish or Welsh accent. Adorable. I was in love He came by to see if we had a buck goat to breed to his alpine goats. He milks his alpines and gives the milk to his hound puppies, so cool! So we will send either Mikey or Riccardo over to do his job to keep those girls a-milkin'!

I took this picture last fall with my phone. This is the Hunt taking off on a foggy morning. Sometimes you can hear the hounds nearby on our neighbors farm on a crisp, cool morning in the fall.

Then last evening we sheared one of our sheep! Harriet was one of the ewes that we got after our shearer came in the spring. Her wool was pretty long, and we couldn't tell if she was pregnant or what. She looked fat. Tim sheared her and did a great job, except he has the signature poodle cut that the alpaca got, lol. Her wool was very nice, and pretty free of vegetable matter, until we dragged it through the dirt and hay, lol. We have to do a better job at managing the wool after it comes off. So she looks not pregnant, not fat, but not skinny, either. She looks just right. And now hopefully Dipsy can do his thing a little easier. I have no doubt all of our ewes will be pregnant, he's a good lover. I love the Dipster.

We also cleaned Patches butt, she had so much poop from her scouring problem. We cut a bunch off and then I dragged her to the wash stall and tried to clean the rest. She was a mess. We did the best we could, but she still has clumps that are like glue.

Po got her shot again and is doing okay. I was happy that my sheep got some attention last night, and all is well in sheep world. Beastie is still hanging in there, his ankles are very weak, but he is managing to get around and is eating okay.

So this morning it's more work, then play outside.

Have a great day everyone!

 

[Bridgemoof]

We now have a pot bellied pig.

 

[Alice Acres]

We now have a pot bellied pig.

We had one for years - we loved, loved our Bailey Ann!

 

[Bridgemoof]

What do I do with him Alice? I don't know anything about pot bellied pigs. Can he be with other animals? Is he okay with the goats and chickens? I guess we'll just feed him corn, everybody else around here eats corn. Maybe he'll eat the corn cobs! That would be great, since we have about a gazillion of them laying around.

Annie told me her friend had a pot bellied pig and it ripped into her goat's neck and killed it. Should I be worried about that, or is this a 14-year old's "Tall Tale."