Hay put up. Sicky updates. Strange ewe behaviour.

This will be a quick update post--nothing more (except my barn song for the day).

We had 115 bales of timothy orchard grass alfalfa mix hay delivered on Saturday.  A few bales feel a little damp so we salted them, and kept any that might get moldy separate.  Barns can burn down from damp hay starting to mold and heat up! Alfalfa tends to mold easily, so considering the hot temperatures during the last few days I think I might break up a few bales to help them dry, and feed some out so it doesn't end up becoming garden mulch.  Nothing is wasted here, but it's such lovely hay that it would really be a shame to use it for anything else other than food.

We were hoping we'd have first cut on our own hay field by now, as the grass is much too mature, and may end up making very coarse stemmy hay.  Even the horses may be picky about it.  The sheep will definitely shun anything stemmy.  Our neighbour we rely on for cutting and baling has his own farm to run, and everyone is haying late due to the ongoing rain this spring.  It's simply too mushy out there to bring any tractors out to do the work--the fields would be rutted and ruined. 

Fern is still acting strangely--her weight is down to 1.5kg and she barely eats.  She's heavily moulting now.  

Pearl has not filled up with ascites again, but has horrible watery diarrhea, has stopped eating, and was 1970 grams last night. She's very thin and has nothing in her guts. She's enjoyed having some short visits with her flock this weekend, even though they pick on her sometimes. I saw her digging and foraging a little, and she even managed to find some majoh in the compost we just put out.  G didn't turn it in so the chickens could do their thing.  He's so thoughtful...; )

Her crop had some food and water in it last night, so I didn't force feed her.  This morning I did via crop needle and I'm sort of kicking myself for not doing it earlier.  I sometimes don't treat our birds as aggressively as I should, especially when the individual doesn't tolerate a specific treatment well.  Miss Pearl screams that horrible 'you're killing me' chicken scream, and struggles quite a bit when I try to open her beak.  Not fun. I'm sure her belly was quite sore after the initial ascites, so I have been trying to restrain her too gently, which pretty much never works for any treatment unless the bird is having breathing problems.  Anyway, now that I've finally done it out of desperation, I'll be tubing her twice a day until she starts eating well on her own, or things go south...She may not last much longer. 

I'd really like to get a fecal and gram stain done asap.  I only have a few days to do that.  I'm supposed to be leaving for my draft horse workshop in Elk River in two days.  I'd planned to camp near the farm and was really looking forward to that. I may end up driving there every morning and coming back every night though, since I can't leave Pearl to her own devices for four days.  G can't and won't do these types of treatments on birds, and he's invited some out of town colleagues to visit while I'm gone, so I'd be concerned that he wouldn't notice if she was going downhill and I needed to come home.  

Info on crop needle feeding for those unfamiliar with it--by a no nonsense Aussie vet. Part 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwuNJEQCW2g

Miss Oats has been acting lame on both the front and rear lately.  She will hold up her front leg, and shift her weight so she puts less on the left hind.  I've been meaning to catch her up for weeks and have a look.  We finally did it on Saturday, and I'd planned ahead to make sure I had CD/T vaccine on hand, since only Henry has had his booster this year.  I found nothing wrong with any of her joints.  Her knobby-looking knees were just thickened skin, not arthritis as far as I could tell. She didn't have foot rot, which is what I'd suspected with our damp spring.  No hock swelling.  The only thing I might have appreciated was that the muscling on her left hamstring seemed a little thinner than her right. It was so hot out that day we decided to put off vaccinating the rest of the flock until another day, but she got hers.  

Mama Barley has been acting strangely as well.  She's our oldest and most aloof ewe.  She won't even come into the barn when we're there until she hears the latch squeak shut after I close the gate.  On several occasions lately I've heard her baaaa at grain time--for the first time since we got them!  Also, she'll come into the barn when I'm there, not run away when I make eye contact, and she's even started eating grain out of the scoop as I reach over the gate with it. Very strange.  Of course my first thought with such a dramatic behaviour change is that the animal must be sick.  But who knows?  Maybe she's finally decided we are trustworthy. 

Looking forward to sharing some photos from our time with special visitors lately.  In other sheep news, Princey learned how to jump a fence pole after I casually mentioned that I thought he could do it, and our 7 year old guest heard me.....She's an equestrian and even at such a young age has learned to jump with her pony, so when I mentioned sheep jumping she was really keen to see if we could train it. How could I say no? Sure enough, after a quick refresh on 'follow' command with Princey he came right over the pole after me.  Lots of cheering and squeals by all!  Then Princey went with our young guest--a cute little blond girl in pink rubber boots, carrying my pink target pole, followed by a lamb.  Seems sort of like Disney material to me. 

The deerflies are here, right on time on the first day of summer. 

That reminds me--I don't have time to finish writing everything I wanted to today.  Oakley very thoughtfully knocked down and broke Winston's box fan, so now I have to go out and buy a new one.  It's hot again today, humid and windless, so they really do need fans.  

G doesn't like when I post journal entries without photos, but I just don't have time today. 

I borrowed this one from my cousin:

We were joking that when we put the horses in this next lush rotation we may have to attach one of those orange flags on long poles to each of them, like people who ride recumbent bikes or pull kiddie trailers.

We'll lose them back there the grass is so tall!

That's it for now. Happy belated solstice!