Happy Easter!

Two of our goldens wishing you all a very Happy Easter!

Coat Color Calculator

I found this interesting link to a calculator that can determines the colour of your mare's offspring.  Didn't even know this type of calculator existed.  Not sure exactly how it works but according to the results, if Pixie is pregnant she could have anyone of the following results.

We should find out in a couple days how accurate it is.  And yes, we have swung in the opposite direction and believe nearly 100% that Pixie is pregnant.  She may not be showing any external signs, but foal movement is very evident. That little guy is doing acrobats in his momma's womb.

Is She or Is She Not?

If I had the money I would invest in an ultrasound machine because I have spent so much time in the last several months wondering whether she was or wasn't pregnant.  This time around it's our wonderful miniature horse, Pixie's turn.  We have been so consumed with watching, studying, waiting, preparing for the arrival of new little lambs and goat kids that we nearly forgot about Pixie. When we bought her we were told she could be pregnant as she had bred her with her stallion.  We made a mental note of it, did a quick calculation and figured May was the expected due date if there were an expected due date.

Well I was wrong again about my dates.  But this time instead of being later, our expected due date is sooner.  A lot sooner.  According to the Breeder Service Certificate, Pixie was serviced between May 19-21, 2012.  So that makes her due date approx. April 11.  Wow.  Talk about not being prepared.  We figured this all out late last night and I could barely sleep, thinking and worrying about her out there so first thing in the morning we went out and brought her inside.

But as you can see, we are questioning once again, "is she or isn't she pregnant?".  She doesn't look extra wide to me but then again our research on the internet showed mare's looking the exact same just days before they delivered.  So we aren't really going to use the width of Pixie to determine whether she is or isn't.  But apparently, her belly should have dropped by now.  With her winter coat still on, it is really hard to tell if there is a drooped belly there or not.  But....

I'm not really seeing a drooped belly.  At least not like the ones I saw on the internet.  So we next checked what I figure is the most telling of all signs.  The udder.  But once again.....

Can you see them?  No?  Well that's because there isn't any.  We are pretty certain that Pixie is not pregnant from all the symptoms we looked for.  We checked her vulva as well but really have no idea what to look for.  I am posting an image of that so if you think it may offend you, please look away now.  One of the reasons I write this blog is for my own personal notes and records for future reference.

As far as I can tell, it has not loosened so no imminent birth expected.  Part of us are disappointed that our beautiful Pixie is not going to have a baby.

But another part of us are secretly relieved.  We did not plan this breeding as it was done at her previous owner's property, so we really weren't focused on it as we were the sheep and goats.  I did not watch her diet or administer any vaccinations in time, so in all honesty it is probably for the best if she is not.

A Grass is a Grass...or Not!

So lately I've been trying very hard to learn all about hay.  From protein content to the different species.  When I first moved to the country I really thought grass was grass and that was that.  As a matter of fact I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't even realize that hay was grass.  Yes it's true.  Then when I finally figured that out, I had no idea there were any differences between 1st, 2nd and 3rd cuts of hay.  I had no clue as to what that meant.  Now that some of it is beginning to sink into my head and realizing that the quality and cut of my bales of hay affected the health of my livestock, I've really started to take an interest and have been on a crusade to self-teach myself all the kinds of grasses there are out there (and to be able to identify them), as well as the differences between grass and legume.

Yesterday I went out to a farm that advertised some bales of hay for sale at a price that was more representative of last year rather than the ridiculous prices being asked this year, so me and Farm Girl went and picked up some bales.  The ad said the hay was 1st cut with timothy and alfalfa.  Perfect, I really wanted to add alfalfa to my hay since it is a vital supplement in both sheep and goats diet.  And the horses love it too.  The problem is, I really have no idea what alfalfa looks like.  I've finally figured out timothy and was able to identify it in the bales.

But there were other grasses in the bale that I thought were alfalfa but turns out they are not.  Since I had no idea what they were, I went on the internet to identify them.

I believe the above is Kentucky Bluegrass but I'm not sure of the one below.

I'm thinking it's some kind of orchard grass only because someone bought the majority of the hay from this farmer and resold it at a higher price on Kijiji (nice eh?) but correctly (or incorrectly) identified the bales as being 70% timothy, 20% alfalfa, and 10% orchard grass.

I'm studying and examining each stem of grass (yes, a little neurotic I know) determined to recognize what is in my fields and in my bales.  I did find a great website to help me but still some of the strands are so similar it is hard to correctly name each one.

Here's the link for anyone who is interested in identifying pasture grass:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/beef/facts/06-095.htm#kentucky

Dakota

We lost our old girl today.  She was around 12 years old.  We never knew how old she really was.  We adopted her after she was found abandoned in a gravel pit.  She was micro-chipped and several attempts were made to try and locate  her previous owners, but they made sure no traces of them could be found.  Which delighted us plenty as that meant she officially became ours.  And lived a long happy life guarding all those most important to her.  Us.  She was a brilliant intelligent and beautiful dog who was one of my favourite photo subjects.  And she loved us and was loyal to us to the end.  You will be greatly missed old girl.

The Wet Season

Let me introduce you to the wet season here on the farm.  Otherwise known as the mud season.  We go from everything clean and white.

Can you spot our Border Collie, Ivy?

To everything brown and filthy, aka mud.

Mud in the chicken pen.

Mud in the horse pastures.

Hooves buried two inches in mud.

Horses coated in mud.

And dogs frolicking in muddy pastures.

Which means muddy paws.

And muddy puppies.

And muddy back doors.

As well as front doors.

And furniture.

And floors.

And the list goes on and on.  But at least it looks like this outside.

And we'll just ignore this.

Because look who's come out of hybernation?

Haha, just kidding.  The Canadian Geese have returned.

Bring on spring.

Measuring Up

Today we measured the goats and the sheep.  Farm Girl took all the measurements.

While I jotted down all the numbers to calculate their weights later.

If you are wondering what the formula is to measure your goats or sheeps weight, here it is.  You will need to take two measurements.

Our goats came back smaller than we had wanted.  The two yearlings came in at 40lbs, just slightly larger than our pygmy goat, while the two older ones came in around 65lbs.  Our biggest and oldest goat came in at 80lbs.  Obviously, everyone is smaller than we had anticipated.  

The sheep, however did much better with an average of 82lbs, the largest being 96lbs and the smallest at 68lbs.  Other than the ewe who came in at 68lbs, we are very happy with the weights.  I had thought they were all around the 60-70lb mark.  So am glad at least where they are concerned I'm not doing too bad.  The ram actually only came in at 86lbs which was disappointing.  Not really sure where he should be at this point, but since one of the ewes weighs more than him, am thinking that's probably not a good thing.

So after we finished weighing everyone, we went outside and measured Caesar, our young buck.  Though he has always looked solid and robust, he actually came back at 54lbs.  Now we have taken him off grain and good quality hay and that along with his dislike of being separated from the other goats could have resulted in a weight loss  We really have our fingers crossed for Caesar as I really like the look of him.  

He appears to be a solid dark brown boar goat but in fact he is part nubian.  He hides his colouring under his belly where he has a lighter shade of brown and one single white spot.

As mentioned in my previous post we decided to bring in a doe one at a time daily from now until the end of the month.  He's been doing a lot of this.

And a lot of this.

A little bit of chasing.

But not nearly enough of this.

And, yes, we do have Gabby's head locked in the gate door.  We thought it might help the young buck out a bit.  But either he isn't measuring up and really is a dud stud or the girls simply aren't in heat anymore.

Waiting Game is Back On

So I discovered that I had the date wrong of when I introduced our buck to our girls.  For completely idiotic reasons I read 10-23-2012 as September 23 rather than October 23.  So once again we are playing the waiting game to see if we will have goat kids at the end of the month.  I really, really want to have babies again especially ones born on our farm so have every finger and toe crossed.