Oh Rosie

Fall has come, rain has started and the pig pen has turned into a mud pit. I built a pen for the pigs i the bar, but it really wasn't enough room for both pigs to spend all winter. Rosie was making it clear if I did't fix up her digs, she would take matters into her ow hands (cloven hooves?). Feed costs are also a problem as the pigs are not yet on pasture. My fiance prefers to overfeed animals rather than underfeed, Mr.Pig was happy to eat whatever came his way at a cost of $35 a week. Aint happening.

On Wednesday we said goodbye to Mr.Pig who has moved on to Farmer Gord's. He has 3 sows and 30 acres. Its a better space for Mr.Pig. Of course, it was a adventure load Mr.Pig. I had to feed my piggies a little that day because Rosie was in a mood. She kept trying to tear open the fence, so I feed them in hopes of placating her...but them mr.pig wasn't as hungry as he should have been. So Gord had a family emergency and shows up a 9 pm. Luckily I had hooked up electricty to the barn...but it was just a single lightbulb. Everywhere else was pitch black. I untied some of the cattle panels to let out Mr.Pig and Rosie decided to make a break for it, them Mr.pig decided to take a hike too. So we chased the pigs around in the dark, got them back in the barn then focused on mr.pig. once we had him infront of the trailer he went in.

So Rosie has lots of room and food to herself now, all is good, right?

no. Wrong. I suppose I should have taken pictures as proof but believe me: she tore her pen to shreds and tried to run away. I sat down at my bench finally and started working on a new ring when Shawn looked out to see Rosie escaping into the neighbors Our permimeter fence is only a fraction complete and Rosie would not be contained any longer. We had to discuss the future of Rosie as we don't know if she is pregnant or not. She *might* be, but the again has always had trouble taking....I was fit to be tied and ready to turn her into dinner, however Shawn did not agree. As you can see our little flow chart:

You see the corner of the crossed out one: "dead pet." Oh Shawn, you might want to stick with being a vegetable farmer. So Rosie lives. We did call a vet to try and get an ultrasound to see if she is preggers, but alas the vets weren't able to sedate her and we couldn't. THAT was a horrible experience chasing her with giant needles and trying to stab and drug her up. Was she ever mad.

Throughout the day I babysat her and kept her from running away while Shawn came up with a plan...his plan eventually became "I don't want an ugly, crappy temporary fence next to my house, so lets build a rubbish pile that is too tall for her to climb!" So thats what we did: we cut down trees and piled up brambles all the way across the open fence line and I got the section of electric fence powered up. I personally am not sure it looks any better than a janky fence but it cost $0 and we did it in 2 days, so thats great. Did it work? No. The next day Rosie climbed right over the logs.


.....

 The brush pile was meant to be a mostly visual barrier, but it wasn't quite enough. So Shawn put up a line of temporary electric line in front of the brush aaaaaaand tada! it worked! Rosie is now free-range as are the sheep. I got her a new bale of hay for her bed so she is sure to come home at night.

Do YOU see the sly look in her eye?

I really hope this girl is pregnant. With all we have been through with her we need some payback. And adorable babies. Oh yes, and since she IS a pet offically she has a twitter account. Follow her!

Now maybe I can get back to my bench?

Ash

Meet Ash, an East Fresian sheep. She is a 8 month old dairy sheep.

The cats arn't to sure of what to make of this newcomer

 I agreed to buy her hoping to cross her with my Jacob sheep for a lower maintenance dairy sheep. Her mom made about half a gallon a milking, which would make almost a gallon a day! The day before I received her tragedy struck: her small flock was attacked by coyotes and only Ash and a goat survived. Then the goat turned on Ash and started beating up on her! When she came to my place she was really scared and sad. I wasn't quite ready for her so her first few days she was on a leash.

Now she has a pen around a plum tree where she can see everyone. We haven't gotten one of our other sheep from our old farm yet (they are basically wild sheep this summer), so she is still a bit lonely. But this has given me a chance to get her to bond with me and learn to trust us.



 I decided to try giving her a mirror to see if that would help her feel less lonely. Well, she doesn't have much experience with mirrors, right? so I put a mirror up for her and she saw a sheep! yaaay! then she looked around the mirror, and no sheep. sad. Look in the mirror, magic sheep is back!  she carefully headbutted it a few times not totally convinced of it....Ash spent a few minutes trying to figure out and talk to the magic 2 dimensional sheep, then decided it was ok....ish. She is certainly calmer seeing another sheep face, but its not the same as a real sheep. Still when she goes into her pen in the morning she runs over to look at magic sheep (or maybe shes figured it out and she is just checking herself out.)

Ash is a real sweetheart and seems pretty sharp. Whoever said sheep and stupid didn't get to actually know them, yes, they flock together, but they really do think. She is already learning some basic commands with clicker training.

 Since she is polled (no horns) i didn't feel comfortable taking her to the old farm in Oregon City and leaving her in a new herd of horned sheep. Sounds like a great way for her to get hazed to death. So the plan is to pick someone from the flock of Jacobs up and introduce her to one member of the herd, then when we get the fences up the rest of the herd can come up and since one of the jacobs "knows" her, she will have an easier time joining the the rest of the sheep.

Banding

Hello all! been busy these last few weeks. All the sheep are friends again, yay! Sparkles tried to usurp Wilda's place, but didn't quite manage as her Sparkle's mom, Ariel, still follows Wilda. So Sparkles begrudingly listens to Wilda again, and everyone is happy.

 You remember those long tails the lambs were all born with, right? Well, thats a by-product of domestication that doesn't usually happen in nature (sorta like curly tails on dogs). It becomes problematic in the summer because sheep may get poop on their tails and flys will lay eggs in it, not a problem until the maggots come out and start eating the sheeps tails. That is pretty horrible from what i hear, so we have to remove the extra long tails. Animals rights activists are trying to get tail docking banned, but it is necessary. One of out lambs was already getting poop on her tail, and I can't wipe her butt everytime she poops! We opted for banding: using an industrial strength rubberband to cut off circulation and eventually have the tail fall off. My mother, a doctor, noted that its the same method doctors use on kids who are born with extra fingers.

The first day

Week and a half later: almost gone!

 The one problem with banding (okay, besides the first half-hour where the lambs are in pain as the circulation is cut off, but after the first half hour they were playing again) is it increases chance of tetinus. I have never given shots before so it was a learning experience. Since I was the one to band and give the lambs their shots, they don't quite trust me, but no one is sick, no one died, so we're good.

 All in all the lambs are growing incredibly fast and healthy. Ross-anna finally has her horns coming out--looks like she will have the pretty slender horns her mom has. The two ram-lambs horns are growing so quickly! Hopefully theirs are as nice as dad's. Still waiting for Cleopatra's to show through: I'm hoping the dot on the side indicates she will have 4..though it seems doubtful :( Still I am very happy with my first crop of lambs.

Dad is still hitting on the llama

Milk is still flowing

 Beautiful little babies.

Cleopatra and Khoresh

Bademjan

Cleopatra

Fuzzy Feelings

 The rabbit got a bit of carrot today, which she just went nuts for. I have NEVER seen her eat while being held...and here she wad noshing and even holding the carrot. Pretty adorable

.

NomNomNom

Messy eater...

 Aww, what sweetness!

 But not all is well in bunny land....

Jealous......

 

 

Come to think of it, I've seen this look before...

Awwwww.....sad puppy. I gave her hugs, but the look was pretty precious.

In the end, all animals were happy and loved. Normally the dog gets along with the rabbit...but like anyone the dog gets jealous if we pay too much attention to the rabbit while the rabbit gets upset if we pay too much attention to the dog. Its not anthropomorphizing, I swear!