purplequeenvt - Ivy Knoll Farm

Love those pictures. Anyone that sees those pictures and doesn't smile isn't capable of smiling.

Is it still winter??? This winter has not been as bad as last year, thankfully. The creatures are all doing well. We sent the two big steers and 6 lambs to the butcher on Friday. I was kind of sad to see the steers go. They were good boys.

It was sunny and warm (and by warm I mean it was 32 degrees) so I was able to get out to take some new pictures.

When we sent our 6 summer pigs to slaughter this fall, we realized that we had a problem. We had gotten use to saving compost and extra milk for the pigs and it seemed like a waste to dump the stuff. Solution.....get more pigs. It's an experiment. I wasn't sure how pigs would do with our set-up over the winter. They seem to be doing well and aren't overly concerned with the cold. We got them at the end of October at 8 weeks old. They are Berkshire/Tamworth crosses. The spotted ones (Nellie and Louise) are the girls and the red (Arnold) is a male (castrated)







Two of the young steers, Byron (red and white Shorthorn) and Bugsy (Holstein)


Skeptical Anne


Shaun, a Border Leicester ram that my sister bought last fall. We didn't use him on any of the ewes this year because he got here too late in the season, but my sister has big plans for him this year.


Shirley came from the same breeder as Shaun.


Carolina, one of the new Southdown girls


Misha

That is a good looking ram! And I love the picture of Misha!!

I love your "cammo" pigs. They are beautiful! (I saw them on facebook.)

What beautiful animals. You can see how well cared for they are.

Well....It's been a few months since I posted anything on here. Winter is finally over. It's been a long one. The grass is starting to turn green, I've heard peepers (little frogs that make a lot of noise during the spring for those of you who have never heard of them) the last 3 nights at least. I no longer need hat, mittens, and heavy coat to do chores AND the hose doesn't freeze anymore!

The animals all did pretty well despite the hard winter. Lambing is all over except for 3 ewes that should lamb in the middle of June. The goats (one or two) are also due then.


The little piggies that we got last fall are big fat porkers now. They are happily playing in the sun now.




The LGDs are well. Misha (the puppy) was banished from the ewe and lamb area when not attended after he got into a pen with a couple ewes and their lambs and chewed an ear off one of the babies. He also enjoys playing with chickens. He is living with the rams now and is getting along wonderfully with them. He is 6 months today and 82 lbs.


Mira loves the babies. She got a hair cut last week which she is enjoying.


Murphy is the man. He's my boy. I have no doubt that he would defend me with his life. We've been having some trouble with him staying in the sheep pens lately. He doesn't leave the farm, but with a neighbor (who does not like the farm) living so near who has a pit bull that hates "big fluffy dogs", I'm not comfortable with him being loose.




That last picture was taken a while ago....there is no snow anymore (finally!).

We added a 2nd milk cow earlier this month, a Jersey named Ethel (ignore the ear tag). She is due on the 26th, but is threatening to go sooner.


We also picked up a little Angus heifer on Friday. She is a week old and is blind. She was blind from birth and no one knows why. She is otherwise completely healthy. I'm treating her with antibiotics (in case it is an infection) and Vitamin A (a deficiency of A can cause blindness in calves). I'm not very hopeful that she will regain any of her sight, but it's worth a shot. Her name is Cricket and she's a sweetie.


In other news, I got a job a hospital near us as a Phlebotomist (someone who draws blood) back in March. The job is full-time while I'm in training, but I'll be part-time in a few months. I'm looking forward to that so I can get back to the farm more.

Do you think Cricket will be able to function with out her sight? The phlebotomists I know seem to love their work. I hope you enjoy it!

BrownSheep said:

Do you think Cricket will be able to function with out her sight? The phlebotomists I know seem to love their work. I hope you enjoy it!

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I'm not sure. She's doing fine right now, but we'll see how she does as she gets older. She is very calm, trusting, and not at all spooky so that helps a lot. I'm working on teaching her voice commands so I can direct her better.

You can see how her eyes are cloudy. The right eye is less so.


I'm probably going to have our vet come out this week to look her over.

The vet came out this morning and guess who is not blind??? That's right, CRICKET! Over the last couple days, her eyes have been getting less and less cloudy and she's been much more confident. The vet said that she got an infection at birth that settled in her eyes. She is responding to the antibiotics that I've been giving her since Saturday and she should fully recover!

We were starting to suspect that her sight was getting better because she needed no help latching on to her bottle (she always knew exactly where it was) and could, without fail, find a person in her pen without running into anything else. This morning I let her out of her pen after I fed her and she was going in and out of the barn all by herself and hopping around outside. She even ran up the poop pile!

Looks like we will now have 3 permanent residents in our herd, the 2 Jerseys (Fern and Ethel) and the Angus (Cricket). This also means that we won't be needing to buy dairy bull calves for our beefers anymore. Fern is bred to a red Angus this year. Ethel is bred to a Jersey (maybe she'll have a nice heifer we can sell), but we will probably breed her back to an Angus.

Ethel had a heifer calf this morning!