Our new piggies arrived promptly at 6:30 am!  Oh, they are sooo cute.. well the little ones are anyway.  They are all crosses but the bigger gilt has hampshire coloring/markings.  The kids named her Ham.  The rupture is a pink male and the little runt is pink female.   They received the names Pork Chop and Bacon respectively.

Unfortunately, we lost Pork Chop.  We don't know exactly what happened but he starte vomitting in the barn shortly after Bill left him here.  Then he simply disappeared.  Rich thinks possibly something happened with his rupture and he crawled out somewhere and died.  We have walked the barnyard and paswture over and over and simply can't find him anywhere.  He was about 35 pounds so not real big and the pasture has lots of long tall grass so he could be anywhere.

Oh well, such is the circle of life.

Today, Betsy went to see the vet.  She was diagnosised with a joint infection of her knee.  She is now on an oral antibotic and should be better in 5-7 days.  So I took her back to the farm so she could be with her mama and brother, Ross.  yes we named the kids Betsy and Ross.  That was Madison's idea.  LOL  We thought it was cute and the names seemed to stick.

The chickens... well a few headed out of the coop on their own and I ended up putting most of them through the door.  It was pretty cool out today so maybe that's why they were so hesitent.  We had to put them back in one by one.  A few didn't get into the coop before it got dark so I hope they are safe under the coop.

I'm off to work.
Carol

It was a beautiful day today.  I wish my day wasn't so full or I would have butchered the 4 broiler chickens that I should have processed last week.  I'm afraid if I wait much longer they are going to need wheelchairs to get around!  They are getting so big!

Today I was out running around trying to get all of Madison's 4H ID stuff in for her animals.  Its all due tomorrow.  I think I have it all in order now (I hope).

Then I realized that Rich is going to be gone during the county fair... which means for me that I have to load all these critters into a horse trailer and then drive said horse trailer to the fair! (I don't do trailers so well.. and loading critters (bigger than rabbits).. well, I've never done that!)  IT should prove interesting to say the least.  Rich just sat at the table laughing, I think he was envisioning me backing up the truck and trailer at the fairgrounds.  His great advice for me, show up early when there are less ppl around.  I'm not sure if he meant less ppl to laugh at me or less ppl for me to back into!  lol

Our litters of bunnies are opening their eyes now and crawling out of the nestboxes.  They are about 2 weeks old now.  Oreo's 2 runts died last night so she is down to 8; otherwise the rest are doing great.  I even caught a couple eating pellets.  We have 12 mini lop kits and 12 crossbred kits.

My remaining 5 red bourbon turkey poults came in today.  I also got 2 broadbreasted bronze turkey poults and 2 araucona chicks.  I still need a couple more peking ducks and I think that will complete our flocks for the year.  Unless, I see something really cute!  lol

Gunner is spending his first full night in the barn.  I found him sleeping with the chickens under the light tonight.  He really loves running in the barn and yard with the other goats.  Yesterday, I saw him head butting Clara (chicken) and she didn't think it was much fun.  She kept pecking him on the head.   Finally, he just gave up and found Ginger to play with.

Our new kids are doing great.  Already, they are jumping and butting heads.  We still need names for them.  I'm hoping to let them out of the pen and out with the herd in 2 days.  I want to milk Jackie a couple times before she goes out so I can freeze some "emergency" milk.

Well, I better start the bedtime routine here.  I'm heading to bed early as I have a full day again tomorrow.
Carol

I promised pictures of our new kids and here they are.  Sorry they aren't real great.  With the wet weather we had today, there wasn't enough light in the barn to get real nice pictures.

Buckling:

Doeling: 

We haven't named them yet.  That last picture looks like I'm forcing the poor girl to smile, lol.

Carol

They are here.  Jackie kidded this afternoon.  I found her in active labor this morning during chores.  Rich went home to tend to a few things while I stayed to see if I could catch the kidding on cam.

I did my checks on the hour. 1 pm... no change, 2 pm... no change, 3 pm... passing a little more mucous.  Rich woke me from my next nap at 3:45 pm stating he was headed out with the girls and that Madison was very excited to hear Jackie was in labor.  So I did my 4 pm check early but too late to catch the birth.  There they were, a beautiful set of twins in Jackie's pen, one doeling and one buckling.  The buck is black and white and the doeling.. welll she's white with a funny colored blackish gray swirl on her head.  Madison thought it looked like she was wearing a crown.

I'll get pictures up tomorrow.  I have to head into work now. 

I also want to mention that my baby boy turned 19 today.  I know he's not much of a baby anymore but he's my only boy.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUSTIN!

Love, Mom

We lost our little highlander bull calf last night.   I went out to the barn to retrieve Gunner and do the chores and when I stepped out in the barnyard, I found Fozzy laying on the ground next to the water tank. 

He didn't look very good. I tried to help him get up and he gave it a good try but was just to weak.  So after a quick phone call to Rich, I put our girlsin the ar and headedup the road to the neighbor's place.  Rochelle happens to be a vet.  She told me she'd call the on call vet for me and send her out.  So we headed back to the farm to wait.

Unfortunately, Fozzy was already gone when we got back.  But I wanted to know what happened to him so if we had to change something so we didn't lose anybody else we could.

About 20 minutes later, Rochelle drove up in her vet truck stating that the on call vet would be at least 2 hours so she thought she's come instead.  I informed her he was already gone but I wanted to know what the cause of death was.

She suspected a twisted intestine since this came on so quickly.  She did a quick autopsy and sure enough, she was right.  I got an orientation to the inner working of a calf.  She said there was nothing we could have done about it.  Its just one of those freak things that happens and its very rare.  She said he was eating well, was the right size for his age and had a good fat layer.  She figured the twisted and perforated large intestine was there for just a few days.  She also found a hairball in his small intestine which she said was also unusual.

Poor Caitlin, she was standing in the pasture calling and calling for her baby.  She seems better today.  Now that he's been removed from her sight, I'm hoping she will quit calling for him.

Carol

I thought I'd share some farm pictures today.

This is Sunny after his haircut.

Here Clara catches a ride on Sunny's back.

Madison, Jumper and Sunny enjoy the barnyard.
Here is one of my red bourbon turkey poults with my bantams.

Next we have Cooper, our katadhin sheep.

This is Snowman, Blacky and Buckwheat our new shetland sheep.

Hope you enjoyed these.  BTW:  No kids yet for Jackie.
Carol

I was hoping my turkey poults would be here today but I was told "hopefully" tomorrow or Friday.  So I guess I have no choice but to wait.

SweetPea kindled today but all the kits died.  First they were too cold and then they got to warm.  But we do have 14 mini lop kits already so I guess we are ok.  I think I may use SweetPea as a foster mom for 2 of Oreo's kits that are tiny and need some extra TLC.   She let them nurse on her tonight.  So if they are still alive in the am, I think I'll put them with her.

Rich and Austin were out picking rock on 11 1/2 acres today getting ready for alfalfa to go in.  Only another 80 acres to go and the rock picking is done.  UGH!  I like the critter part of farming not the crop part.

Well, I'm off to bed.
Goodnight!
Carol

Marshmellow had her litter today, 4 kits.  Our kit count is at 28.  Sweet Pea is the only doe left to kindle.. she's due on Tuesday.  "Everybunny" seems to be doing ok.  All 10 of Oreo's babies have full round tummies, although I don't know how she feeds them all.  Mini lops average litter size is 6 kits.  I didn't even believe she was pregnant!  LOL 

Theresa didn't make it here today to pick up her lops, her altenator died on her van.  So we had to reschedule.

Nothing new at the farm.  We are still waiting for Jackie to kid.  She actually looked comfortable today.  Chickens and ducks are all fine.  I wish it would warm up so I could let the chicks run outside a bit.  Where is global warming?  Man, it sure isn't happening  here.

We went out to a friend's farm today to pick up leftover feed (ground corn) from the pig operation on their land.  We didn't bring enough containers so we will be going back tomorrow to pick up the rest of it.  We will also be picking up a few raspberry plants.  Oh yeah, and Beth found a bale of straw so we took that too.  I can always use clean straw for the rabbits.

Tomorrow, Sunny, shetland sheep, goes for a buzz job.  I've been reading and basically learned that winter wool isn't what you want to keep for spinning.  I want to keep it just to play around with it.  Can anyone tell me if its worth keeping just to practice with?  And how the heck do you clean wool?

Well, I'm off to do the last bunny check of the night.
Carol

I lost a duckling today so we are down to 7.  I may replace it should I find ducklings in the farm store in the next couple weeks.

I had a litter of mini lops born tonight... Oreo had 10!  That doe has the biggest litters.  Last time she had 9 and they all survived.  Allie (crossbreed) had a litter of 8.  So along with Belle's litter (born yesterday) we have 16 mini lop kits and 8 crossbreeds with 2 does yet to kindle.

Tomorrow, friends are coming to pick up three bunnies from Oreo's previous litter so that will make some room for our latest arrivals.

I hope it warms up soon.  Its been rainy and cold.  The wind was horrible today.  I can't wait for spring to come.  I really  want to get started in the garden.  Hopefully the warm weather will come.

Carol