- Thread starter
- #221
purplequeenvt
Herd Master
Patti, one of my elderly Border Leicester ewes, has been trying to die for almost a month. I would have put her down a couple weeks ago, but I have nowhere to put her body until things thaw. She didn’t seem to be hurting, just kind of stopped eating. I put her in a small pen by herself with all the hay she could want, a heated water bucket, and grain. Some days she’d eat most/all of her grain, other days she’d just nibble at it. There were a bunch of days where she’d wouldn’t touch the hay and was barely drinking. There was even a day where I was pretty sure she had died (I checked on her from the camera whilst work and she hadn’t moved in a while).
Last week she suddenly snapped out of it and was dancing for her grain when I went out to do chores.
A few days ago I moved her into a bigger pen with a friend. One of the Shetland ewes went off her feed for a couple days and since she’s about a month out from lambing and she’s potentially having triplets, I was worried about toxemia. Turns out she’s just a princess and wanted to be coddled a little.
She (Symphony) and Patti haven’t stopped stuffing their faces for days.
Got some cute udders starting on the girls. Bellies have suddenly gotten huge.
All of the Shetlands but one, settled nicely. The last one is bred, but re-cycled and was bred to the cleanup ram. Not a big deal.
The Border Leicesters didn’t settle as well. Most of them re-cycled at least once. I suspect I may end up with some Shetland/Border Leicester crosses. There’s 1 ewe that didn’t breed at all. I wasn’t really suspecting she would though. There’s another one that I haven’t been able to find a fetus on with the ultrasound, but her backend says she’s bred. We shall see.
I rechecked the Shetland yearling ewes again yesterday and found 2 more surprises. Little turds.
The chickens had a rough day on Monday. First, one of them got into the ram pen and Oskar got hold of her. I rescued her before she got more than slobbered, but she wasn’t pleased.
I then went into town for an appointment and errands and got a notice from the front porch camera that something was detected. It was Oskar. He had squeezed through the gate and went on an adventure. He got hold of another chicken in the front yard and slobbered her up good before she got away under the front porch. When I got home about 30 minutes later, he was in the road (bad boy) at the end of my driveway. He came right to me and I got him in the car to go home. I did get the gate fixed so he couldn’t get out again.
The naughty boy
The final chicken trauma of the day was at the end of chores. Twist had left his soccer ball in the barn and when I told him to go get it, he whipped around and grabbed the first thing he saw which happened to be a chicken. She lost some feathers and was very put out, but was otherwise unscathed.
One of the untraumatized hens
Oskar did get an opossum this afternoon. He carried around for a while, buried it in the barn, dug it up, carried it around some more, buried it the barn again, dug it up, and then took it way out in the field and buried it again. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually dead. It’s probably zombie crawled its way out of its shallow grave as soon as the coast was clear.
Last week she suddenly snapped out of it and was dancing for her grain when I went out to do chores.
A few days ago I moved her into a bigger pen with a friend. One of the Shetland ewes went off her feed for a couple days and since she’s about a month out from lambing and she’s potentially having triplets, I was worried about toxemia. Turns out she’s just a princess and wanted to be coddled a little.
She (Symphony) and Patti haven’t stopped stuffing their faces for days.
Got some cute udders starting on the girls. Bellies have suddenly gotten huge.
All of the Shetlands but one, settled nicely. The last one is bred, but re-cycled and was bred to the cleanup ram. Not a big deal.
The Border Leicesters didn’t settle as well. Most of them re-cycled at least once. I suspect I may end up with some Shetland/Border Leicester crosses. There’s 1 ewe that didn’t breed at all. I wasn’t really suspecting she would though. There’s another one that I haven’t been able to find a fetus on with the ultrasound, but her backend says she’s bred. We shall see.
I rechecked the Shetland yearling ewes again yesterday and found 2 more surprises. Little turds.
The chickens had a rough day on Monday. First, one of them got into the ram pen and Oskar got hold of her. I rescued her before she got more than slobbered, but she wasn’t pleased.
I then went into town for an appointment and errands and got a notice from the front porch camera that something was detected. It was Oskar. He had squeezed through the gate and went on an adventure. He got hold of another chicken in the front yard and slobbered her up good before she got away under the front porch. When I got home about 30 minutes later, he was in the road (bad boy) at the end of my driveway. He came right to me and I got him in the car to go home. I did get the gate fixed so he couldn’t get out again.
The naughty boy
The final chicken trauma of the day was at the end of chores. Twist had left his soccer ball in the barn and when I told him to go get it, he whipped around and grabbed the first thing he saw which happened to be a chicken. She lost some feathers and was very put out, but was otherwise unscathed.
One of the untraumatized hens
Oskar did get an opossum this afternoon. He carried around for a while, buried it in the barn, dug it up, carried it around some more, buried it the barn again, dug it up, and then took it way out in the field and buried it again. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually dead. It’s probably zombie crawled its way out of its shallow grave as soon as the coast was clear.
