Blossom's Fate

The vet came out to look at Blossom and after looking her over gave me both good and bad news.  The good news is that she does not have founder, nor is she lame in any manner.  Yet.  Unfortunately, the bad news is that the tendons in her legs never developed properly and the situation is irreversible. Blossom was born with loose tendons in all four legs.  

The front legs corrected themselves but the back legs never really did.  Though I do believe she was standing on them as correctly as she could for a long time now but for whatever reason, in the past month the tendon in the back legs began to stretch again until she was walking on her heels rather than her hooves.

I took these photos outside but they don't really give a good view of how bad they are.  I think she is standing on a hill and it is pushing her feet forward because as bad as it looks, they are actually worse than this.

Another angle.

What made this diagnose so heartwrenching is that there is nothing the vet can do for her.  It is not treatable.  She is not in any pain so the only thing we can do for her is to wait until the time comes when walking on her heels will break the skin and infection sets in.  The humane thing to do at that time will be to euthanize her.  When those words passed the vet's lips, I admit I cried.  I love this little miniature and can't bare to think of her fate.

Issues

Some issues I'm having in the barn start with this little lamb.

Her name is Annabelle and she is 8 weeks old even though she is not much bigger than the newborns.  She's been having problems since she was born.  She was tiny to begin with and struggled to grow at a normal rate.  There were many times I thought she was going to die.  I finally pulled her twin once he got old enough and now she appears stronger and standing straighter so she may just make it after all.  But of course with Annabelle there is always something. Last night I noticed the head tilt.  She'\s active and hungry just walking around with her head tilted.  Farm Girl looked it  up and thinks its an ear infection so we gave her a shot of penicillin and will monitor her behaviour from there.

I will be calling our vet today to come out and take a look at Blossom.

However he is our dog and horse vet only as he doesn't treat small ruminants, though if I ask him a question, he often has an answer so may have him take a look at Annabelle and give me the dosage needed of meds.  But back to Blossom, she has what I fear is founder.  I've never had a horse with this issue so not entirely sure, but from photos I've seen that's what it looks like.  Hard to believe really since she is on a hay only diet and doesn't receive any rich grain.  It was too dark in the barn this morning for a photo but will try to upload one later of her foot along with the vets diagnosis.

On a positive note, Beatrice is doing far better.

I twittered the other day that she had major diarrhea so we administered her pepto-bismol which settled her stomach  and had her eating again and then dewormed her with Safeguard which within hours made her bowl movements more solid and within a day back to their usual pebble size.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo but after I discovered she had diarrhea I noticed immediately paleness around her eyes, usually they are pink but that morning they were pale.  Then a look at her gums revealed they were white and not a healthy pink as they ought to be.  So hence we treated her for worms.  Two weeks prior we had administered a dose of Ivermectin and then followed up with the Safeguard.  It seems to have worked, she is having healthy bowel movements, eating and drinking and nice and alert.  It's a good thing too because we are pretty certain she is due to deliver her kid any day now.

I have a feeling it's going to be a great day and all these issues will be taken care of and all my critters will be on the mend.  After all, the temperature is already looking up even before the sun rose.

Baking Soda Boxes

I built these little wooden boxes for the sheep stalls.

I picked up the coloured tubs at the dollar store to fit inside for easy cleanup.

I'm using them to keep baking soda on hand for the sheep.  When one gets an upset belly they will instinctively eat the baking soda to calm their tummies.  And they really like the taste of it for whatever reason.

The only problem I see with them is that my ram, Dodge, thinks they are toys to be played with and chewed on.  He already pulled the coloured tubs out so we had to screw them to the bottom.

Could It Be

This mornings temperature.  A repeat of yesterday.  Could it be?  Is spring on it's way?

Twitter

I have decided to give twittering a try.  It will be only an account of my daily farming activities and chores.  If you think that sounds exciting, then "follow" me on twitter at https://twitter.com/farmer_peg.  Link to my twitter account can also be found above.

Spring Cleaning

It's a bit early to be spring cleaning however we do deep bedding in the pens and have no tractor or skid steer so have to do to clean up all by hand.

We try to keep up with it so it doesn't get too unmanageable but truth be told, it's too dang cold outside.  However with new lambs on the ground, I figured no time like the present to give it a thorough clean out.

Contrary to the above photo, Farm Girl and I were just horsing around after hubby did all the heavy work.  But we were assigned the cleanup crew.

It took 12 loads of old bedding down to the compost pile but the end result is always worth it.

And of course the sheep appreciate it.

And yes, those are my new ewes and not my new mothers.  We played musical pens again.

And just in case someone was interested...we still have two more pens this size to do.

Feed Storage

Part of organizing my barn has been trying to find how best to store all the feed and hay.  With my head count going up, our hay supplier has discussed bringing along an elevator in next fall's delivery so that we can order larger amounts of hay and stack them up in the loft.  That will leave more room in the barn.

I realized that I was going through grain far faster than usual once my new flock of sheep arrived.  A head count of all sheep and lambs this morning had me at 58.  I soon found myself constantly down at the feed store.  So instead, I came up with the idea of storing all the grain in a deep freezer.  There was an old unused one in our cellar that came with the house.  It took the four of us but we managed to get it up the narrow staircase. I scrubbed it clean and disinfectant it then drove it over to the barn.  As you can see, it easily holds a week of grain. I'm sure I can fit another weeks worth in it if wanted.  That will definitely cut back on my trips to the feedstore.

And a great work surface when not opened.

Across the aisle along the horse stalls, I picked up the two large and fantastic storage containers on the end.  

They hold 42 gallons a piece and are on wheels so can easily be moved around if necessary.  I store the horses grain in one and creep feed in the other.  The two other storage tubs I store loose mineral in one and the other is for any other grain we want separated such as specialty grain for goats or lamb grower.