TheSheepGirl- Life on Kozy Orchard Farms(The Worst Two Weeks!)

[TheSheepGirl]

Hello, there! I am TheSheepGirl. Not to be confused with SheepGirl.

I have been a crazy animal nut for as long as I can remember. I have been raising chickens for 8 years, rabbits for 8 years, goats for 6 years, sheep for 3 years. I also raise Coturnix Quail, Bobwhite Quail, and guinea pigs. And i have a Llama to guard the sheep and goats at my mother's farm Nick's Pick Farm.

I am a Freshman in college and am studying to get my degree in Biology and Zoology. My future goal is to work in wildlife rehabilitation or to be a handler at a zoo.

For now i just run Kozy Orchard Farms, a cozy orchard acre on the Oregon Coast. The orchard consists of 6 apple trees, 3 plum trees, 1 pair tree, and 2 cherry trees. All the trees are about 80 years old and produce wonderful and delicious fruit. I use the sheep to graze the orchard down and i have not had to mow in 3 years.

I currently have Ninja, a Miniature Katahdin/Gotland cross ewe who is due to lamb in Febuary or March. I also have 10 chickens on my farm as winter residents.

Enough about me and on to the Journal...

 

[TheSheepGirl]

Pigs in My Car:

I don't have a horse trailer or even a truck. When I need to transport any animals I use my 1979 toyata Carola Station Wagon with thwe good old fashioned hatch back. I just lay down a tarp put down some hay and load up. The car is very nice considering all it's been through. 4 sheep, 7 piglets, and 50 chickens all fit in there. Not all at once, though!

Two days ago I added two new additions to my little farm. Lucy and Hamlet, the Pot Bellied Pigs. Hamlet is white and about 80lbs and Lucy is black and about 30lbs. They are both friendly and I love having them on my farm. Getting them here was quite the fun ride, though.

I got my car ready as usual and drove an hour to pick them up. When I arrived at their former home I backed up to the pen and found them in nearly a foot of nasty sloshy pig-mud. I hadn't brought my boots, but I went int he pen anyway. It was simple enough to catch them in the pen, with a little bit of food.

I had the men help me gather them up. We grabbed them in the regular pig way, by their back feet, carried them over to the car one at a time, and threw them in back. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that pigs can jump...

To be continued tomorrow!

 

[pridegoethb4thefall]

pigs can jump????


Tuned in for more!

 

[jodief100]

Geez, she is writing a serial......



You gonna leave the pigs tied to the train tracks at the end of the next one?

 

[TheSheepGirl]

Continued from earlier:

And then I learned that pigs can jump...

I hadn't really thought about it until now, but pigs are surprising jumpers! Sure surprised me!

Separating the hatch area from the main part of the car is a 2 foot tall lip formed by the back of the backseat. I have transported piglets about the size of Hamlet and Lucy in the back before and they didn't jump the lip, so I figured I wouldn't need to put in the fence I had brought just in case. So foolish and trusting I was!

Firstly I shall say that these are some noisy pigs! i have not heard anything that squeals that loudly, not even when we castrate the Barrows from our litters! Their screams echoed through the car as loud as ever and were cause for ringing ears. I suppose I'd be angry too if I were being tossed into a car upside down and head first!

When we threw them in they stood dazed for a minute. Just looking around like regular pigs do. Then we slammed the hatch shut and all heck broke loose. The pigs bolted at the sound and went straight over the lip. They just jumped it like it wasn't even there! Over the lip they went and into the backseat of the car, trailing mud as they went. And they were very muddy, smelly pigs!

My first reaction was one of disbelief and a downright slap in my face.

"Apparently pigs can jump." i said calmly and Mom, who had come along to offer moral support, just started laughing.

Enough standing around though, as Hamlet was heading straight for the driver's seat where all the precious and delicate instruments are located. I sure didn't want him to knock the car out of gear or put the emergency brake down. I can just picture the police report now as i tried to explain what had happened and why my car was now over an embankment and through a barbed wire fence.

Getting the pigs back into the hatch was actually quite simple. All i had to do was fold down the seat and push them back over. Really very simple, but by now the tarp was useless since it was completely askew. I folded up the fence and slid it across in between the folded down seat and the front of the car. This kept them in since this fence was 3 1/2 feet tall. No way they could jump this one!

The drive home was quite simple, accept for the fact that pigs get car sick. I think they were feeding the pigs onions, too, because every time they pooed in the car it smelled like raw onions. I now know what not to feed pigs!

 

[SheepGirl]

Hello, there! I am TheSheepGirl. Not to be confused with SheepGirl.

I look forward to reading your journal.

 

[TheSheepGirl]

Well, now the time has come for my first lambing season! Ninja, my Miniature Ewe is due to lamb in march or april. she is looking a bit bigger as time goes by. I am very excited for my first batch of lambs. She is bred to my Shetland Ram, Squiggy, who is only 14" tall and weighs 30lbs. I am expecting small lambs that will carry the miniature traits and I am also hoping for multiple lambs since her mother always birthed triplets.

Wish me luck!

 

[dreamriver]

loving the continuing saga. too bad about the onion smell though.

anxiously awaiting updates

 

[TheSheepGirl]

The Potbellied Pigs have settled in now quite well. After moving them three times to different pens around the property I have finally gotten them to stay in.

First pen to go was the woven wire pen. They pushed out the wire almost instantly and they were running wild around the neighborhood for a couple of hours before I came home and rounded them up again.

Next I locked them in the chicken coup for the night to keep them in for the night. They stayed in until morning when I heard a hgely loud crashing noise. i ran utside to find them running around the property again. They had pushed on the door so hard that they busted the lock off of it.

The third time, however, was the charm. They are in my back up lambing barn. It is a three sided pen with solid wood fencing as the front end of the barn. It has a nice little pen in the front for them go out in the sun. The fence in electrified wire fencing and they seem to respect it, cause they haven't gotten out.

Hamlet is the larger and pushier of the two. Lucy is the smaller, gentler,a nd more easily persuadable of the two. Ilove Lucy, but I think Hamlet will be going to another home.

Next is breeding Lucy to have little baby Potbellies.

 

[TheSheepGirl]

It's been a hard Two Weeks:

The last two weeks have been absolutely brutal. I lost more animals than I know how to deal with and have had the most horrible luck in every single endeavor!

It all started two Sundays ago when I noticed a dead chicken in the coup. I checked it over and it didn't seem that anything had gone wrong with it. The next morning I found 5 more chickens dead! Upon closer inspection I noticed the tell tale symptoms of Coccidiosis, something I haven't dealt with in 6 years! I treated everybody with Sulmet, but I lost another 4 chickens and am now down to 6.

Next thing to happen was that Lucy, the female Potbellied Pig died. She had a large cut on her shoulder and there was so much blood I'm sure that's why she died.

Next I had an outbreak of a very contagious and aggressive strain of bacterial scours in the lambs and goat kids. After a full round of antibiotics I lost all the lambs and kids due to this terrible outbreak!

It all seems to have subsided now and I had a baby Emu hatch here on the farm It is adorable and healthy!

Short on time for now, but I will elaborate more later after my 6 hour drive and 3 day trip to Washington to become a 4-H poultry Judge.