Stories from the Farm

Perseverance

Posted by kenleighacres on March 21, 2011

Posted in: family. Tagged: dock diving, perseverance. 12 Comments

The dictionarey definition of perseverance is – continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition. I saw perseverance this weekend with my son and his dog.

We started the weekend by going to a local Dock Diving event. In the past, I have posted pictures of Rose diving into ponds, but diving into clear water was something she wasn’t prepared to do. We were warned that the clear water can really throw some dogs, but I was shocked at how much it affected her.

She really wanted her toy, but the fear of the clear water was greater.

To help her overcome the fear, we had her go down the ramp and retrieve her toy. We had help from a lot of people, but one lady inparticular. She had waders on and was in the water with the dogs. This really helped Rose and boosted her confidence. Pretty soon she was jumping off the ramp into the water. She loved jumping off the ramp, but wasn’t sure about jumping off the dock.

The environment was also a little overwhelming for all of us – loud music, lots of barking dogs, and an announcer. She wasn’t ready to jump off the dock Friday night and I was concerned with how Rose was handling the noise, so we decided to scratch her from Saturday’s activities. We were told that we could show up early on Saturday to practice in the pools before all the noise started. This sounded like a good option. She was more comfortable and was jumping off the dock with enthusiasm. We all left happy! My son wanted to go back Sunday morning to practice again, so we showed up early and Rose was showing more confidence. Her boy was so happy, he wanted to do it over and over and over 🙂 Rose was happy to oblige. We had to be careful when walking by the docks because she would start dragging us up the stairs.

We were going to leave after practice, but she was doing really well and my son wanted to stay. So, we stuck around and are glad we did!

In her second jump, she jumped 8 feet 7 inches from a standstill at the edge of the dock! This length qualified them for the Novice Finals.

She jumped 9 feet 8 inches in the finals and my son got a lot of high 5’s as he was leaving the dock with her. She isn’t consistently jumping off the dock and everyone was rooting for them. He was so proud of his dog and we were very proud of him. He didn’t get frustrated or upset with her. He patiently worked with and encouraged her.

They earned 2nd place in the Novice division for their perseverance.

They were both pretty tired by this time 😉

A special box

Posted by kenleighacres on March 19, 2011

Posted in: Chickens, Farm Life. Tagged: blue laced red wyandotte, chicken scratch poultry, hatching eggs, olive egger chicken. 13 Comments

A special box arrived in the mail this last week.

It has been much anticipated, but we will have to be patient for a bit longer to really appreciate it’s contents!

I ordered hatching eggs from Chicken Scratch Poultry to put under our rock sitting hen.

I was going to order all Blue Laced Red Wyandotte hatching eggs, but they had a variety that looked interesting. An Olive Egger! It is a cross between a Black Copper Maran and an Ameruacana. The egg color ranges from khaki to olive green to a dark mossy green.

Here are the two varieties, I received 6 of each. All of the eggs are in beautiful condition.

After dark, we went out to give her some ‘real’ eggs. After placing the eggs in the nest, we put her back on them and she snuggled back down. Now we wait 21 days 🙂

Putting on a little show!

Posted by kenleighacres on March 16, 2011

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: canada geese, wildlife photography. 8 Comments

This time of year we always have a few geese hanging out on our pond. The pair we have had recently have been very friendly, enjoying the leftover grain from our ducks. Unfortunately a big bully came and chased them away…

I have never seen geese attack each other. They were wrestling in mid-air and the sound was amazing!

All of the geese stayed away for a few days, but the big storm we had on Sunday brought back a big group of them.

Can you see the bully on the right?

He wasn’t happy unless he was chasing somebody, it made for quite the show!

They carried on this way for a couple hours. Finally, the majority of them got sick of his antics and flew off…

I am happy to see that our nice pair is back!

A special boy

Posted by kenleighacres on March 10, 2011

Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep. Tagged: jacob lambs, Jacob Sheep, polio in sheep, thiamine deficiency in sheep. 25 Comments

He may not meet the Jacob breed standard, and his horns may be a little funky…but he is a very special boy!

This is Ector with his mom, Holly.

Holly had a rough go shortly after lambing. She presented with symptoms of polio. After consulting with my vet, we believe she had low calcium levels, which caused her to have polio. He explained that polio was usually a secondary illness to another problem. Polio is the easy to say term for Polioencephalomalacia. Polio is caused by an inadequacy or depletion of thiamine. The symptoms are neurological abnormalities with a sudden onset. These may include incoordination such as a staggered walk, bumping into objects, and some will wander randomly, often in circles. Sudden vision loss may also happen. Unfortunately, this is what happened to Holly. In the morning she seemed fine, but by afternoon she had obvious problems. If left untreated, the animal can go down very quickly. The vet had me give her Thiamine twice a day along with oral calcium. She seemed better after a week of treatment, but her vision did not return. I have kept her in the barn in a pen that she is familiar with along with her lambs, but I hate keeping the sheep locked inside – nothing is better than fresh air and green grass! I experimented with turning them out and watching her to make sure she could navigate through the gates and pastures. She had a hard time for the first couple of days, but then I noticed something amazing. Her ram lamb never left her side and would call to her when she was lost!

He is always by her side, which is very different compared to before she had the problems. I used to call him, his sister, and Duchess the ‘Three Amigos’ because they were always together and never with their mothers. Quite the independent little buggers. His sister is still very independent, but he has become a momma’s boy…in a good way 🙂

I have been watching the relationship with fascination and I thought it was maybe just a fluke, until yesterday evening. I went out to bring the sheep in from the pasture and Holly got left behind the big group. Ector got caught up in the moment and ran to the barn with everyone else, I thought I was going to have to help Holly in, but then Ector stopped. He turned around and called and called for her. She could hear him, but was too far away to figure out what direction he was calling from. He tried one more time, then he ran over to her and started walking with her to the barn.

What an amazing thing to witness!

I noticed that she has some eyesight tonight and I am hoping it returns 100%. The vet wasn’t sure if it would after this long, but he suggested that weaning her lambs early may be a good idea. After seeing how much her ram lamb helps her, I know this would be a bad idea. He is her own seeing eye lamb 🙂

Be sure to check out all of the other Farm Friend Friday posts!

Plants and deformities

Posted by kenleighacres on March 9, 2011

Posted in: Farm Life, Uncategorized. Tagged: lamb deformity, monkey faced syndrome. 4 Comments

I am going to preface this by saying I am not a vet. I had a deformed lamb this year and I wanted to share what I have learned. I am also going to warn you that there are pictures of the deformed lamb. Please come back tomorrow for cute lamb photos if that is more your style!

Until I had a deformed lamb last week, I did not know there were plants that can be ingested in early gestation that cause debilitating deformities. Even more interesting is that the plants can cause different deformities depending on when the plant is ingested.

Star had a set of twins, one lamb was normal looking and the other had obvious problems with the mouth and nose. The best description I could come up with was, a nose like a bulldog. It looked like everything was mushed in. Unfortunately, she could not eat. Even if she was able to nurse, I was concerned about her eating abilities in the future.

I am not someone to just say, oh well. I wanted to know ‘what’ caused this deformity. I looked up ‘lower head deformity in sheep’ on the internet and found ‘Monkey Faced Lamb Syndrome’ along with this picture of a goat kid.

It is more severe, but our lamb sure looks similar…

It is not uncommon for one lamb to be affected and the other to be fine.

This particular deformity is caused by the sheep eating CornLilly (False hellebore) which grows wild throughout the Western US. The unusual thing about this particular plant is that depending on which day of pregnancy it is ingested, is what causes the different degenerations of the fetus. Ingestion of the plant on day 14 of gestation causes ‘The Monkey Faced Syndrome’ – lack of nasal cavity, sometimes also a cycloptic situation (one central or offset eye instead of a pair of eyes). Ingestion on the 19th to the 21st day of gestation will give higher chances of cycloptic involvement as well as forelimb deformity. Days 27 to 32 of gestation shows a marked shortening of forelimbs. Tracheal defects (lateral flattening of the trachea throughout its entire length) when eaten on days 31-33 of gestation. The difficult thing about this poisoning is that many times the sheep does not show much in the way of outward symptoms of poisoning. Therefore, this can be quite a shock when the lamb is born with the defects.

I talked to my vet and he said that we may never know what caused this. He said that flukey things happen and he doesn’t start looking for a cause until there are more than 2 deformities in a lambing season. Since this was the last set of lambs for the season, I will be keeping my eyes open for any suspicious looking plants in the pasture this Fall.

The answer is 11!

Posted by kenleighacres on March 5, 2011

Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep. Tagged: 2011 lambs, jacob lambs, Jacob Sheep, lambing contest. 14 Comments

Lambing season is all wrapped up! The last 5 girls had 11 lambs and 7 of those lambs came within a 1-hour time frame!

Jonquil was the first to lamb with a healthy set of twins…

her ram lamb, Lionel

and her ewe lamb, Amelia.

The next 3 girls decided to stir it up some! This is the scene that greeted me after I picked my son up from school on Wednesday…

unfortunately, it wasn’t so organized 😉 There were 7 lambs being mothered by 3 ewes. A little chaotic!

I was able to sort them by size and markings and fleece and everyone seemed happy except for Veronica. She really wanted Sahara’s ram lamb in addition to her 3. I told her that she needed to be happy with what she had and not be greedy!

Here is Veronica with her triplets.

Roland – ram lamb

Catherine – ewe lamb

Second ram lamb – Chaucer

Veronica is quite proud of herself and her brood, as she rightly shoud be! I checked the girls at 2:00 before I left and she didn’t look close, I returned at 3:00 to triplets. They aren’t exactly small triplets either – 8, 9, and 10 lbs.!

This is Sahara’s ram lamb – Windsor

and her ewe lamb – Jasmine.

The other girl that lambed with them is Amber. This is her ram lamb, Galahad.

These are the first lambs by Blue Ewe’s Ringoes Albus ‘Ringo’.

Here is Amber’s little ewe lamb – Arabella. She is so petite and cute and pretty…

I just want to hug her and snuggle her and carry her everywhere.

She is not a snuggly lamb though. She wants to be with HER MOM! A very oppinionated little thing 🙂

The last girl to lamb was Star. She kept me waiting and waiting! Finally she lambed yesterday afternoon. She had twins! It was apparent at birth that the ewe lamb had some issues. The lower half of her face appearred to be deformed. She had to be put down and once again lambing season has reminded me of how precious life is. There will be an educational post coming. The lamb had what is called ‘Monkey Faced Lamb Syndrome’ and it is caused by the ewe eating a poisonous plant early in gestation. You can always count on lambing season to further your education!

Here is Star’s ram lamb. I am so thankful she has a lamb to care for! This is Ringoes other set of lambs. The fleeces look very promising.

Thanks to all who participated in our little lambing contest! 6 of you guessed 11. We have a winner……..

Tisha! I know you are off having fun in California, but I will send you an e-mail and find out what you would like.

A little teaser…

Posted by kenleighacres on March 2, 2011

Posted in: Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep. Tagged: 2011 jacob lambs, Jacob Sheep, lambing contest. 6 Comments

The lambs are starting to arrive…

a nose…

a pretty fleece…

and a spotted leg.

That is all you get until all 5 girls have lambed 😉

The contest will stay open until then. If you want to play along, visit this blog post.

Amber was busy this afternoon, dressing up for the arrival of her lambs. I hope they appreciate her effort when they get here 🙂

Poor Veronica – I think she still has a day or two to go…ugh!

Seeing the new lambs makes me realize how big the older lambs are getting…horns and all!

How many lambs…A little contest!

Posted by kenleighacres on February 27, 2011

Posted in: Farm Life, Felting, Jacob Sheep, sheep. Tagged: felt kit, felt sheep, felted soap, Jacob Sheep, lambing contest, needle felt kit, wet felted kit. 33 Comments

At the start of lambing season, I thought it would be fun to have a lambing contest. Unfortunately, with the number of ewes we have, it seemed a little overwhelming and I couldn’t figure out the logistics. We are down to 5 ewes left to lamb and they are due within the next couple of days…perfect number and time for a little contest!

Here are the girls in all of their pregnant glory…

Sahara

Jonquil

Star

Amber

and Veronica

Veronica says that I am going to owe them some pretty good treats after posting the above photos 🙂

If you would like to play along, leave a comment here with how many lambs you think these girls are going to have. The cut off will be when they have all lambed. Jonquil and Star are due today and the other three are due on the 1st of March. I will have my son draw names from a hat of all the people that guess the right number. There will be two winners!

Now to the important stuff…the prizes 😉

The first prize is one of my needle felting kits to make a little sheep…

The second prize is one of my wet felted soap kits to make your own felted soap…

If you aren’t the crafty type, no worries…I will be happy to send you an already made felted sheep or felted soap!

Farm Friend Friday – Snow Day!

Posted by kenleighacres on February 25, 2011

Posted in: family, Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Snow. Tagged: jacob lambs, Jacob Sheep, snow day. 5 Comments

Ok, all of you that have spent all winter in the snow…get ready to laugh 😉

This much snow gave us a snow day – that’s right…no school 🙂

We took advantage of the snow and made a little friend…his name is Jo Jo.

Thankfully my son is finally feeling better and was able to enjoy the snow day home from school.

I love that the snow covers up the mud 🙂 I took some pictures of the yearling girls, they are now beginning to look like young ladies instead of lambs. This is Allegany and Mollala.

It really hit me when I was taking pictures of Bronwen and Wren. Bronwen is one of our bigger girls and look at little Wren, she isn’t so little anymore.

They were using each other as scratching posts…

but this picture makes it look like Wren was trying to strangle her!

The lambs enjoyed their first snow day.

Here is Delight with her ewe lamb, Gloriana. This picture makes me so happy because Delight was a first time mom that wasn’t sure if she wanted to be a mom. I had to ~~threaten~~ sweetly tell her that taking care of her lamb would be a VERY good idea 😉 Within the hour of having her lamb, the hormones kicked in and she has been an excellent mother ever since.