All measurements are approximate:This is the time of year when near panic sets in over all the things I should've gotten done over the summer and with the rain not much is getting done here this weekend. I can't complain though because we're coming out of our usual summer drought and really needed the rain.
I'm having trouble finding hay for the winter. My usual (and closest) source may not have any this year and another source tells me it will come down to his third cutting this month. I really don't want to have to buy it at auction but it may come to that.
Look for frequent short posts (if I can get the hang of this tiny keyboard).
I have a few happenings this summer to write more about later.
All in all, this lambing season has been mixed. We've seen a lot of death. The worst blow was the loss of our ewe, Lambie, on Monday. After a couple days of something being not quite right with her, I left work Monday morning to go home and treat her for milk fever. She was dead when I got there. Here is a photo of one of her twin lambs, Junior. He and his sister, Hershey, are now being bottle-raised.
This is Sonja and her ewe lamb, as yet unnamed. Sonja delivered during the night and when I scooped up what I thought was afterbirth the next day, I realized that she had had twins and only one survived. The dead lamb was still in it's amniotic sac but had been licked clean on the face. I don't know if Sonja started cleaning it off and then got distracted with the delivery of the twin or if she cleaned off the face and the lamb was already dead and didn't respond. She was a first-timer this year.
Here is Bunny and her unnamed ewe lamb. I walked up on Bunny at 5:20 one morning and she had this lamb already standing up and had just delivered another. It took a couple of ragged breaths but didn't make it. I scooped up the afterbirth and realized that a third tiny lamb was there, also dead.
Finally, on Tuesday Ingrid had triplets. It was a very difficult birth that I had to assist with. Two of the lambs were determined to come out at the same time. I had to push one back in and simultaneously pull the other. I still hadn't recovered mentally from Lambie's death the day before and was sure that Ingrid and her lambs were going to die. Well, the first one was delivered barely alive and the second came two front legs first with the head back. I was able to bring the head up in the birth canal and again thought for sure Ingrid wouldn't survive this. The second lamb was born dead. While I was tending to the struggling survivor, Ingrid presented another water bag. This lamb was basically presented correctly but one leg was bent at the knee and had to be straightened. Since this lamb was in an uncorrupted sac, I thought it would live but it was delivered dead. The umbilical attachment had apparently been broken during the preceding commotion. Ingrid and her ewe lamb are alive and well. We treated her with an antibiotic because of the trauma to her vaginal canal and vulva (not to mention my arm being inside her up to my elbow). I don't have a photo yet.Environment is big in the 2008 version of [the Farm Bill], with some $108 million for industrial operations that anoint the countryside with hog and cattle cesspools. Both produce near-worthless protein so riddled with hormones it has already compromised the health of an entire generation. Instead of clamping down on this bad animal husbandry, the purse opens when big business beckons.
