Summer Heat

We've been having one hot day after the next in the past week and I think today was the hottest yet. When you can see the humidity in the air, you know its too dang hot to go outside. But I needed to check on the animals water and see how they were all handling the heat---with camera in tow.

The horses rarely leave their shelter in the heat. Which I don't blame them.

Whereas the miniatures are braver and rarely go indoors.

But when they do, it's a team decision.

The sheep also were keeping cool inside the cool barn.

Along with the breeding dogs.

Well, except for Emma who took comfort from a stoned pillow.

The horse's eventually did come out briefly, long enough to get a snack then hunkered back under the shade of their shelter once again.

Which was pretty much when I too decided I had enough of the heat and rushed back to the comfort of my cool home.

A Beautiful Blossom

I was out in the pasture letting Fantasia out for the first time with the minis.

When Blossom raised her head and looked over at me I was literally taken aback. When had this beauty arrived?

I'm not sure why it took me so long to notice. Probably because her winter coat has taken so long to shed and still needs to but since I don't own a pair of clippers to finish the job, I will have to wait and let nature do its thing. Then she was in a stall for several weeks while Joey was here breeding Pixie so I guess my attention was on them and not her.

But yesterday, wow, she just stunned me. And excited me. I always thought she'd be a stunner. Then she got lax tendon and the vet gave her a grim diagnosis. He recommended we put her down if the skin ever split open which would cause infection and pain. But instead, she began to stand up properly. Lax tendon is gone forever.

She is truly turning into the beauty I always believed she would be. We hadn't bothered to register her because it was no sense if she was only going to be put down, but our plans have obviously changed now and not only are we going to register her, but we plan on showing her as well. I'm so excited for this mini's future. I absolutely adore Blossom and seeing her develop into the beauty she is, makes my heart glow.

There's a Saying in Farming

If you have livestock, you have death. I was reminded of this yesterday. Our sickly ewe, the rescue who was attacked by the owner's dog, died yesterday. I didn't have much hope for her as she was unable to raise her head, but still, it was disappointing.

When I checked on her first thing in the morning, I found her down, her belly inflated with bloat but still alive. I administered everything I could with what little supplies I had on hand but unfortunately she passed away. Since I purposely did everything possible for her to avoid bloat knowing she already had enough problems, this surprised me. She was not on pasture or grain, simply dry hay. Last years for that matter. So my unprofessional guess is she had choked on some hay and was unable to lift her head to swallow properly. She had begun to gain some weight and with it some energy I'm sure. Possibly too much energy, she might have been eating too fast. When you felt her neck, you could tell it wasn't normal. There were bones sticking out in odd angles. I suspected there was more internal damage than feared.

It was very disappointing but a lesson learned. Actually a reminder since I already have been through bloat before. Make sure I have proper supplies on hand for a sick ewe.

Impulse

I used to have a bad habit. I saw some sweet little critter and just had to have it. Farm Girl had the same impulse. It was so bad, we had a mishmash of livestock critters in our barn. More than we could fit. When we decided to farm for income, we curbed our impulse and began to thin the flock.

That was then, this is now. Our impulse buying is back. We love our miniature horses. After we sold almost everything on the farm, our two minis were the last to go and we just couldn't bring ourselves to do it. We certainly had a lot of interest, but for whatever reason, we held on to them. And then this new farm landed our way and we were able to keep the minis as well as rebuild our flock of sheep.

But it has been two years since Blossom was born and Farm Girl missed out on her birth because she was out west for the summer. So we really wanted a foal this summer but we never got Pixie bred. We corrected that this year so that next spring/early summer, we will hopefully have another foal on the farm.

However, we still wanted more miniature horses and didn't think we could wait another year. We constantly are looking on Kijiji and yesterday, an add came up selling some miniatures not more than ten minutes from our farm.

We jumped in the van and headed over. And immediately fell in love with this little girl.

They really had no information on her. Not her age, her name, nothing. They had only owned her along with her mother since last summer. But she is smaller than both Pixie and Blossom and has the same personality as Blossom. She really is a pocket pony.

We have determined by her teeth that she is approximately 2 to 3 years old. She was running with the farm's stallion so could be bred. We hope not. Though we would love a tiny foal, she is too young to have a baby. We plan to breed her next year along with Blossom.

We're thinking of calling her Fantasia. We'll give her a couple days to settle in, make sure the pasture fence is secure (she is small enough to slip through some of the rails) then introduce her to Pixie and Blossom.

Permanent Residence

As I mentioned before, I wasn't ready to bring home any sheep yet. Meaning, I hadn't figured out a plan where I was keeping them. When I unexpectedly brought the rescues home, I threw them in a horse stall but new that would be temporary.

After I had time to let them settle in and survey my set up, I decided to put them in the back stall where a small passage separated the miniatures stall out in the barn's run in. I booted the minis out and opened up the passage.

Its more room then they need but it served two purposes. One, it provides more space for more ewes in the future; and two once I'm done properly securing the pasture fence, they can go directly outside from the run in. This is the stall inside the run in.

The stall is actually two horse stalls opened to be one. Next spring, it will also act as a nursing pen for both Pixie (fingers crossed for a foal) and for lambing season.

The exit from the run in to the sheep's pasture makes this set up very convenient.

For now, the plan is they are to share it with the miniature horses. Until either flock or herd grows too big.

Boarding

There's a horse in my pasture once again.

It will be a couple years before we can fully grow the sheep flock so we decided to make use of the property and make some money by boarding horses.

This guy arrived late last night and woke me early this morning when something spooked him and he started running like mad in the small pasture. I hate running horses. I fear they may take it to the next level and jump the fences in their panic attack to get away.

Injured Ewe

One of the rescued ewes was attacked by the new farmer's family dog. The old farmer notified me that the ewe had a dog bite but I pictured a small puncture mark or something. What I found instead shocked me.

Really, I almost wonder if it wouldn't have been more humane to have put her down and take her out of her misery.

But I understand how you can really want to help and see an animal make it and survive. Even if she does survive, I'm not sure if she'll ever lift her head. But she is eating, though she can't find the water so we're going to give her some electrolytes and see how she does from there. We are crossing our fingers and praying she makes a full recovery.

Rescue

A couple weeks back, a woman contacted me who I had bought some sheep from years ago and asked if I would be interested in buying a couple of hers. She recently got divorced, sold the farm, and rehomed the sheep but one of the farms her sheep went to turned out to be a poor home. Then I didn't hear anything back from her for about two weeks until her ex-husband contacted me and told me it was a dire situation. Even though the farm was two and a half hours away, I agreed to take them even though I haven't quite set up the sheep pasture yet or their pen.

I hired a family friend and we headed down yesterday. The farmer was right. The sheep were in a bad way. He had told me it was because of new owner's family dog attacking them and coyote's had killed a couple others. But they were being starved and I can see why he wanted his sheep out of that property asap.

So now I have the first sheep on my new farm. I'm going to work on securing proper fencing and then they can go out and graze. Until then, we are nursing one very unhealthy ewe and fattening the rest.

The ewe on the left is the sickly ewe recovering from a dog attack. She is unable to raise her head and  barely able to walk. She is deathly thin so wondering if she is able to eat at all. The farmer gave me meds that he started her on and the vet is optimistic she will have a full recovery. I'm thinking of separating her with maybe one other sheep for company so that she has full access to hay and grain.