Four Winds Ranch: " Life on the Farm "

[Four Winds Ranch]

There was another lamb born yesterday, a single ewe!
All the lambs were supposed to be born in April, but last fall, a cougar attacked the sheep and a ram got out with the main herd a little earlier than usual. Hence the March lambs! Still have 36 girls to go!!!
On a bad note, I believe in all the years of raising sheep, I lost my first lamb to pnemonia!! Suprising concidering it is the number 1 cause of lamb death on sheep farms (supposidly)! It wasn't surprising concerning the lamb really, he had a bit of a rough start, but was coming back around marvously! Poor little thing!!
I believe I will start a Spring Baby Thread instead of clogging up my journal with baby pic! Cause we are expecting well over 100 babies at Four Winds Ranch this spring!!!!!!

 

[Canadiannee]

Sorry to hear you lost one of your ram lambs...

With an expectation of 100 lambs coming, lol, I sure hope you're resting up and getting some sleep... exciting, but gosh, that must be a lot of work!

Nice neighbour! So with 49 new layers, plus your own ranch flock... does this mean you'll be needing a new cookbook? lol, Maybe one titled "1001 eqq recipes"??

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Canadianee, not all the babies are lambs! We are expecting between 40-60 lambs, 40ish piglets, 2 foals, an baby donkey, puppies, kittens ( of course), and hopefully 50ish bunnies, and 30ish chicks! We raise all our own meat, and yet make the animals pay for themselves! Free, healthy meat that way!
Lol I do need an egg cookbook, especially pickled egg recipies!!
I just got home from running the last summers orphan lamb into the Easter sale!! We did pretty good with him!!! Unfortuanatly the kids are on spring break from school and I had to bring them along! :/ There were a few tears as "Bobby" walked into the ring!!

 

[Canadiannee]

Oh my! lol, sounds like you'll need more than just "some resting up and sleep"... you'll have earned yourself a spa retreat by the time the last babe is on the ground!

Now egg recipes I can pass on! Heaps and heaps of them!

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Here, the dusk is just turning into light! It is supposed to be above average temps. for today! 12 C!!!! I definatly have high hopes of spring!!!!!!!

Here on Four Winds Ranch, I do all the animal care and feeding, my hubby goes to work, therefor, tractor work once a week, and at times helping me with the fence is his farming dutys. So at busy times like this, I am wiped!!! I need my kids to get old enough to trade lambing checks with! :/ Last night was one of the basiclly sleepless nights! I am not complaining, I love my sheep!!! But, I CAN'T sleep till I know that each new lamb has nursed.
During the night, I was blessed with 2 sets of twins, a set of triplets, and another ewe (Dora) in labour as we speak!! Twix is the momma with the triplets, she is a Tunis, the ram is a Tunis, and Twix had 2 beautiful red lambs, and a SNOW WHITE (looks to be albino) ram lamb! First albino born on the Ranch!!
One of the triplets is pretty little and I haven't yet decided to take it or not! Twix doesn't have a super big udder, she is awesome with twins, but triplets! Guess I will wait a bit and see how things go!
I better get off BYH and do another check!

 

[Canadiannee]

Congrats to all mommy ewes, and to you Four Winds for still being coherent after such a sleepless night! I bet you're bushed! Wow, a set of twins and then triplets, and an albino to boot! I bet you're humming this morn! (or simply vibrating) and still another ewe getting ready to go... lol, I'm feeling tired for you!

 

[Bridgemoof]

That's great FourWinds! So many cute babies, and a white one! Never heard of that. You sure have your work cut out for you. I feel your pain, though, with the sleepless nights. I have to make sure the lambs are nursing, too. And warm, and dry, lol. Good luck with the rest. I have one right now that just lost a mucous plug, so I better get out there too!

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Unfortunatly, I have to get rid of my baby "Johnny". He is my 3 year old pot-belly pig, and weighs about 60 lbs! When he has his leash on he is a perfect gent, but when it is off, he tends to want his own way or else!!! He ate one of my chickens because it was eating out of his dish, and if the steers don't do what he tells them, they end up with bloody legs and noses!!! I have decided that Johnny isn't safe to be around my kids!! I feel horrible for him, but it is for the best!! The folks I am giving him to are going to pick him up on Easter Saturday!! Poor Johnny, at least he is going to a good home (I think)!!!

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[Bridgemoof]

Awww sorry you're losing your guy, but I would be doing the same thing. Pigs can be scary. We got rid of our big pot belly recently. He was HUGE and I just didn't feel it was safe for him to be around lambs or baby goats! He weighed at least 200 pounds. But we found some lady who wanted him as a pet! I'm glad you found a home for your guy. Could have been worse.

 

[Canadiannee]

So sorry to hear you're re-homing your boy Johnny, but completely understandable when he's killing your poultry and tackling your steers!

I've never had much luck with pot belly pigs, I was starting to believe it was just a female "thing", but now reading your post, it looks like gender doesn't matter!

The first pot belly that came to our farm was named "Pork Chop", and she came on the trailer with a girl bringing a horse for boarding... funny, the girl ended up selling her horse a month later, but left the pig behind! That pig terrorized everyone, specially our youngest son Sawyer who was 12 years old at the time... Every month she'd come into heat and chase that boy around the outside of the house... Some days he'd jump on top of the dog house screaming for me, as she'd be running around the dog house to get him... One morning after running a marathon to get away from her, he ran into the house thru the side door and was leaning up against the wall in the kitchen heavily panting and crying "I hate that pig" and suddenly there was loud squeal followed by the crash of metal hitting the kitchen floor... that pig had come up onto our back deck and jumped thru the screen of our french doors (taking the screen door out) and landed in my kitchen to get him! In the three months she stayed with us (I sent her to a pot belly rescue) She was notorious for breaking out of her pen, and no one could catch her... in her escapades, she rode my husband's large industrial shop vaccum down the driveway numerous times (didn't dare leave the garage door open) and one morning I woke up to find our 1 acre front lawn torn up... it looked like WW3 had happened... trenches and pits everywhere! When she wasn't in heat... she was a little nicer, but not by much.

I guess I didn't learn my lesson tho... I bought an ewe off a Kijiji ad, and when we went to pick her up the seller wove me a good story on how the ewe and the pig were best friends, and thus she wanted them to go together (the pig wasn't mentioned in any of our e-mail or telephone discussions)... Dear hubby was standing beside me shaking his head "no", but I wanted that ewe, and after an hour and a half drive to pick up the ewe, I thought, what's the chance of having another bad experience?!?! LOL! It took one day to figured out this BFF thing between ewe and pig was a big pile of pucky! That poor ewe was terrorized when Annabelle was around! So Annabelle too went off to the rescue!

I have friends who have pot belly pigs who love them to death, most have had them casterated or spade when they were young, so I'm sure that made a difference... but my experience with them wasn't too grand! Does make a good story to tell tho...

Thankfully you found Johnny a great home!