Month: January 2008

I have put three new photographs on the Photo page. The photographs that have been sent in are running out. If you have any please send them in.

Elaine the last photograph you sent wont open. Try another way of sending it.

The first one is from Patrica the last of three photographs that she emailed to me.

The second from Elaine.

The last one from Elsie.
I thought this was so cute. It is from a card in aid of Retired Greyhounds. Elsie.

I can tell you without any hesitation, that I have had a belly full of the new Lamb. The so and so has had me on the run around all day long. I have told you many times, Sheep are more trouble than they are worth. How such a little thing can make so much noise I really don’t know. If we had sound on the Sheep you wouldn’t want to watch the webcams with the noise that the Lamb is making. Mind you if we had sound you would have to turn it off with my cussing about the Lamb. Even when the Lamb is next to the Ewe, it is bleating.

The Lamb seems quieter when it is out off the pen, and it has been out more than it has been in. Because the Lamb was being knocked about a bit, I decided to pen it and the Ewe on their own with some hurdle’s that I had lying about, I put an old pallet at the end where it had fallen out a couple of times. The bars at the bottom of the hurdle’s are close that it would stop Lambs from getting out. The only place it could get out was at the front of the pen. As it had not got out that way before I thought that I could leave it. By the time I got back to the Farm House the Lamb was out. I put a couple of boards up to stop it getting out that way again, again by the time I got indoors again it was out. I have now raised the boards a bit higher. It better not get out again.

We have left the Horses stabled for the night, not so much because of the weather, as it is not going to be freezing here tonight. But we want to see if the concoction of the Vaseline and Cayenne Pepper is stopping Willow from suckling. We put the concoction on Lady’s teats again this morning. After a couple of attempts of suckling Willow gave up because of the taste. We need to see if it is going to work. When the Horses are turned out that is not possible. Tonight we can keep an eye on them, and also put the recorder on. If when I have Lady’s camera on, and you see Willow suckling, please let me know on the Forum.

Now that it looks that Willow is going to take longer to wean, we need to get Emmi and Gypsy settled. They have been stabled in the same area since they have been here, the only turnout being the corral in front of the stables. With Emmi being laid back and kind, we have been able to let them Gypsy out with her. Emmi will put her ears back at Gypsy now and then, but nothing to serious. We have to separate them at feeding times as you can never be sure that Emmi might just give Gypsy a kick if she believed that Gypsy was a threat to her food. When Gypsy is stabled, Emmi is always looking in to her stable to check on her. Tomorrow we will give them both a little time in the main Horse field and over the coming days introduce Arnie to them. He will be alright with them. We will then try to introduce Lady and Willow. We will need to be careful as if Lady believes that Emmi may be a threat to Willow there will be a kicking session, with Emmi due to Foal, possibly within a month we really wont want that. Breeze would chase the pair of them around, again I wouldn’t want that. We will take it day by day, and I will let you know how it goes.

There are five new photographs on the Photo page starting from eleven.

The first two are of our new Lamb, the three others are from Maddi of the Moose Calf.

That was a bit of a surprise this morning. I had only checked the Ewes udders a few days ago and there were no sign that a Lamb was going to drop this morning. As soon as we entered the barn we could hear the Lamb calling. Some how it had got on the outside of the pen. It was still wet when I picked it up so it couldn’t have been born to long. I was a bit concerned if the Lamb had got the colostrum from the Ewe, or even if it was feeding at all. I could see the Lamb trying to get on to a teat, but I wasn’t sure if it was being successful getting milk. I checked both side of the udder to make sure that there was milk coming out. One side was alright, the other I needed to start it off. The Lamb seems to be feeding alright now. It is a Portland Lamb. The other Portland Ewe has bagged up, so she will be lambing over the coming day. I have put an infra red lamp up facing the Sheep’s pen, so hopefully you will be able to see the Sheep during the night.

We have always been fortunate with weaning Foal off of the Mares. Put the Mares in a stable and the Foals in a secure field or stable the Foals together, within a few days both the Foals and the Mares accept it without any problems. Willow has been the exception. Initially yesterday she was fine in the stable between Emmi and Gypsy. That lasted until about 9.pm last night, when she was stressing so badly that we needed to keep going out to check on her to make sure that she was not going to hurt herself. We only went to bed when it looked as if she had settled, that was nearly 2.am. We got up early to see that she was alright. By the way that she had sweated up she had obviously had a bad night, and was still very agitated and throwing herself about the stable. We had no alternative but to let her Emmi and Gypsy out together with Willow, hoping it would quieten her down. It did for a few minutes, after that she decided that she was getting back with Lady no matter. In the end we have had to put Willow back with Lady.

I can see that weaning Willow off Lady could well be a problem. It will be my own fault for being too soft. We should have weaned her two months ago, but as I did not have a companion for her, I left it, giving her more time to be reliant on Lady as her food source. That really is the problem. Willow wants the milk. We have now got to stop her from suckling, Willow will then be easier to take off of Lady. Tonight we have put a mixture of Vaseline and Cayenne Pepper on Lady’s teats to try to stop Willow from suckling. As it is dry we have turned the Horses out tonight. As Willow and Lady entered the field, Willow went to suckle, trying both side of Lady’s udder, stopping we hope by the nasty taste. We will try that for a couple of days to see if it works.

We had hoped to have put Willow and Gypsy in the pen we have put up next to the Sheep. We would then have deep littered that area. Deep litter is to only muck out the dung, and adding new straw on top of the old. The underneath straw starts to compost giving off heat. It is a good way of bedding Horses in large areas, and saves a lot of work. We could then have put Emmi next to Lady, getting them use to each other for when they are turned out together with their Foals in the Spring.