We have had about 8 inches of snow here today in Michigan for the dawning of a new year. Yesterday another sheep had a lamb on our farm and the poor little thing was having a hard time following Mom in the snow. They will soon have a track from the run in barn to the fence where we feed them and it will be easier. I did take some hay to the barn but I don’t know if mom stayed inside with him. We don’t baby these Barbados sheep and they lamb all year in all kinds of weather. I have one more due but I think it will be a few more weeks.
Ok, I said we didn’t baby them but one lamb is sure a baby, the one I brought inside before Christmas as mom abandoned him. Taco is a brat right now. The dogs are pretty used to him and he runs around the house when we are home, which has been a lot the last 2 weeks. He and Buddy, our youngest dog, a Jack Russell Yorky mix male just under a year old, are best buds. Best buds who destroy the house together with wild romps up and over furniture, back and forth all through the house. Taco is taller and helps by pulling things off tables so he and Buddy can chew them up.
He won’t let me sit a glass down, he has to see and taste what’s in it. I can’t read a magazine or book without him trying to eat one end of it. We have brought in hay and grain for him to nibble but so far he likes dog food and animal cookies best. He is on his second $20.00 bag of replacement milk formula and eats more like a horse than a lamb. He is now taller than all our dogs, all legs.
Our daughter in law brought a cousin who had just come home from Iraq with her for Christmas dinner. He probably thought we were nuts with a lamb running through the house. Taco was a little scared of the strangers at first but he was soon showing off for them. Buddy however went outside and hid. I keep threatening to give him away and maybe he thought that was why everyone was here.
My granddaughters fed him his bottle and giggled over the butt washing the dogs give him. We never have to worry about lamb poop hitting the floor, the dogs think its candy. They fight over who gets it. Now if that don’t reveal our redneck side I guess nothing will, dogs who clean up after a lamb who isn’t housebroken.
All in our house at Christmas, but my son and his family are used to it. I’m sure glad we don’t have carpet though, as he pees where ever he wants.
I told my husband that if we could have a lamb this big in the house why not a miniature horse. He thought I was serious at first. Seriously I need to find Taco a home because I don’t think I can eat his little lamb chops now. If the weather was nicer I could leave him outside with his “wild” brother and cousins to play, but he is used to inside conditions and I don’t want to go out there to feed him.
By the end of January though, he will need to find some new place. The puppies will be running around and that is another problem. They are the same age as Taco, born the day before, but much less mobile. We are trying to decide whether to breed the cocker. She is in heat and it is soon or never. I don’t know if I want another cocker litter, the pups are so big and she always has a big litter.
Steve wants some, he loves the cockers and he will be the main caretaker so she may get to visit Bubba.
Why not visit my garden site to see the new things I have written. I ahave articles on Christmas cactus , manzanita, African Violets, and much more. You get there by going to
www.gardenandhearth.com/Plant-Guides.htm
I hope everyone reading this has a Happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous 2008.
Living the dream
Visiting grandmas farm.
Showing posts with label lambs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lambs. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Monday, September 3, 2007
September is here
Well it is September now, lets have that nice fall weather please. My Mom and dad were up to our place for the first time this year. Not much was in bloom in the garden, although I do have some impressive hardy hibiscus in the front of the house. They have these huge, dinner plate sized flowers of crimson red or bright pink. Very showy. They love moisture and are doing very well where they are because that us where we diverted the water from the kitchen sink. I chose to write about them this week in my garden site at www.gardenandhearth.com/plant-guides.htm
Mom and Dad and Steve and I had a pleasant talk while we watched the birds in the front yard and the friendly kitten tried to talk mom and dad into taking her home. We didn’t barb-b-que, just had some nice sandwiches and potato salad. I like to get mom to talk about relatives and the old days. There’s lot to learn about family ties. I feel bad for Steve sometimes as his mom and dad are both dead and his family doesn’t seem to keep in touch very well. And that reminds me that his brothers new address is now lost, as the big puppy carried the address book I keep out into the yard and Steve mowed it into a thousand pieces.
The new puppies are all doing well, although I did have one more dog incident this week. All my fault too, I was having a senior moment or something. I give Hazel, our old Border collie mix a pheno-barb tablet each night because she has seizures. She will only eat it in a piece of hotdog and we have an evening ritual at the house of giving everyone a piece of hotdog or two, right before bed. So I prepared Hazels piece with the pill in it and then I handed it to Bessie, who eagerly gulped it down of course. Bessie is the mother of the 6 pups and right away I was concerned that the pill would hurt her or the pups. So I called poison control- which by the way seems to have gone to a foreign country for its service-and they told me to feed her a large meal then give her 2 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide to make her vomit. She had just finished her bed time nursing mom meal of chicken and rice, so I measured out the hydrogen peroxide and surprisingly enough she took it without fighting me, although I had to give it to her in 3 syringes. Then she just sat there for a few minutes, just when I thought it wasn’t going to work the fun began. Poor Bessie, she heaved for quite a while. But the next day everyone was fine and I sure learned a lesson.
I am waiting for a fall crop of lambs I believe I am going to get. Our Barbados sheep are not seasonal breeders and will breed back after giving birth if the ram is with them. I have had double lambings in other years especially if the first set is born early or is lost. Two of my girls had their lambs die when we had that really cold below zero spell last February. I think they are pg but I also think the white ewe that had one lamb is too. They are all as fat as butterballs, even the rams, so it is hard to say, but my hunch is the 3 girls are going to lamb again. Which is good because it will keep them from having spring lambs too early next year too. I think they should lamb fairly soon, but it’s just a guess.
We need to sell off or butcher the two young rams as they are beginning to fight and fight with their dad too. They are quite handsome both of them and have a good set of horns already. I haven’t been able to afford an ad to sell them, but I probably can’t afford the butcher fee either. They sure would make good lambburger for the dogs. Barbados lambs can go longer without castration before butchering and still have the meat taste good, but they need to go soon. I can’t afford to feed that many of them this winter as the cost of hay is going to be out of sight. Thank God the rain came and got the pasture greened up again so we didn’t need to keep buying hay this summer. There is quite a bit of good eating out there for them right now.
I won ten dollars on the lottery last week. Let’s hope that is a sign that the money will soon start rolling in here and we can get caught up on everything. At least August is over and we survived one more month.
Mom and Dad and Steve and I had a pleasant talk while we watched the birds in the front yard and the friendly kitten tried to talk mom and dad into taking her home. We didn’t barb-b-que, just had some nice sandwiches and potato salad. I like to get mom to talk about relatives and the old days. There’s lot to learn about family ties. I feel bad for Steve sometimes as his mom and dad are both dead and his family doesn’t seem to keep in touch very well. And that reminds me that his brothers new address is now lost, as the big puppy carried the address book I keep out into the yard and Steve mowed it into a thousand pieces.
The new puppies are all doing well, although I did have one more dog incident this week. All my fault too, I was having a senior moment or something. I give Hazel, our old Border collie mix a pheno-barb tablet each night because she has seizures. She will only eat it in a piece of hotdog and we have an evening ritual at the house of giving everyone a piece of hotdog or two, right before bed. So I prepared Hazels piece with the pill in it and then I handed it to Bessie, who eagerly gulped it down of course. Bessie is the mother of the 6 pups and right away I was concerned that the pill would hurt her or the pups. So I called poison control- which by the way seems to have gone to a foreign country for its service-and they told me to feed her a large meal then give her 2 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide to make her vomit. She had just finished her bed time nursing mom meal of chicken and rice, so I measured out the hydrogen peroxide and surprisingly enough she took it without fighting me, although I had to give it to her in 3 syringes. Then she just sat there for a few minutes, just when I thought it wasn’t going to work the fun began. Poor Bessie, she heaved for quite a while. But the next day everyone was fine and I sure learned a lesson.
I am waiting for a fall crop of lambs I believe I am going to get. Our Barbados sheep are not seasonal breeders and will breed back after giving birth if the ram is with them. I have had double lambings in other years especially if the first set is born early or is lost. Two of my girls had their lambs die when we had that really cold below zero spell last February. I think they are pg but I also think the white ewe that had one lamb is too. They are all as fat as butterballs, even the rams, so it is hard to say, but my hunch is the 3 girls are going to lamb again. Which is good because it will keep them from having spring lambs too early next year too. I think they should lamb fairly soon, but it’s just a guess.
We need to sell off or butcher the two young rams as they are beginning to fight and fight with their dad too. They are quite handsome both of them and have a good set of horns already. I haven’t been able to afford an ad to sell them, but I probably can’t afford the butcher fee either. They sure would make good lambburger for the dogs. Barbados lambs can go longer without castration before butchering and still have the meat taste good, but they need to go soon. I can’t afford to feed that many of them this winter as the cost of hay is going to be out of sight. Thank God the rain came and got the pasture greened up again so we didn’t need to keep buying hay this summer. There is quite a bit of good eating out there for them right now.
I won ten dollars on the lottery last week. Let’s hope that is a sign that the money will soon start rolling in here and we can get caught up on everything. At least August is over and we survived one more month.
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