So we finally broke our drought record and it began raining. 144 days without measurable rain. During the last few months, we grew lax at our rain shelters for the critters, and so when I realized it was going to rain all day long I knew I had to figure out something for the bucks. They were already wet and it was cold. They used to have a covering on the top of their shelter, but it had holes in it. I ended up having to move them to another pen area altogether. In the process -- since like a dope I went out in shorts and a long sleeved shirt -- I got very chilled. I didn't feel cold while I was out there, but once I got inside I realized my shirt was almost completely soaked. I changed clothes and climbed into bed to warm up, but even though I felt thawed out I remained cold to the core. I finally got into a hot tub of water and kept adding more and more straight hot water until the water was very hot! I had to sit there at least half an hour until I finally warmed up. I imagine what happened is that the blood in my legs and lower body was warmed as it moved through my body parts that were in the hot water, then coursed through to the rest of my body. Finally I was feeling too warm, and started sweating. After I got out of the tub I climbed back into bed and slept for a couple of hours and felt very snuggly warm and needed to stay warm.
I crocheted a baby goat sweater for our first baby, born on Thursday. An uneventful birth. One single doeling born to our herd queen. She is tiny in comparison to what this doe produced last year. Last year she produced twin bucklings and they weighed 10 and 9 pounds each. The new little princess weighs just 7 pounds.
Because she was a singleton and sleeping all alone, while her dam was outside of the barn, looking in at her, calling to her, I decided to make her a sweater to keep her warmer since the wind was blowing and it was chilly in the barn. I'm really glad I made her one because the next day was when it started raining, and it was freezing cold out there. The little doeling was snuggly warm in her sweater.
I think about my blog occasionally, but most of the time it is just so busy that I don't think of it, and don't have the time.
I did not finish my billing at work, thankfully the lady who approves it on the other end is on vacation until next week. That was lucky for me.
Better get a bottle for the new baby. We have her on a bottle several times a day. She is still nursing her dam, but her dam has never given much milk and also has bacteria in one side of her udder. Staph aureus to be exact. I do not know if she had the bacteria last year when she raised her bucklings herself, but we were drinking the milk raw and it didn't kill us. So I'm sure it will be okay for the little doeling to have some of her mother's milk straight from the udder. I am also milking the doe twice daily, pasteurizing that milk for the doeling's bottles.
Last year's kids were skittish and not as people friendly as I'd like. I want a happy medium. Not Little Screamer friendly, but not as skittish as ours were.
We are also fostering a puppy for a friend that does rescues. He is caramel colored all over, except for a white spot on his face, a white tipped tail and white on part of his body. He is barely three weeks old. He sleeps A LOT. Yesterday he slept almost all day long. He loves to be snuggled and held so he can fall asleep. We are pretty sure he has pitbull in him, and we have always said we will not have a dog with pit bull. He certainly is mouthy at his tender age. He looks sweet when he's asleep but once he wakes up, he's all mouth. We are disciplining him to not bite us at all, and we don't allow him to growl either.
No one knows the lineage of this little boy and it is very possible that he is from long lines of aggressive dogs. My friend said she will take him back and place him when he is eight weeks old, but she was mostly interested in our fostering him because he was so tiny that he needed goat's milk. He took his milk from a bottle for a few days, but then weaned himself from that. He was a little bony when we took him in, but he's looking better now. He weighed 3.2 pounds when we got him and now weighs 3.9#.
Okay, out to survey the damage from the rain, and to milk and feed.
No comments:
Post a Comment