Oak had me laughing so hard this morning...It's been cool, breezy and wonderful for the last few mornings, but still getting hot and buggy in the afternoon.  He galloped, bucked, reared, tossed his head, jumped over some weeds at speed.  Really wish I'd had my camera with me...all I could do was laugh, whoop and encourage him with my voice and whip the end of the lead rope at him to encourage him (he knows it's playing).  And then when the moment has passed, and he starts grazing, I change my voice and he lets me come up and catch him. 

 

I was in a rush this morning since I was due up in Wyoming to go out with the non-game specialist from the DNR on a field survey. 

Of course when I need to be somewhere, that's when something comes up on the farm.

One of our 3 day old guinea keets was dead, laying by the food dish, not even in rigor yet, but cold.  He was in pretty good body condition for a newbie.  I hate having unanswered questions...I did a quick necropsy on him on the front porch with my leatherman.  Just needed to check his crop and gizzard, since last year we had a young guinea die of severe impaction after she ate dried grass and her entire GI tract was full of the tangled mess.  This little guy I think suffered from his own inexperience in life.  His crop and gizzard were full of wood shavings, and only a little bit of seed.

 



 

 



I've been wanting to move them to the little duck brooder, but thought waiting until night was best since Miss Demeanor is a ferocious mom, and I didn't want to risk her hurting the keets if I tried to grab her.  But now I think I'd better just try to herd them in, and put them on a towel and some straw that's too big for them to eat before any of the others suffer the same fate.

 

Captain Jack lost his other spur this afternoon when I got back, and proceeded to bleed quite nicely.  He now has a nice little leg wrap.  Granny Rose needs her foot soaked and rebandaged. The sheep are still hot and tormented by flies, and will only drink electrolytes.  On a funny note, when I was following them into the barn last night little Prince galloped towards the barn with the others, then as he reached the top of the little ramp he lept into the air, and landed it nicely.  He's become quite the cuddler and I think Lace is a little jealous of the attention hog.  She tries to head butt him out of the way when he steps in front of me too much and tries to solicit more attention.

 

Always more to record, but I'd better get out there.