Another lightbulb comes on

When I look at the time ahead and the time behind me I realize that I have less in front than behind.  Oh well.

I have so much to learn about farming in general.  I don't know how farmers do it in one generation, especially if they are like the current generation and don't want to learn from their elders but I suppose we all muddle along as best we can.

One of the ways we can reduce our cost of production is to improve the quality of our crops especially our forages and pastures.  We have effectively mined the land for the last 14 years by taking hay crop after hay crop.  While putting some manure back on the fields I am not sure that we have returned as much as we have removed.  It is time to get back to basics.  It goes beyond being a grass farmer with a by-product of lamb.We are bacteria and fungi farmers with a by product of soil. The rest just is icing.

The industry standard with horses is to bed with shavings or sawdust.  This stuff just does not break down.  Why?  It takes a carbon:nitrogen ratio of 25-35: 1 to begin composting manure and bedding.  Fresh sawdust and shavings are 500:1; even rotted sawdust is 200:1.  It will actually pull nitrogen out of your soil in order to break down.  No wonder horse facilities have mountains of this stuff hanging around.

We stopped using shavings  6 years ago and now bed the horses in straw when they come in ....which is very seldom. We now put 1-2" of sawdust on the bottom to absorb urine and then bed the rest in straw.  We do the same with the sheep, though with the hay waste, we seldom have to add more straw.  Unlike with the horses, we let a pack build up for the sheep and clean it out in the spring.

This winter we have our chores down to a fine art form; whizz in and out.  It leaves a lot more time to read up about soil care and feeding.  Maybe I will learn enough by the time I join the complement of fertilizers.

TTFN,
Laurie

I am a slow learner

We have had horses for 12-13 years now and it has taken us this long to figure things out for the good of the horses, our pocket books and us.  When we started we spent a lot of money getting the barn renovated for box and standing stalls, bought tons of blankets, etc. Lots of money was wasted.
 Now we: 

• leave the horses out 24 hours a day year round with a run in shed
• bed the run in shed with coarse sand instead of straw (it stays drier and is a lot easier to pick clean)
• insulate the stock tank and use a bucket heater to keep it open in the winter
• throw a handful of pennies in the stock tank to control the algae
• feed in a round bale slow-feeder net in a tombstone feeder
• fecal test 4-5 times a year and only deworm as required
• only vaccinate the minimum for a closed herd
• trim as required instead of on schedule (changes with season and ground conditions)
• 99% of diet is forage, supplement based on analysis
• adjust diet based on body condition 

They are healthier and less stressed and so are we.  I am looking forward to the time we have the same breakthroughs for the sheep. I hope it doesn't take 12 years.

TTFN,
Laurie 

A Shepherd in Winter

As I lay nestled under the duvet listening to the morning weather - “-23 with a wind chill of -30” – I chant my winter shepherd mantra – “What the hell were you thinking?”.  At -40 I add “I could have been in a villa in Tuscany right now”.  I drag myself out of bed in a house that was built in an era when upstairs heat and insulation were considered optional.  Fleece PJs and fluffy socks – a TSC vision of loveliness.

If I am lucky Bob has the stove going before I get downstairs. There is oatmeal for breakfast with a bit extra for the chickens.  I am training them to come when they are called with oatmeal bribes. (see the former post) If you think that you look like a fool herding sheep without dogs, try chickens.

Now the ordeal of getting dressed for chores: insulated coveralls, my dork hat with ear flaps, neoprene gloves, neoprene boots, ice cleats.  If I ever give up farming I could find employment as a dominatrix.

A stilt legged shuffle to the barn.  Oh, you say, the warmth of sheep wafting over me when I open the door.  No, the barn was built by the same folks that thought heat in the house was for wusses.  It is a drafty, old bank barn where we house very few sheep but keep the hay, the water and the feed.  The sheep are in paddocks with run-in sheds scattered around the barnyard.  Water sloshing over my coveralls freezes instantly.  I recite the mantra again.

I look over the breeding groups: a red butt here, a blue butt there.  It is starting to look a lot like Christmas and the tune comes to mind.  I am jostled by the sheep as I fill feeders; the guardian dogs are prancing in the snow.  I am starting to wake up, to warm up.

Like with childbirth, I know I will forget all of this when I see the lambs frolicking in the spring pastures.  A pushy ewe dumps the bucket down my boot; here comes the mantra again.

Puberty comes to the Chicken Coop

Cock a doodle errrrrr. Ahh pubescent roosters in their first crow.  Like human boys when their voices crack, the roosters just don't get it right at the beginning.  It sounds like someone decided to choke them half way through a crow.  That is what we heard when we first entered the barn this morning.  Cock a doodle errr. 

We purchased day old Partridge Chantecler chickens at the end of September and they finally have moulted into their adult plumage.  The five hens are a beautiful liver chestnut with black partridge marking on their feathers; the roosters have a glossy chestnut head and mane and irredescent black/green tail and wing feathers - stunning birds and Canadian winter hardy.

I am teaching them to come to a foil pan with cooled oatmeal, a trick I learned over 20 years ago with my first flock of layers.  I teach them to come to the banging on the bottom of a pie plate full of oatmeal and then entice them into the coop for the night.  They love the oatmeal and come running.  Once the spring comes and they are outside I will post a video. Actually somewhere in the archives of CBC television is a video of my first flock doing just that. Thankfully the footage of me crowing at my rooster to get him to crow for the camera ended up on the cutting room floor.

During the transition to laying eggs in the spring you often get very odd sized eggs from tiny to huge.  When I got one of the huge eggs (probably a triple or quadruple yolker) I entered it in the Rural Delivery Great Canadian Big Egg Contest.  The egg won and was shipped to the World competition (or more accurately the eastern seaboard of North America) where it came second.  As a result of that success I was on television once, the radio at least three times and in the press a couple of times.  I figured that I deserved a seat in the Senate after that (seems to be all the qualifications required).   By the way, the chicken died.


Now I have to enter the strange and wonderful world of poultry fanciers to find a Chantecler rooster from an unrelated line.  Then in the summer I will start breeding and hatching chicks for sale.


It's cock a doodle dooo  Stupid rooster, get it right!


TTFN
 Laurie

Mamma - The story of a little cat and a love story

The year was 1992 and after 10 years of marriage, I was on my own again.  My sister came down down from her home in the Arctic and asked me what I wanted to do.  My reply: 1 hire a lawyer, 2 buy a stereo and 3 get a dog.  That week we did all three. 
 The dog was an 18 month old Bearded Collie called Dixie who really should have been called Houdini.  She was able to escape anything that she was put in leaving behind a pile of chewed door, window etc.  Just change the noun and she went through it.  The solution was a chain link dog run connected into another run in the garage.  When I was home from work, she had free run of the farm.
It was heading into the winter when I first noticed that Dixie might have "company" while I was at work.  Her kennel often had rodent parts scattered about: leg of mouse, tail of rat.  About one month later I noticed a black streak dashing from her kennel when I pulled in the driveway. Finally I saw her companion, a diminuative jet black cat. Over the winter, the cat had kittens in the kennel, leaving Dixie to babysit while she would go hunting.  She would return sharing her spoils.  She had a second litter but lost most but Shadow who went to my sister's house.
By spring I realized the cat was there to stay so, unless I wanted to be continuously finding homes for kittens, she would need to be spayed. She needed a name. A discussion over coffee break resulted in Mamma.  Not original but appropriate as she became the grand dam of every farm since.  She stayed in the house for a week after her surgery, one of only two times she came in to stay over a period of close to 20 years.
Mamma and Dixie were inseparable and often you would see the two curled up together.  
In 1995, enter a new man in my life, a whirlwind romance, marriage and move to another farm. Mamma tolerated the new extended family of cats and dogs.  We were not sure that Mamma would stay at the new farm but home was where her Dixie was.  She would cry outside the door until Dixie went out in the morning. 
In 1997, we moved to Hawk Hill.  Again Mamma came with us and was the constant companion with Dixie.  If we left the car windows open, Dixie would soon crawl in the car to sleep and Mamma would join her.
A new dog joined our flock - Haley, a exuberant Golden Retreiver who was about the same age as Dix when I first got her.  She was suitably ignored by Mamma.
When Dixie was about 13 years old, she became quite lethargic one night and by the morning had died.  It was almost as it her time was up and that was it.  We buried her by the boulder behind the house.  Mamma was devastated crying at the door for her Dixie to come out.  She was still not interested in human comfort. But slowly over time she adopted Haley as her dog.  You would see the two in the same way you saw Dixie and her. And she cried for Haley in the morning to come out of the house.
More years passed and last year Haley developed a rapidly progressive spinal tumor and need to be euthanized in February.  Mamma was a very old cat by now spending most of her time in an insulated box house in the garage only coming out to bask in the sun.  She again missed her dog and had to turn her attenion to us as we no longer had a house dog.  She tolerated the occassional scratch but no more.  
This week age finally caught up with Mamma.  She spent her last day in the house beside the wood stove (the second time in her life).  She is buried by the boulder behind the house.  She and Dixie are together again.  And now it is me crying outside the door for Mamma.


Laurie

COPD in Sheep

While sheep have been used as a model for asthma and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in humans there is very little written about the condition in sheep itself except for anecdotal evidence that sheep grazing on kelp on the Scottish Islands are less susceptible to respiratory coughing etc. Something to do with the iodine levels.

We have one lamb (possible two) and one ewe that have what I am starting to believe is COPD. When they are housed inside, especially if the ammonia levels increase or dust levels are higher than desirable, they have upper respiratory tract congestion, coarse breathing and coughing. These conditions do not really respond to antibiotic treatment but respond better to improvements in air quality.

I know that the one lamb had a very difficult time during birth, was a backwards presentation and had problems for the first few days. I am guessing that the lamb may have aspirated some fluid during birth and have some lung damage. I think that has left this animal more vulnerable to air quality issues. He spent the majority of the summer housed outside with access to airy shelters. His breathing difficulty only arrived once he was brought back into the barn.

This morning the lamb's breathing was very rough. I treated him with a wind aid treatment with potassium iodide, eucalyptus oild and pepperment oil. I then put down a heavy layer of fresh bedding. Within minutes his breathing was back to normal. He will be moved into a clean stall with better ventilation.

A second lamb that has mild respiratory problems also underwent a difficult birth.

I have a mature ewe with a similar condition: fine when housed outside but chronic breathing problems that does not respond to antibiotic treatment when housed inside. The condition improves with improved air quality. We bought the ewe as a mature animal so I am not sure if she was the result of a difficult birth but I would not be surprised.

More than even I am convinced that animals are healthier when housed outside. While our barn structure does not allow for huge improvements in air movement (low ceiling bank barn), we are going to do what we can to move more air through the builing and minimize the time the animals are inside.

I am also convinced that difficult deliveries, especially backwards presentations predispose the lambs to chronic respiratory vulnerabilities. Unless a lamb is extremely valuable those that underwent a difficult delivery will be slated as market lambs. Ewes that have chronic lambing problems will be culled.

I would love to hear from others that think they may have seen COPD in their sheep.

TTFN,
Laurie

Go with your gut and don't believe everything you see

We had a sick lamb the last few days and I was at a loss as to what to do to help her. Sure I could treat the symptoms but I wanted to know the cause.

This was a 5 month old market lamb. She was lethargic, obviously constipated, not urinating, uncomfortable, very slight elevation of temperature, not eating or drinking. All really serious signs. We treated her with bloat ease and when that did not work mineral oil. Even though she had just been dewormed, I went with my instinct and retreated her with a product for tapeworms. I also did a fecal test and there was nothing present.

Yesterday morning she still had not passed anything so I brought in the vet. He diagnosed a slight respiratory noise put her on LA tetracycline and vitamin supplement.

Fifteen minutes after the vet left she pooped and peed (obviously too soon to have anything to do with his treatment). She immediately started to eat and drink. And then that afternoon she started to pass huge numbers of tapeworms. She was obviously blocked with these parasites.

By evening she was bright, eating voraciously, drinking and very vocal in her protests of injustice of isolation.

If I had just gone with what I saw (ie nothing in the fecal test) or treating the symptoms, I might have a dead lamb on my hands.

Lesson for others. Tapeworms are not inoccuous. This is the second lamb in two years we have had blocked by this parasite. It is not just barberpole worms that can kill.

TTFN
Laurie