farm

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Update on Rosy

Rosy is back to her usual curious, getting into trouble self!  She stayed in the barn with her twins during the week she was sick and we let her out every day to graze.  She never wandered away from the barn.  Tuesday we could tell she was feeling more like herself, though.  She and the 2 pregnant ewes found their way to the driveway and were headed for a walk after I went to work.  Needless to say, yesterday I let them graze in the main pasture!

Here are a few pictures of Rosy during treatment (warning – they are a little gross)…

This is Rosy last Thursday (the day after we started treatment).  Notice how discolored and swollen her udder is.  She didn’t lay down at until the swelling went down.

Some of Rosy’s medicine.  The yellow liquid is Aminoplex and the clear one is calcium gluconate.  All this was give subcutaneously (SQ) twice a day.  She also got 3cc Banamine once a day.  By Friday we started to give the Aminoplex orally.  She ate and drank on her own so we didn’t have to tube her like we did last year.

This photo is of Rosy’s udder yesterday (Wednesday) when she was being shorn.  The right side was most affected and is turning gangrene.  We’ll keep an eye on it to watch for fly strike since it’s raw.

Rosy went back in the field with the girls after shearing.  Her lambs stayed by her side during this whole ordeal.  I think it helped that she wasn’t stressed that her lambs were gone, too.  I think she has weaned them… every time I see them try to nurse she walks away.

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Whew!

Last night Dave couldn’t sleep because of his cold so he went in the living room and watched some tv.  Well, at 12:45am he woke me up because one of the ewes went into labor and he could hear her pushing over the baby monitor we keep in the barn.

We got out to the barn pretty quick with my lambing box and discovered it was Abigail who was in labor.  We moved her into a smaller lambing stall (or jug) and persuaded Rosy and Annie to return to their “ladies in waiting” stall.  We got some things together and sat by the straw bales to wait.  Midnight and Tiger were very happy that we finally decided to come join them in sleeping in the barn.  🙂  Not much happened so we decided to go back to sleep for 30-45 minutes and do another check.

At 2:15am, I mean 3:15 daylight savings time, we went out again because we still heard pushing.  I checked and only saw 1 hoof….not good.  I felt around and found the other foot quickly.  It was bent at the “ankle” and corrected easily, but the emerging legs didn’t look like front legs.  I felt around again and found a tail….not good.

The next time Abigail laid down to push, Dave knelt down and held her for me.  I attached my lambing cord to the lamb’s legs and, with each contraction, pulled.  Poor Abigail was a trooper through the delivery.  Dave said she chewed on his jacket when she was pushing.  We had to get that baby out quickly so that it didn’t start to breathe while still in the birth canal.  Pneumonia can develop when fluid gets in the lungs.

We got the lamb out – a ram – and cleared its nose…after a little chest rub he started breathing and shaking his head.  What a big boy!  After mama cleaned him off and he stood up I weighed him… 12lbs!  No wonder he didn’t have a twin!

I finally got back to bed at 4:15 daylight saving time.  What a night to be out in the lambing barn!  And I had to teach Sunday school this morning, too!  Whew!

Noah & Hannah with Abigail and ram lamb

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It’s Almost Spring!

This past week has been so nice! We’ve been outside so much because the weather has been sunny and warm. The only snow still on the ground is in the heavily shaded areas.

Last week I made farmer’s cheese with cow milk since we were hosting a small family get-together. I made 2 different kinds: herb cheese – with garlic, tarragon and salt; and sweet cheese – with sugar, chopped raisins and dried cranberries, and drizzled with honey. I liked the sweet one better, but everyone said they were both good. I just think the herb cheese needed more herbs. We really enjoyed having our family visit on Saturday. My sister and her family came over from New Jersey and my aunts, uncle and cousin from Long Island drove down with my aunt from Nevada. Another of my uncles drove up from the Baltimore area. It was such a nice and relaxing day. Noah and Hannah, especially, enjoyed the company.

Aunt Laureen with Noah & Hannah

 We strolled around the farm in muck boots (mostly borrowed and not the right size) and enjoyed the sun on our skin. We checked out the animals and watched birds soar overhead. My Uncle Frank loves nature and does a lot of birding. He gave Noah a picture of 4 young raccoons that he took while hiking in NY. Noah was so happy and has displayed his picture proudly on his dresser. We’ll get a frame for it and hang it up this weekend.   Hannah loved playing with her cousins, Summer and Cole.  They’re only 5 months younger than her so they have lots of fun together.  Noah loves his cousins, too.  He likes being the big boy and taking care of his  younger cousins. 

On Sunday Noah decided to go sledding in the little bit of snow left on our front hill.  Hannah even hopped on the sled with Dave for her 1st time sledding.  All the other snow was just too much for her and she didn’t have too much fun.  After about 5 minutes outside after we got that blizzard she turned to me and said, “Mommy, inside!”   

Sledding with Daddy

After our sledding fun we wandered around, then spent some time with the baby ducks.  They’re getting big, but they still don’t have any adult feathers.  It’s funny because by 2 or 3 days baby chicks are already getting some adult feathers.  

Holding the Ducklings

 

This week Hannah, Noah and I have had colds but it’s been so warm that we’ve gone outside for walks.  Aurie came over with Sophie and Isabelle on Tuesday and it was just a house full of runny noses!  But everyone had a fun day… that’s all that counts! 

We’re still waiting for our lambs to come.  We have 3 girls due any day and they’re huge.  I’ll post pictures of the lambs when they’re born…hopefully soon! 

Our VERY Pregnant Sheep

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Philly Cooks! Chef Competition

Philadelphia Magazine’s 10th annual Philly Cooks! Chef Competition is today at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel and we’re rooting for local chef Michael Falcone of Funky Lil’ Kitchen in Pottstown.  He’s using some of our ground lamb to make Lamb Sloppy Joes.  Proceeds from the competition and party benefit the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House.  For more info visit:  www.phillyfunguide.com/event/detail/80957.

Check out Funky Lil’ Kitchen online here:  www.funkylilkitchen.com.

I’ll let you know how he did later!

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Winter Wonderland

 
Chicken Coops in the Snow

Just in case the snow we got last weekend wasn’t enough we got hit yesterday with a blizzard!  The forecasts predicted we would get 6″-8″ of snow last Friday and Saturday….we got 15″.  Yesterday we got an additional 2 feet of snow dumped on us!  The snow started Tuesday around 7pm and ended around 10pm Wednesday night. 

We tried to keep up with it by plowing every 3 hours or so, but by dinnertime only the lawn tractor could fit down the driveway.  It just wasn’t powerful enough to push the heavy snow back.  This morning after breakfast Dave went out to try to push the snow back.  He ended up just shoveling a large area. 

Dave Shoveling the Patio

Our new neighbor hires someone to plow her drive and they showed up with a Bobcat and a tractor with a front-end loader.  We ended up calling her to ask if they could do our drive, too.  It was just too much!  They did ours and our other neighbor’s drive, too.  The mounds of snow are just amazing.  I’ll post some of those pictures tomorrow.

Noah in the Path to the Front Door

Noah went out with Dave in the afternoon and was upset that there wasn’t a lot to shovel!  That’s all he wants to do right now.  In the summer he’ll want to pretend to mow or weedwack.  🙂  They did sled down the hill in the front yard, or at least they tried to sled.  The snow is so deep that they could only get about 3/4’s of the way down the hill.

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The Ups and Downs of a Farm

This past week was definitely a tough one.  When I went out to give the sheep their afternoon hay on Thursday (1/14) I noticed our wether, Pippin, was having trouble walking.  He’d stumble and have trouble getting back to his feet.  This is the sheep that was attacked by a coyote in April 2008.  I called our vet right away and from my description he concluded that the sheep was probably suffering from severe anemia due to a high barber pole worm load.  Pippin had gotten increasingly flighty after his recovery, and we were unable to catch him in the fall for worming. 

I caught him and wormed him right away and let the other sheep and goats into another pasture so I could hand-feed him and give him some Nutri-Drench.  Friday he was worse but still eating.  When Dave got home from work we put him in a stall in the barn.  He was so unsteady that we had to load him on to our farm wagon and wheel him down to the barn.  By Sunday he couldn’t get up by himself; and he stopped eating on Monday.  I talked to our vet again to see what advice he could give us.  He suggested euthanasia but couldn’t come out until Tuesday morning.  Dave decided he would put Pippin down that night so he wouldn’t have to suffer any longer. 

Tuesday the state vet came out to take samples before we buried him because we’re in a Scrapie Eradication program with the USDA.  At least the past couple weeks have warmed up enough for the ground to thaw a bit!

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Coyote Alert!!

Yesterday was the first time we’ve seen a coyote around the house. We always knew they were around, especially after we lost a bunch of turkeys and had a sheep get attacked a couple years ago. During the snow storm yesterday around 1pm Dave saw a coyote run across the pasture. He took this picture from Noah’s bedroom window.

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K.I.L.E.

Keystone International Livestock Exposition. We went to Harrisburg on October 2nd to see the National Tunis Show (and all the other animals). Hannah loved all the animals except for the pigs, which Noah loves for some reason. When we were looking at the Tunis sheep she decided she wanted to get in the pen with the “babies.” I told her, “no,” and she showed everyone how well she can fake-cry.Noah was going to help hand out awards to the winners, but the show was running late and he and Hannah were getting hungry and tired. He gave out a few awards then we headed home, making a stop at Perkins for ice cream on the way.

We also got to see Noah’s poster in person at the show…very cool! Oh, and the grand champion ewe at KILE this year was a Tunis ewe from Massachusetts. Yay!

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August 9th – My Birthday

My birthday was a nice, relaxing Sunday. Rainy morning…we got home from church and the rain gauge read 2″. The rain cleared up in the afternoon so Dave and Noah went outside to do some work.

Close to dinner-time more dark clouds started moving in, and the Weather Channel said we were going to get a strong storm. Dave fed the animals and I ordered dinner. I was halfway there when the clouds opened up and I got soaked just running from the car to the restaurant! The closer I got to home, the more leaves and branches I saw in the road. Our driveway was just littered with branches! When I pulled up to the house I saw the tree in our front yard had blown over!
I went around the back of the house and hurried in the garage. There was just a flurry of excitement when I got upstairs. Noah had been at the front window and watched the tree fall. Dave was in the kitchen and saw the wind carry Noah’s empty pool from the deck across the backyard and pin it against the fence. The pvc railing on the pool broke and so did the fence rail.
While Dave watched the pool fly through the yard, the tree by the back barn fell. It missed the barn but took down part of the chicken coop fence.

Another tree fell near the back pasture at the edge of the woods and our neighbor lost 2 trees…one took the rungs off a section of our fence. The storm didn’t last too long at all but the damage was high. About a half hour after the storm past we lost power for about 6 hours. What a day!
Dave came home early from work on Monday and stayed home on Tuesday. He repaired fences and started the long job of cutting up the trees.