Purplequeenvt - New Journal

[farmerjan]

It hit 86 on the recording thermometer here today.... It is only April right???? 70's and 80's the rest of the week.... and accompanying possible storms with the heating up....

 

[Baymule]

Yesterday here was pleasant, cloudy all day. Wind last night was blowing a gale, rocking chair on porch was turned over. High of 85 today.

 

[purplequeenvt]

Finally done with lambing! Jura had a single black ewe lamb tonight. This is my only black Border Leicester ewe lamb this year. She’s not up yet, but she looks pretty nice already.

Lambing stats:

Average gestation was 147.2 days. 10 ewes went at 147 days, 1 at 146, 3 at 148, and 1 at 149.

Total live lambs: 21 - 10 ewes, 11 rams.

8 sets of twins, 7 singles. 140% lambing rate.

 

[Baymule]

That’s a nice lambing.

 

[purplequeenvt]

Well, Jura is still a ditz. She likes her baby, but is very jumpy. I had to go out and hold her to let the lamb nurse. I tied her first, baby got a good feed. We tried again with me just blocking Jura in a corner and baby got another good meal. Third try was with grain and no restraint m. There was some kicking, but she was ok once baby was latched on.

Baby is passed out sleeping off her full belly and Jura finally settled down enough to lay down nearby.

I think they’ll be ok, but I was concerned about a situation like this with Jura. This is the first pair that I’ve had to make the baby nursed.

 

[Baymule]

Some ewes are dummies until they figure it out. Kira will come around.

 

[purplequeenvt]

All is good with Jura and baby. I saw several nursing sessions via the camera last night and again this morning.



I finally got my female ducks out of the pond. They are currently locked up and seem to be enjoying their time out from the boys. I am missing one. It’s my gimpy Runner. I don’t see any evidence that something grabbed her, but she could have been nabbed by a snapping turtle. she could also be sitting on a nest, but I haven’t found her yet.

 

[purplequeenvt]

Ram delivery went well yesterday morning. The guy was already there when I arrived (only a couple minutes late after getting stuck in Lexington traffic).


Then we went and played with sheep. Actually, it was a lot of sitting and watching and a little playing with sheep.




I did discover that Twist has gone more than the one time I knew about. My sister has “borrowed” him a few times while I’ve been working.

Twist loves Miss T!


As predicted, I was the problem with training. Twist has instinct and previous instruction. I’m used to making things up as I go and hoping the dog is smart enough to figure out what I want. It’s worked ok up close in the barn, but not so great in a round pen.

Now that I have a general idea of what the goal is, I think I can practice at home. I’ve got 2 rams and 2 wethers that I should be able to dog break fairly easily. I also have my yearling ewes. Once Twist and I work out our kinks, I’ll work on breaking the rest of the ewes, except for Freyja and Minnie, It’s too much running for them at their age. Maybe eventually they can be worked as a group in the big field without someone taking down a fence or running each other over.

All my lack of sleeping finally caught up to me last night. We got home around 1830. I fed the sheep, puttered around for a little while and then laid down in bed “just for a minute”. Twist was tired too and was laying plastered against me. I was warm and tired. I was passed out by 2030. I woke up at 2130 and took my meds and then crawled back into bed and passed out again. I slept for 12hrs.

———

I have new work hours starting tomorrow. I originally worked 1230-2300. I had no overlap with 1st shift and too much of an overlap with 3rd. There’s some serious attitude on 3rd that is hard for me to deal with. Last fall my hours were cut back to 1230-2200 to help with the 3rd shift issues. I wanted to keep my 10hr shift and just start earlier, but management was not being very helpful/flexible. I have a new manager now and she’s much better. I’m now going to be working 1100-2130. I’ll overlap with 1st shift which will help with shift change issues since I won’t be walking in the door as they are wanting to leave and on the other end, I’ll only overlap with 3rd by 30 minutes. They’ll have time to get clocked in and get ready to work and I won’t have to deal with them not wanting to do anything for an hour because “I’m still there”. I’ll have my full 10hrs again too.

 

[purplequeenvt]

7 years ago this week, I lost a huge piece of my heart. My Meg. The dog that instilled the love of BCs in me. She was the stereotypical Border Collie. Full of energy and more than a little OCD. I still miss her so much.


Twist has done a lot to heal my heart.


Up until this week, Twist has never played fetch in his life. He had zero interest. He’d occasionally run after a ball, but only if there were no other dogs around and he wouldn’t bring it back.

This week, it’s suddenly his favorite thing. He refused to come inside until I threw the ball for him today. I’m going to have to buy some balls. We have exactly 1 tennis ball in the house and it’s dying.






———

Got name tags in all the lambs this afternoon. They also got CD&T shots. A few of them were early, but I’ll probably just do a 3rd dose on them for good measure.

Jura has become an excellent, attentive mother. I tagged her lamb first so that I could give her back to Jura so she’d stop screaming. Except she didn’t. She knew she had her baby, but she was upset that the other babies were still locked up.

 

[Baymule]

Meg will always be in your heart. I’m glad you have Twist now. Wonder why all of a sudden he wants to play ball!