It's a Boy!

Pixie, our miniature, gave birth to a sorrel paint colt early this morning.

Isn't he beautiful?!

I think so too. :-)

Spring Growth

Our three little bottle lambs are growing.

We worried so much at the beginning we'd loose one or two. Taking newborns from their environment can be dangerous. And there were some close calls there a couple times. But thankfully, they all pulled through and are eating their hay and grain and gaining lots of weight. The ram has a superb scrotum on him and will make an excellent breeding ram in the future.  He's already practicing on his sisters.

The first born lamb is also getting huge. She's about the same age as the triplets and you can see the difference being a single makes.

Since the black ewes birth, we had our second lambing.

These two were a surprise. I had pointed mama ewe out to Farm Girl and said, "She looks pregnant." But a quick check at her non-existent udder and we determined she was just fat. But the very next morning as I was in feeding the ewes, I heard a distinct lamb cry and found these sitting among the flock. I instinctively thought they belonged to this ewe:

Who we knew was expecting and had the udder and belly to prove it. (She has since lambed since composing this blog entry. Two ram lambs, yay!)

So were surprised when she rejected them and the first mama claimed them. Farm Girl caught her and checked her udder and sure enough, her milk had not come in and the babies were deteriorating fast without their much needed colostrum. Plus, the one little lamb must have had a difficult birth as his jaw was all swollen and his eye was bloodshot. So off to the FS store we went and bought colostrum and a feeding tube. Farm Girl impressed me lots when she began tube feeding the little guy who was too sore in the jaw to nurse.

But everything worked out. Babies began to gain strength and mama's milk came in by the end of the day. Within a week they were in and testing the creep feeder out. 

And gobbling up grain.

In other spring development, Pixie has developed an udder! Yay! We bred her back in June and crossed our fingers it was a successful union.

She's due end of the month beginning of next but we already separated her from the other horses mainly because the pasture in this lot had come in and the horses had ate all the grass down to their roots in the one they were over winter. Though they had hay, grass is always better. Especially for expectant mama. So here she will stay until she gives birth. And probably after to give her and baby privacy.

Now look who's photo I was able to capture.

This was the cat that was labeled "feral". But turns out to be the friendliest of the four. Though you'd never know it by the evil look she gives me and my camera every time she sees us.

Updates

Haven't posted in a while, so thought I'd write a blog with updates. First the pigs. I learned that I hate pigs. This is my one and only time I will ever raise them. That said, I've gotten more used to them than I did at the beginning.

Pigs are filthy, disgusting...well, pigs. I can't keep up with their pen. I took these photos right after I cleaned and laid a new layer of straw in their pen. If I didn't, I wouldn't get the chance to get a good clean photo again until I mucked out their pen once again.

My truck. I love my truck.

Cosmetically, he isn't the most handsome beast on the road, but man oh man, he's got power. I can feel his strength beneath me when I drive him and that makes me feel very happy. And safe.

Chase. Who is Chase you ask? Chase is my Farm Girl's horse. She had sold him to a family friend, then bought him back, then sold him again when we realized the previous farm was not an appropriate property to raise animals. She sold him to the same family friend so basically the horse has been handed back and forth over the past two years. Well now that we are on a great farm, Farm Girl bought him back once again.

She loves having the arena and working him almost nightly. She's been practicing her riding saddleless at a lope and both saddleless and bridleless at a walk.

Just this morning, Emma gave birth to a litter of eight puppies.

The three little lambs have merged nicely with the other sheep.

While the ram is being stalled permanently after he rammed Farm Girl pretty good in the pasture.

Weed Oasis

I've been spending the last several days working on the mini's pasture. At present, they are in the pasture adjacent to the barn and have grazed most of the pasture down to the roots minus the weeds. Our plan is to move them into the neighbouring pasture on the other side of their present pasture. You can see it here in this picture.

That had been our plans from the beginning. But that pasture was far too overgrown for minis who can get very sick off lush pastures so we sent the boarding horses in there first to graze it down to a manageable height. Meanwhile, I surveyed their current pasture as the sheep will be coming out to graze the weeds down, and determined woven wire was needed over the cedar fence as I really, REALLY, don't want any escapees. And with the potential of increasing the flock in the fall/winter, I decided to go ahead and sheep proof it now.

Next to sheep proofing the fence, I confronted the wild oasis of weeds growing between the two pastures. I'm not sure of the proper name for this weed, but I do know they are detrimental to the growth of healthy brush and grass nearby and multiply like mad and nearly impossible to kill. You can see them in the above photo where they have killed the tree they have overtaken.

They are nasty buggers and the only way I'm aware of destroying them is with an ax and match. DO NOT let them flower if you find any on your property as that is how they multiple. I had been consumed with everything else on the property that I neglected this batch. And with it being in an area of not much concern, I failed to watch its rapid growth. But once the horses grazed down the adjoining pasture, I was able to really get a good look at the fence line and subsequent wild forest growing there. So with ax in hand, I began hacking away. I covered my body from head to feet as the weeds are loaded with velcro like burs. And bees. Lots and lots of bees who didn't appreciate me removing their pollinating buffet. But at last the job was done.

This is the area now free of weeds.

A closer look between pasture fences.

Nothing but grass. Which of course the minis helped mow the best they could.

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.

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.

Mated

We had our first successful mating. We're keeping him a little longer to try and get a couple more breeding chances in for reassurance.

Flehmen Response

I actually had to look up the spelling of this because apparently, I've been spelling it wrong. Anyhow, what is flehmen response? It is the act of flehmening, and if that didn't help, let me explain further. A male animal will inhale air to detect whether a female is in heat. They do this by curling back their upper lip and revealing their teeth while inhaling pheromones and other scents through the roof of their mouths just behind the teeth. Sheep do it, goats do it, and so do horses.

Actually, as far as I'm aware, all mammals do this. When with a female, the male will repeat the flehmening behaviour repeatedly, not wanting to miss that all important heat cycle.

The Introduction

I have bred dogs, sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens, ducks, but never anything as big as a horse. And technically, I still haven't. We are hoping to get Pixie, our miniature horse, bred. Still, a mini stallion is plenty feisty enough to handle.

But Farm Girl did manage to get him to the breeding pasture, where he immediately let loose and tested his new grounds.

Which followed with the usual head shaking.

Then ran around Pixie's stall trying to get to her.

Until eventually he gave up and calmed down.

We gave him a couple hours before introducing Pixie.

Who, apparently, was not in heat.

So began the chase for dominance instead.

Turns out Joey is a gentleman. Or Pixie is more assertive than I ever gave her credit.

It didn't take long for them to establish Pixie was boss and they were able to graze contently side by side.