Friday, March 18, 2011

Another loss another gain

Spring has come to the farm, at least for this week. Who knows what will happen next week. I took some pictures of the morning, one of my favorite things about living here is when the mist rises on the valley and floats around the mountains. It is very peaceful.



Now all the snow is gone, and we can once again see ground. Of course that means we can see what the moles have done to the ground. Pretty in it's own way, it's like a giant ant farm.



Loss:
We had one more ewe due to lamb, and once again, she chose to do so when I wasn't home. I found her half delivered and in rough shape. We lost her and the lamb.
So far this is our tally:
Psyche, miscarried 1 buckling.
Artemis, 2 live lambs.
Persephone, 2 live lambs.
Iris, 1 deceased lamb.
Athena, 1 live lamb, 1 deceased lamb.
Flora, 1 deceased lamb, deceased ewe.
So we are at a 60% success rate. I am not sure if that is good or not, it certainly doesn't seem so. The loss of the ewe and lamb brought home how easy it is for something to go wrong. Needless to say I was and am worried about my goats coming up. Alice, Pearl, Pansy, Maple, Flo and possibly Larkspur and Sunflower are all due to kid. And with the exception of Flo, it is the first for all. Colored me worried.
Gain:
Alice delivered 2 healthy bucklings this morning. She was showing some signs yesterday, so after putting everyone out this morning, I came back to check on Alice. She was standing by herself at the barn door. A quick check and I knew we were close. Alice thinks she can hide from labor, boy is she wrong.

Before her water broke.
I will spare the gory details, but we met Archie first. Alice did great, she seemed very surprised at what she found when she turned around.


She didn't have much time to get to know him before Angus came along. For as long as it took for Archie to be born, Angus was in a hurry.

While the brothers got to know each other, Alice was completely dazed. It took her awhile to warm up to the boys. They were quick to get to know each other though.

After being a weighed, a healthy 5 lbs each, cleaned and fluffed they were dressed in their best attire. Very ivy league.


Sarah and Maggie fell instantly in love, of course.

Now we get to play Who's your Daddy.
We thought Esau. The floppy ears could have come from Alice's boer sire.
Or is it Esau?
We are now at 80%, getting better!

2 comments:

  1. Farm life is hard sometimes. You get the whole circle-of-life thing, but still; sometimes it just doesn't seem fair. Death, tempered with new life - sigh. I'll end this with a pun: CUTE KIDS! Hah. See what I did there? Cute kids? Goat babies? And your adorable two? Kids? .... crickets .... OK, clearly too early in the morning to be funny. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Way to early in the morning, but thanks.

    ReplyDelete