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Hey bloggie blog. Right now I'm playing around with Tumblr, so that's why you haven't seen me here. I like it better than blogger so far, at least for posting photos. Look for me, same name as here ;)

Photo of the Day - Just me and my dogs

I'm feeling a little under the weather this week, I have these annoying chronic issues with my stomach and other things that get in the way sometimes. It's really frustrating being stuck on the couch while there is so much that I want to be doing on the farm. I hate feeling like being sick is holding me back. Somethings, like feeding and watering everyone, have to be done regardless of how I feel. It can be tough at times, but I manage. My husband and my dogs keep my spirits up when I'm not feeling well. Yesterday, I was feeling a little down so John called into work and we went to the movies together and spent a lazy day just relaxing. He even did all my chores for me:). When he's not around, I always have a dog close by to cuddle with on the couch on sick days. I'm so lucky to have my little family, I don't know what I'd do without my farm boy and our furry monsters.

Me and Iorek. Poco's in the back, firing up his laser eyes to shoot us both, he get's so jealous!

Photo of the Day: Chicken Watering Hole

The babies, they're growing so fast. I'm hoping the white one is a rooster. They're so funny, anytime they see my husband or I they come running and then follow us around all over the yard. 

Hero is doing good! This morning I woke up and John was already outside cleaning his wounds and taking care of him. I was so relieved, I wasn't looking forward to doing it, but John had no trouble at all. Tomorrow, when he's at work I'm going to have to handle it myself, but now I'm not worried after watching John. The castration wound seems to be healing up really fast, it's already scabbed up and looks pretty good. His legs still need time. He likes to lay on the hurt leg, which really bothers me because the wound is touching the ground when he does, but we're keeping the bedding nice and clean so hopefully that helps. This week, I'm going to get some photos and post a how-to on hydrolyzing wounds, just in case it can help anyone.

Anyway, hope everyone is ready for Monday. ;)

Hero goes to the Vet

 

Today, we spent the morning at the veterinarians office with Hero. After looking at his injuries more and a lot of discussion, we decided it was better to take him in than try to treat his injuries on our own this time. We don't have a lot of hands-on experience with things like castration yet, so we weren't quite up to the job. His other wounds were also starting to look a little infected, and I was worried about those. Luckily, we were able to finally find a vet that could help us after a lot of searching. The office is about and hour and a half away, but it was a nice drive.

I'm glad we took him in, not only did we get Hero all doctored up, we got a mini course on castration. If we ever have a situation like this again, we'll definitely be able to handle it on our own. I've only been to the vet with a pet, I was kinda expecting the same treatment on my sheep, but things are a little different for livestock. Hero did not get any sort of anesthesia or even local anesthetics, not so much as a pain pill. They cleaned him up, held him down, grabbed a razor and started cutting. Anyone who has the stomach for it and knows what to cut could have done it without a difference. I guess that's why most ranchers castrate their own livestock. We watched closely and asked a ton of questions, so now we have the experience we would need to feel comfortable doing it ourselves. I hope we never have to, and we don't have a lot of plans for the farm that will require castrations, but it's good knowledge to have for sure. He was also given antibiotics and a tetanus shot, both available at the feed store. The vet showed us how to properly clean his wounds. I was being way too gentle with my little squirt bottle. They took a hose with an adjustable nozzle, and sprayed the heck out of everything with pretty good pressure until it was clean and you could see a little blood rising to the surface of the exposed muscle . It's called hydrolyzing, and we have to do it twice a day on him until his wounds close. They weren't able to close up any of his wounds with sutures because of their locations and lack of skin, so we have to keep everything extra clean. The vet said the hydrolyzing will help get contaminates out as well as stimulate blood flow to the area. He also said it's going to take a few weeks for him to heal up and he's not out of the woods, but if we can keep him from getting infection and sepsis he should make it.  

I hope my poor little sheepy is going to be ok. We have good luck with healing hurt animals around here, so I think he'll make it. Positive thoughts are welcome right now!

Hero in his pen resting, he had a tough morning.

Spirit in Action

This morning, Spirit went for a nice roll in the dirt.

 

Then, she spotted her friend, Nicey, all the way at the end of the pasture and took off.

When I caught up with them, they were busy nuzzling and being cute. Nicey is our neighbor's horse, he lives in the pasture right next to us. We call him Nicey because he's nice and we're really creative. There's another horse that lives there too, he's not as nice. We call him Blindy. We call him Blindy because... well you can probably guess.

Spirit grazing.

An update on Hero, our ram with the injured balls... We're going to have to castrate him. After talking about it on some sheep forums, we've decided the best thing we can do is band him. I'm headed to the feed store to get some supplies so we can get the job done. I know a lot of people that just put their livestock animals down when they have such an injury, especially since he won't be able to be bred now, but I don't believe in culling like that. I also think that temporary pain is worth it if you get to stay alive, I'm sure if Hero had a say, he would not want to be "put out of his misery". Animals have a strong survival instinct, I know he wants to survive, so we'll do whatever we can to heal him. It pains me to see him limping around, I can't wait until he feels better.

Attacked

Yesterday, I did not post anything. I had such a busy, hectic day, the blog was completely forgotten about. Our ram, Hero, was attacked by a dog. He's going to be ok, but he does have some injuries that will take a while to heal. He suffered a lot of bites, the worst being to his scrotum. Half of the skin on it is missing, leaving one testicle completely exposed. Yeah, ouch. We're doing all we can to keep it clean and infection free. We may need to call in the vet on this one and have him castrated. Unfortunately, we don't have any vets around here that you can just call to chat with about the situation before taking them in, and the visits for anything that isn't your basic house pet are really expensive. Expensive is not good right now. We'll see though, poor Hero can't just walk around with his testicles out. I have learned that farm animals are tough creatures, they survive things you would never think they could. Hero is up and walking around, slowly and with a limp, but I'm sure he'll be ok. I hope we can keep his manhood in tact after this is all said and done, it would be nice to have some lambs.

So since this isn't a very nice story to share today, I'll close with a funny pic; Goober using his horns to scratch his back. He uses them for this, ruining fences, and ramming John and I when we turn our backs.

Look at that belly!

A Horse, a Sheep, and a Goat

 

 Over the weekend, my hard-working farm boy finally finished our new goat yard. We've been working on it for a few weeks, but the heat has been so oppressive it's been slow going. The new residents, Goober the goat and Hero the sheep, love their new home. Spirit is a little jealous, but she's not allowed around the smaller animals. She tolerates Goober, but everyone else she tries to kill. She even chases the chickens out of her yard, stamping her front feet at them as she runs. We've been having a problem with this one coyote coming around, and we've actually witnessed Spirit chasing the coyote out of her pasture. She's a great guard horse, no need for a donkey, we just have to be careful with her and the smaller animals.

She's so curious, always has to check everything out.

Isn't she pretty? I just love her.

 On a different note, I made my first sale on Etsy today! I'm so excited! It makes me feel really good knowing that someone liked something that I made enough to buy it, I'm so flattered. I've been working on a lot of new stuff for the store that I'm really excited about, too. Last night I was up until 2am finishing this guy up...

Sharktastic! Tooth from a sand tiger shark.

I'm pretty proud of it, if I do say so myself ;). I may keep this particular one, but I'm definitely going to be making more for the shop. I gathered the teeth myself from the bottom of the shark tank at SeaWorld, back when I was a diver for their aquarium. We would spend 4 hours a week in the shark exhibit, vacuuming up shark poo and scrubbing fake coral. We wore normal SCUBA gear, the only protection we had from the sharks was a 3ft pole shaped like a T, made from 3/4" pvc pipe. It wasn't really any protection at all, definitely not going to stop a shark, but we used them to gently nudge the sharks away if they swam too close. During those countless hours on poo-duty (ha), every time I saw a stray tooth I would tuck it away in my wetsuit and vacuum on. I gave most of these teeth away, however I do still have a small collection left. I think making jewelry with them is a great way to use them, I'm going to have a hard time deciding what to keep and what to sell, though!