Bridgemoof--Sheep & Wool festival

[Bridgemoof]

Chicken Rescue Operations
Well, yesterday Tim made a deal with some guy on CL to pick up his 20 hens for free. I guess the guy was moving and needed to get rid of them quick. So Tim took a drive with his cages to get them.
What he came home with was sad, sad, sad. He said the chicken coop where these 20 chickens lived was awful, muddy, dirty, small, disgusting. The guy wasn't there but he had left a hose running in the coop and the floor was flooded. There was no roost even. The hens looked terrible, scrawny, mangy, and just sickly. We put them in a stall away from our hens and Tim picked up some medicated feed for them. We cleaned all of the filthy water containers and food dishes that came with these sad hens. They are only about 5 months old but some of them are so small, I think the guy hardly fed them. They ate ate ate and drank drank drank when we got them here. Then last night I went to check on them and they were all huddled in a corner piled on top of one another. Two of the smallest, sickliest were at the bottom of the pile, so we moved them to their own cage. We put a roost up in there, but sadly they didn't even know what to do with it. Poor chickens!

So this morning, I went out to check and they already look soooo much better! I couldn't believe it! The 2 little ones in their own cage looked like different chickens. As much as I hate Tim shopping on CL, sometimes it works out that we actually find animals to "rescue." These hens will be much better off here.

Then yesterday, one of the barnyard hens that had been setting hatched two eggs, and two really cute little boogers were walking around with her. BUT, the turkeys started to attack the chicks! Agh! Tim saw them pecking violently after the chicks, but he couldn't do anything about it because he was in the middle of moving a horse. ell, h e was able to grab one of the chicks and put it in the wheelbarrow. When I came out he told me about what had happened, so we took the momma hen and the two chicks (one was bleeding) and put her back in the brooder area away from harm. But his morning, one of the chicks was dead, poor little guy must have had pretty bad injuries from the turkeys. So now we have to be more vigilant when a hen is setting to watch for chicks before the turkeys get them.

Horse and Alpaca
We had a guy come out yesterday to float one of our horse's teeth. I guess they grind them down if they are having problems with them. So Tim asked him if he had ever done an alpaca's teeth. He said no, but he'd try. Jules, our alpaca, teeth were way out of control. She was like that when we got her, her teeth protruding way out of her mouth. So Tim and the guy worked on her teeth, he had all the right tools and it only took them about 5 minutes. She looks so much better and was happily munching on hay again 5 minutes after he left. What a relief!

Sheep
We moved the sheep up from the creek because this creek crossing was out of control. So they are in the enclosed pond area until it rains and the creek rises again, lol. But Tim did have Lencho hot wire off one of the horse paddocks, so we are going to try and move them into there was with the 2 horses and see how it goes. The little Shetland sheep were in there for a long time when they were on one of their escape adventures, and there didn't seem to be any problem. Now it's starting to sprinkle a little and hopefully it will rain and our problems will be solved. We brought Patches and LaLa , Mac and his mommy and the other Tunis up to the barn, because Patches is having scours problems again. We gave her bio-sponge and pepto, but she's still scouring. She has a weird abscess on her cheek, and we are thinking she may have some kind of infection going on. So I will take her temperature in a while and see if it's elevated.

Cart
I didn't get my cart out yesterday because it was just too darned hot, and because all of the unexpected goings ons. Now if it's going to rain, that further unmotivates me. lol I certainly don't want to put my yarn out in the rain. I don't have a canopy for my new cart like I did for my old cart, so that's a minor inconvenience at this point. Tim will think of something brilliant in the future to cover it, I'm sure. He's pretty good at that. He's really good at making something out of nothing.

Well, that's the report for today! Happy Saturday!

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

Happy saturday to you as well. I was hoping I'd get my morning fix before my coffee was gone. ;-)

 

[BrownSheep]

If you ca give those hens a pan to dust in. It will do wonders for them.

 

[Bridgemoof]

Thanks Brownsheep, I did that and they are doing great! I can't quite nail down what type of chickens they are. The guy said he got them from a hatchery, but after looking through my Meyer's Hatchery catalog, I haven't identified all of them. I know the white ones are leghorns, and I think there are some Americaunas, and a bunch of red ones, but there are a few I just can't figure out. I don't necessarily trust that the guy actually did get them from a hatchery, either.

So, what else is new? Two new boer goats--stinky bucks, ugh. Tim traded an alpine we had for them. Actually they are father and son, and they are kind of cute, and I think they are mixed with something else because they have ridgebacks. So Tim brought them home and put them with the pregnant nanny goats and Madeleine, the young boer doe. Well, she must be in heat because they both started humping her immediately. "Little Ricky" the son, started humping his daddy "Ricardo" who in turn was humping Madeleine. A three-way hump. lol. But before you know it, there was blood. Somebody was bleeding and we aren't sure who. The nanny goats were roughing up Little Ricky, and we thought maybe he got gored. There was blood on his feet, and on his daddy's rump from where he was humping him.

....intermission...I just drank a fly....ugh

Okay, so anyways, somebody is bleeding somewhere and we haven't figured it out. Everybody is acting okay, though. But it's a typical example of Tim going and buying something new and just throwing them into the mix without any thought. Now the guys are separated from the girls for the time being, til he figures out where he's going to put everybody. And Little Ricky is screaming like a banshee because he wants to get back to Madeleine. It sounds like somebody is being murdered in the barn.

Meanwhile...in sheepville...everybody is back down in the pastures. We had the limping Tunis and LaLa and Patches up at the barn for a few days. Patches was having that same scours problem she had before, so we dosed her up with a bunch of stuff. She also had a weird icky abscess on her cheek, and today it resolved itself and popped on it's own. We trimmed and treated the Tunis' hooves once again. They have the worst feet. ever. So they are back down in the respective pastures. Also, we opened up a hole in the fence so they could now go into one of the horse paddocks which we hot wired. It took some coaxing on my part to get them to go through the hole, but they finally did.

My Extension Agent is coming tomorrow morning. Now I am drawing a blank on what to talk to him about. I almost feel it's futile to come up with a farm management plan when I have Tim here bringing new stuff in all the time. My sister called me today and decided I would be able to have my own farm and handle the animals myself, and could find help if I needed it. She is wayyy fed up with Tim and his "day trading" as she calls it. She views all the farm animals as pets, Tim views them as livestock, and I guess I am somewhere in the middle.

I'm not sure what my long term plans are, I just know that now that my house is rented, I am going to be saving every penny so I can do something in the future. The prospect of running a farm myself is pretty intimidating, but I suppose I can do it on a small scale. I also know that Tim is going to make it VERY difficult for me to leave. It's going to get ugly, and I'm not sure I am up for that right now. So, I'll stick it out for now, and just try to get along and secretly plot my departure!

Stay tuned......

 

[Bridgemoof]

Oh I forgot to update about the upcoming alpaca trade. I guess Tim found some lady on CL who has a bunch of animals and has a pony she wanted to trade for something. So Tim decided Jules, our alpaca, would be a good trade for the pony. I don't totally object because I want Jules to be with other alpacas. Right now her buddy is Star, the Jacob ewe that came with Jules. I figure if Jules goes, then Star can go with the rest of the Jacob sheep we have. So we went to look at the pony, and it seemed okay. The lady didn't have a clue how to ride it, but she told us that the people she got it from let a child ride it for her. So Tim thinks that if anything, it would make an okay lead pony and that he can sell it.

I really like Jules, and wish we could get more alpacas (I know, I shouldn't be wishing for anything else!) but Tim feels the alpaca market is in the toilet and doesn't want to deal in them. I think we basically paid $50 for her. But the hook is I have to find somebody to shear her before we trade her, I want her fleece! I've been trying to get our sheep shearer girl out all summer and she just keeps blowing us off. When the extension agent comes tomorrow, I'm going to ask him for the names of some other shearers in the area. All our sheep were sheared by her in May, but we got a few new ones and the alpaca after that. Tim thinks we can do it ourselves, but the prospect frightens me. Because he is going to want to use some old horse clippers he has, that I know he doesn't take care of.

I see an argument coming up over it......

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

Good luck tomorrow! Can't wait to hear how it went.

 

[Bridgemoof]

So my visit with the Extension Agent guy went well. We talked a lot about pasture management for the amount of animals we have. Of course, no surprise to us, our pastures are overloaded We talked about what kind of chemicals to put down and when to control the pigweed and other broadleaf weeds. We talked about rotational grazing. I did some calculations after he left of the size of each of our pastures/paddocks and the one that the Jacob sheep are on is only a half acre. He recommended I divide that up into 4 strips and let them graze on each strip for a week, then move them down and so forth. That's not much for all 9 of them, but he said it would lead to more even grazing. Right now they are eating down the good stuff and leaving the not so good stuff, so it's very uneven.

He snickered when he saw Beastie, my fiercesome ram, lol. We discussed the possibility of meningeal worm as to the culprit that got Snowcap, and possibly Beastie. I'm still waiting on the test results of the biopsy. I'm not even sure if they can even tell form the liver biopsy the parasite load.

Beastie looking fiercesome and resting after an hour of hard grazing.. "Rahhhr, I'm a beast!"

Anyways, we talked about a lot of things, and it was a very good visit. We also talked about the local sheep producer's association, which appeared to be defunct. Apparently the leadership is butting heads and the whole organization is up in the air right now, which is a bummer. I also got my scrapies ear tags in the mail, so I felt like a real farmer yesterday!

Overall it was a quiet day, no fights, and all was good. I did over hear Tim on the phone though, in response to an ad on Craiglist "I'm calling about your free mobile home..." We need that like a hole in the head.

Also, he has decided now to take the new boer bucks he got to the livestock auction because he needs money. What. ever.

I'm going to go visit my friend Irene today who is my idol. She has a flock of Tunis (not my favorite sheep) and she has the perfect management system for them. She's so organized and she's my mentor! Oh, I got the ducks from her, so I'll be bringing her a frozen duck.

Have a great day everyone!

 

[BrownSheep]

Have I mentioned how much I love your Jacob sheep. They look to much like a goat for my padre to agree to get...I don't see the resemblance. And he won't get goats because a) we have a hard enough time containing sheep and b) they look to much like dogs to eat....according to him. Although I agree on the dog part they do remind me of dogs.

 

[Bridgemoof]

Thanks Brownsheep! I just love them, too. A lot of people mistake them for goats because of their horns. They almost have attitudes like goats do, too. Almost, lol.

So yesterday I went to go visit my friend Irene. We told our farm stories to each other and laughed and laughed! Only we can get each others antics. Our other non-farming friends just wouldn't get it, lol. We discussed sheep poop A LOT! lol Even thought she took the class on Famacha for reading the color of your sheep's eyelid color for worms, she still worms her sheep now every time she sees poops that are not pellets. She ignores the eyelid system anymore. She lost a lamb due to worms this summer, so she is extra careful about worming them.

I also got a look at all the yarn she had made. WOW! She's got spools and spools of white yarn from her tunis. And lots of sheepskin rugs. When I finally set up my Etsy store, we're going to add some of her stuff as well. And we're also going to have a dye-day! That will be sooo much fun turning those plain jane white skeins into something really pretty. I'll bring over some of the wool I have and we'll dye it too. I'm really looking forward to that. We both agreed to go around and pick our pokeberry berries, because we saw an article on what pretty dye it makes. Not sure how color fast it is, but we'll give it a shot.

Then last evening we decided to go ahead and try and shear our alpaca. Wowza. That was almost a disaster! She wiggled and screamed and moaned and whaled and KICKED and SPIT. Shearing her was like shearing a wild cougar. We managed to get the majority of her fleece off, except for her legs and head, and let me tell you it is BEAUTIFUL! I can't believe how beautiful it is, and I can't wait to spin it! Not to mention it has much less vegetable matter than I thought it would. So now Jules looks like a badly groomed overgrown poodle, and she's ready for her new owner.

Last night we had a chick hatch in the incubator. Tim had tried to get a broody hen to stop setting, so he took her eggs and put them in the incubator about a week ago. We didn't think much would come of it, but last night, sure enough PEEP PEEP PEEP! I heard the sound and there was little "Clinton" peeping away. So we set up a brooder box for him, or her, with a lamp and all, and this morning he is all fluffed out and looking happy as can be. Hopefully he will have some brother or sisters to come.

We moved the goats down the hill to the lanes in between the horse paddocks now, where there is a lot of grass and weeds and so forth they can browse. It's back to being really hot, though, so the animals are laying low during the day. Tim also moved some horses around yesterday. We brought the two yearling colts from up the street back here, and moved Charlotte with her colt and filly up the street. Charlotte adopted Clara, the filly away from her own mother and has been nursing both of them. Marietta, Clara's birth mother, has left the farm for good. That's all I'm saying on that subject.

Okay, off to feed the chickens and see what wonders are to be had on the farm today!

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

Hope you have a wonderful day!