Great Big Farm Update

Before I get into the farm update I want to say an enormous thank you for all the birthday cards, gifts, wishes, emails and tweets! I can honestly say that my 40th Birthday was the best one I’ve ever had, thanks to all of you. I’m regularly spoiled by all the lovely things you all send me even when it’s not my birthday and I’m pretty sure the luckiest person I know.

Well, my unplugged weekend didn’t exactly go as planned. I did (mostly) avoid the internet from Friday to Sunday, but several things went wrong with the flock and I was up to my ears in stress nevertheless. On Friday night around Midnight, Miss Liberty decided that she didn’t like the way Lucy was looking at her lamb through the fence, so she repeatedly rammed the gate until I heard the ruckus and went outside to stop her. The result was a cut on her head and a bloody nose. I got her penned up with Knightly, her lamb, and doctored up her wounds before finally getting to bed around 2 a.m.

Bloody wounds are bad news in the Spring and Summer when the flies are a problem. Flystrike is a nasty business and all cuts must be treated with an anti-fly ointment ASAP.

Liberty and Knightly are fine and she seems to have calmed down.

Saturday got off to a lovely start. My good friends Kris and Charlie brought me lunch, we walked across the street to an art show and spent some time just talking about nothing. My favorite kind of Saturday, actually. Then my aunt Ann and cousin Jack (15-year-old) came over to spend the night. We went out to dinner in C-ville and watched a movie. All good stuff.

Disaster very nearly struck in the morning when Jack found Alabama tangled up in the moveable fencing and choking to death. Luckily, Jack didn’t lose his head and we were able to cut Bama free of the fence, but he was in very bad shape. I built another pen and doctored all the deep cuts that the wire fencing left in his skin. The fence had been wrapped around his face and head and he was so swollen that he was unrecognizable. Both of his eyes were swollen shut and he was in shock.

Bama is almost fully recovered and should be out of the isolation pen tomorrow. It scared the bejesus out of me, though and we won’t be using movable fencing anymore. Alabama spent every day of his life in that fencing and still managed to get tangled up enough to nearly kill him. Erin’s goat, Sweet William, died last month after getting tangled in the same fencing. So, unfortunately, it’s going.

In better news, Dr. Grover, our lovely and amazing vet, came by the farm today to castrate all the ram lambs and buck kids, dock the lambs tails and ear tag everyone. I felt a bit guilty asking Dr. G to come, as I usually do all of this myself, but with so many lambs this year I just kept putting it off.

Each lamb and kid was given a pain killer before they were docked and castrated. Honestly, it wasn’t a big deal to the lambs at all. Maggie, our resident vegetarian, was amazed by how un-traumatic the whole thing was for the babies.

In the past, I haven’t docked my lambs tails. My flock was small enough that I’ve always been able to manage the kinds of problems that docking prevents without cutting off the tails, but the fly situation this year is already so out of control, and I decided that it would be far crueler to subject a lamb to flystike than to dock their tails. I don’t know if I will dock next year- it depends on the conditions- but I’m comfortable with my decision this year.

We chose to dock tails by banding them after doing a lot of reading and talking with Dr. Grover. Basically, a special kind of rubber band is placed around the tail under the third vertebrae. The band cuts of the blood supply to the end of the tail and, in a few weeks, the dead portion drops off. The advantages are that the procedure doesn’t cause much pain- only a little discomfort- and doesn’t create an open wound.

As you can see from the pics bellow, the lambs and kids were completely fine after the procedures and spent the afternoon jumping, playing and grazing.

The Tiny Man was looking a little bit hunchy today which worried me. Hunchy is what we call it when I lamb has his back legs pulled in a bit and just doesn’t look right. I don’t think that Rush’s mama is making enough milk to supply him anymore, probably because his tiny appetite was enough to keep her producing. We have gone back to feeding him and will probably have to bottle feed him till it’s time to wean him.

Since I brought Rushworth inside to tube feed him anyway, I decided to give him a bath. He is now the whitest lamberoo in the pasture!

In other news, MY BEES CAME TODAY! I got a phone call from the post office at 7:30 a.m. asking me to please come pick up my bees. I did pick them up but I didn’t install them in their hives today. It was rainy and, according to my cooperative extension, rain makes bees cranky.

Several people asked me how the bees were packaged so I took some pics. More tomorrow when we’ve put them in their hives.

Finally, I want to thank all of you who purchase the pattern Willie to help cover the cost of Crush’s surgery. I got an update from Pam today and I am thrilled to report that sales of Willie have thus far raised $1900, nearly two thirds of Crush’s vet bills! Isn’t that amazing?!? Y’all are amazing.

To see more pics of the lovely Crush in her cast, check out Pam’s flickr stream.

And the winner of the half share in the 2011 Juniper Moon Farm Yarn CSA is…

Congrats Kathy! Please email Maggie at Maggie AT fiberfarm DOT com to claim your prize!