Primrose

Primrose , petite and pert, she's found a special niche in my heart these past few months.  The sweetest, most forgiving personality, and so darn cute, too!  Prim has adjusted to living with the sheep, and has even grown rather fond of them, I think.  She's only gotten stuck in the fence 5 times, and made her escape about 10.  When she does get out, she goes right back in when you open the gate.  It's super cute. *smile* Even my dad likes her, and he's not a real animal lover so that's saying something.

On a slightly different topic, my ewes have gotten a bad case of worms.  Or rather, their worm load has gotten large enough to start causing some serious respiratory problems.  Ingrid, the ewe who lost her lambs this spring, is doing the most poorly.  She's been coughing, and today she had a runny nose and wasn't interested in eating.  When you've just turned them out onto a lush green pasture, that's not a good sign at all.  So, I isolated her this morning, had a powwow on the phone with my sheep/goat advice friend, and then got to work.  After estimating her weight with my weight tape (which is an awesome little device btw), I got out the big gun - Zimectrin Gold.  It's an ivermectin based horse wormer, but it can be used for sheep, too.  That should take care of tapeworms and lungworms, which the average rubbishy goat/sheep wormer doesn't.  Why do they even sell that stuff?  It doesn't do a thing!  I also wormed the other ewes.

Then, after a bit of research, I concocted my own sheep drench.  A drench is something you give orally.  I mixed Apple Cider Vinegar and water at a 1:1 ratio, then added about 3 Tbs of blackstrap molasses to improve the taste and help with the anemia.  I got about 18 mL down her throat.  After about an hour, she began nibbling at her hay.  I drenched her again and the rest of the ewes this evening (and gave some to Prim - she actually wanted to eat it, and kept getting in the way while I drenched the ewes:), and now Ingrid is really digging into her food.  I also added a bit of Apple Cider Vinegar to all of their drinking water.  That stuff is amazing.  We're not out of the woods yet, but praise the Lord for so much improvement so quickly!

My plan is to drench everyone again in the morning and evening for the next two days, move them all to the horse pasture, and then worm them again in 14 days.  They haven't been in that pasture for over a year, so there should be significantly less parasites there.  Typically, parasites aren't too hard to control here because it's a dry climate.  We have gotten a lot of rain this year though, and I think that's part of what's going on here.

And that's about it.  It's been a busy week, even without the excitement today.  VBS (which was awesome!), cherry picking, bringing in a load of hay, dropping my bro off at the airport (I had to get up at 3:30 AM - no one should have to do that.  But it was very nearly worth it just for the sunrise.  Beautiful!), more VBS, and then today.  Wow, in a way this week flew by, but at the same time Monday seems like a faint memory from long ago.  And now, this farm girl needs some rest...and maybe some Captain America.

Happy Trails, y'all!

Question: Are you a morning person or a night owl?  I want to know!

Keep on the Sunny Side

The Whites - Keep on the Sunny Side .mp3

Found at bee mp3 search engine

Oh my goodness.  This weekend has been really rough, but also wonderful.
Funny how that works.

My two ewes Ingrid and Emma finally lambed.  Ingrid began lambing Thursday evening around 8:00.  Everything seemed to be going well, normal presentation (head and both front legs coming out together), but she wasn't getting on with it.  I wanted her to do this on her own, but at around 10:30 I decided it was time to give her a hand and pulled the baby out.  Unfortunately, it was dead.  Nothing I did revived it.  Also, I was beginning to notice a bad smell.  An hour later another lamb was showing, but after feeling around I discovered that both of its legs were back.  Quite stuck.  I could tell that this one was also dead and the smell was worse.  With my brother holding Ingrid still, I tried unsuccessfully to push the baby back in so I could get at least one leg around.  But it was really stuck.  So, my bro and I switched places.  Thank the Lord he has small enough hands to be able to reach in there!  He successfully brought a leg forward and got the baby out.  I'm guessing that they'd been dead for a while, although not too long since they seemed fully formed.   I have no idea why they died, but I know there wasn't anything I could have done differently.
That is an experience I hope never to repeat.  It was horrible.  But I praise the Lord for being there with us and helping us to get that lamb out without injuring Ingrid!  Also, that it only took us about 30 minutes...that's a huge blessing right there.

Ingrid is doing well, eating, and looking perky today.  We're giving her shots of penicillin once a day for two or three days to make sure of that.  Better safe than sorry, the way I look at it.  I would hate to lose her, too.

But despite that, life on the farm has it's sunny side, too.  This morning when I went out to feed the sheep, I discovered two new faces, a ewe and a ram lamb!

They'd probably been born for about hour or so as they were both up and mostly dry when I discovered them.  Emma didn't need any help and she's such a great mom.  It was a bit windy, wet, and cold today and this evening, but they're all as snug as can be in the lambing pen under the shelter.

Above is the ram lamb and below is the ewe lamb.

I decided to name them Amy and Rory.
For those of you who are not Whovians, Amy and Rory are the 11th Doctor's companions in the British TV show Doctor Who.  And Rory is awesome.  Just sayin'...

That's Amy above, and Rory below.

Amy snuggling with her momma.

Yes, I think Amy and Rory are the perfect names for these two...

*smile*

And here's a few pics of Sweet Pea and Katniss...

Katniss is 1 1/2 weeks old now, and getting bigger every day.  I'm calling her my "monster baby".  Seriously, that's a big baby!  And she never stops moving.  She's probably the most active lamb I've ever seen, although her yearling sister Maggie (aka the Nibblin' Lamb) comes close.  There's a log in the sheep pen which Katniss jumps over.   It's just about the cutest thing ever and she makes me laugh so hard.  Here's a short video of her...

Oh, and pay no attention to what I'm saying while filming.  Well, you can if you want to, but I was talking to my Aunt Lizzie on the cell phone while filming, describing Katniss to her. *grin*

And that's it, lambing is done for the year.  No more midnight trips in the rain to the sheep pen!  I can sit back, relax, and enjoy my lambs.
Happy Trails, y'all!  I hope you all have a blessed Sunday!

p.s.
You've all left such lovely comments on my last few posts!  I haven't had time to respond to them yet, but hopefully tomorrow or Monday.  You're the best readers ever:)