New Ewes

Last night, my new ewes were delivered. I ended up buying only 8 but plan on going back in a couple weeks to buy a few more.

There are two dorset and four rideau crosses and two mixed commercial breeds that probably have some rideau in them.

They are all around 3-4 years old which makes them nice and experienced and hopefully throw me some duplicates. They've been exposed to a ram for the past month so fingers crossed they are bred.

We also bought some cats. Yes, not very exciting news, but my barn was infested with rats over winter. We put out traps and poison but they just were not going away, so I finally relented and bought four working cats. Now I use the word "bought" and "working" lightly because two of them are males and two are still young so not sure how much "work" I'll get out of them. I've already lost track of the two males. They are, however, not tom cats as they came to me fixed. There are people and organizations who visit farms and "trap" wild cats then take them to the vet to get fixed and vaccinated. The cats themselves were actually free I just had to pay the price of gas to the city where the volunteering vet was located. So now, I think, I have four cats living in my barn. At least I hope so and they haven't deserted me and wandered off to greener pastures. That's always a possibility.

Where Are You Spring?

Well, winter was long. And cold. And snowy. And still here. This photo was taken this morning.

We had more snow at Easter than we did at Christmas. But in all fairness, we did have a nice mild break in March. But it was just a teaser. Made us yearn for green grass and gravel driveways. But alas, April provided us with a famous late winter blast. Hopefully this will be the end. Warmer weather is bound to be just around the corner. Oh please, let warmer weather just be around the corner! My heating bills just can't tolerate it any longer. I want to spend hundreds of dollars on livestock, not oil! Or wood. We heated the house over winter mainly on wood but did have to fill the oil tank twice and are waiting on another fill as I type. When temps got below -20C, and I wasn't home to feed the fire, than I had no other choice but to buy oil. Which really spoiled me. Blessed warm heat with no labour involved!! I can officially say I'm sick of stacking wood. 

Speaking of livestock. We sold the pigs. Yay! We never ended up butchering them for ourselves. We had every intention, but both finances and means really didn't necessitate the cost. There would have been far too much meat left over that would never had gotten eaten and when you balance the cost of slaughtering and smoking and cutting, it just didn't pan out for us. So we sold them instead and chalked them up to experience.

One of our ewes had twins that were born stillborn just before Christmas. That was very upsetting. Both me and Farm Girl were at work and missed the birth. Not that I can guarantee we could have done anything to help, but it was another lesson we learned. Putting time aside for our livestock. But, in the new year, another ewe gave birth to a big healthy girl. That lived! Yay! First lamb born on the farm and to me since my separation.

But one lamb wasn't enough. I wanted more. Farm Girl kept texting me photos of lambs born at work and I was jealous. Especially when she texted me a photo of a set of quadruplets. I texted back and joked she buy a female off them. Having those genetics would be an awesome addition to our flock. Of course she laughed and said there would be no way, but lo and behold, I found an add for 3 bottle lambs that came from a set of quintuplets! I texted immediately and was successful in purchasing them (she had a LOT of interest).

Two ewes and one ram which we plan to raise for breeding. We love them and enjoy bottle feeding them so much that Farm Boy declared he wanted some bottle goat kids of his own to raise. So guess what? We now have two adorable little newborn bucks in the barn.  Man, I love babies!

Farm Boy then decided he wanted to raise goats so I bought him his first nanny.  She is part nubian and will make a good breeding doe but also a good milking doe. She's super friendly and easy to handle. Perfect for a 12 year old's first goat.

The little buck next to her is not hers but came from the same farm. We took him to finish him off and send him to market. Goats did very well at the auction over easter so we have our fingers crossed its a good year for goats all around.

So that's it in the barn that's new. In the equine department, we still have Chase, Farm Girl's horse, Pixie and Blossom. We sold Fantasia as I just didn't feel the connection with her. Our love for Pixie and Blossom is pretty tight that I think I just want to keep their babies and not bring in any others. I did buy a little project for us over the winter which I never got at.

However, in the spring for sure I'm going to hook Pixie up and teach her how to drive. I can't wait.

Meanwhile, we have gone to view some sheep and are hoping to bring them home within the next week or two. I'll try to remember to post some photos. That's it for now. I'll leave you with one of my favourite photos of our recent puppy litter. She reminds me so much of Quinn who we had to rehome after my husband cut me off support payments (will update later on that in a future post) without notice and we were forced to sell a bunch of items to help with finances until I got a job. And poor Quinn was one of our sacrifices.

We are not keeping this little cutie but she is going home to her grandpa's family. Sadly, he died back in November and they want to continue the line so bought one of Jewel's pups from us. Jewel is his daughter. Instead, we plan on keeping a pup from our other breeding dog, Jewel's mom, Emma who is at Oldest place getting bred to her stud who not only has a matching personality as Em, but is super gorgeous. We can't wait for their line.