Update on everything!

Yikes! July is already more than half done! My knee has finally improved enough that I am able to do about 80% of what I normally can do, which is really great news for me and everyone else here.

My baby daughter has flown the coop big time! Even though she had been at the University of Illinois for the past two years, that was less than two hours away. On Friday she moved all the way to Ft. Collins to begin work on her Ph.D. at Colorado State.

And here are a few pictures of things happening around the farm....

We have been teaching Tinker the yearling lady llama to lead, and she is doing splendidly! I never dreamed I would ever have a llama as friendly as her. Most are quite aloof, but Tinker is a true sweetheart, loving attention ...

We just moved the youngest batch of chickens out of the barn and into their bottomless pen (a.k.a. chicken tractor) ...

And the ducklings that hatched a month ago are growing so fast ...

Hope to get another update out before another month passes!

Llama spa day

The following post was actually written on Sunday, June 8, and I only needed to add photos and video, but on Tuesday morning, June 10, I slipped and fell on the tile floor in our bathroom, on my already injured knee, of course. So I lost whatever progress I'd made over the last few weeks and am back to doing nothing outside. Let's just end this part of the post by saying that my orthopedic surgeon is getting to know me really well.

Sitara and Tinker after shearing.

Sunday, June 8 did not start out very well. At 9:00 Mike walked in and said that Katy (the person not the llama) just told him that the llama shearer was coming today. Oops! Yeah, I had forgotten to tell him, but I said not to worry because he wasn't supposed to be here until 10:00. And then I looked out the window and saw a pickup truck and trailer driving very slowly in front of our house. "I hope that's not him," I said, half joking. Guess what! It was him!

Luckily, Oscar the yearling llama is close to the house and very easy to catch, so Mike grabbed him while the shearer was setting up. Before the shearer was done with him, Mike brought up Merlin the llama that guards the sheep. And then things got complicated.

Catching the last three was not easy, so the shearer volunteered to help. Mike, Katy, Kat, the shearer, and his assistant went into the pasture. (I didn't help because I'd had gall bladder surgery 12 days earlier and was not supposed to be lifting anything heavier than ten pounds.) When Tinker the yearling female got fairly close to Mike, he lunged and wrapped his arms around her neck. He was not expecting her mother Sitara to go into full-on llama attack guard mode! Everyone watching says that Mike sustained a few good mama llama kicks before he had his other arm wrapped around her neck, and then the shearer ran up and got the halter and lead rope on mama Sitara. Mike wound up with llama spit on him from mama, but he doesn't have any real injuries from the ordeal.

Sitara sounded the alarm the moment that Mike grabbed her baby, and she never stopped until the two of them were in a stall together. That means she screamed the entire time she was being sheared, even though we were holding her daughter right there next to her. And she continued screaming while we were shearing her daughter. She quieted down once we put the two of them in a stall, but a few minutes later, Kat walked past, and Sitara let out a good scream. And because words simply cannot do justice when describing a llama scream, I took a few seconds of video for you ...

Catching Dolce was pretty easy because he hates Merlin, so Mike's brilliant idea was to take Merlin into the pasture neighboring Dolce's, and Dolce immediately came running up to the gate. Kat was leading Merlin and started to back away because she could hear Merlin regurgitating and getting read to start spitting at Dolce.

Katy, who has only been on the farm for a couple of weeks, said that the llamas were "really scary." Yep, that's why we have them! They are here to guard the sheep and goats from coyotes, and they are extremely good at their jobs.

After shearing Merlin was returned to the sheep pasture, Oscar was returned to the side yard, and Dolce was returned to the back 20. Sitara was put in the pasture with Dolce for breeding, and her daughter was kept in the barn so that we can work with her, training her to lead.

Updates on Katy, Windy, and me

Am I getting old, falling apart, or a sad combination of both? My vacation with my daughters involved a trans-Atlantic flight, which resulted in horrible jet lag in both directions. When we lived in Hawaii, we had lots of long flights, and this was my third trip to Europe, but I have never really experienced jet lag that upset my digestive system so much from one end to the other that I thought I was truly sick. That was going to Europe. The return trip just left me exhausted and not sleeping right for about four days. At first I thought it was because I was getting older, but now I wonder if it's because I'm just not as healthy as usual.

Speaking of health ... a couple of people remembered that I had a doctor's appointment on Monday and asked how it went. Well, it wasn't what I'd hoped for. I learned that in addition to this one particular thyroid nodule going through a growth spurt, it is also oddly shaped (not like a lovely round cyst) and it has a blood supply, which would be quite odd for a normal cyst. So, I'll be having a biopsy on February 11. The earliest appointment they had available was February 5, which is when I have six goats due, so I counted forward to day 150 for the last two goats, and that is the eleventh, and the little darlings had better give birth by then! And unfortunately I won't even have any answers until my follow-up doctor's appointment on February 17. It is a frustratingly long time to wait, especially when this lump in my throat makes its presence known to me 24/7.

Katy

In the first couple of weeks after bringing Katy home from U of I, she was making steady progress, which was really exciting. Those of you who follow Antiquity Oaks on Facebook saw the regular updates! I was like the mother of a toddler, reporting every little thing. And almost every day was better than the day before, with her being able to stand for longer periods of time, to take a step or two and after a few weeks, to even stand on her own. Unfortunately, she hasn't improved much at all in the past three weeks.

She can sometimes stand up on her own, but it's obvious she doesn't have full feeling in her back legs, as they are not always placed logically, whether she is standing or taking a few steps. It is ridiculously easy for her to be knocked down. If her cria gets excited and bumps up against her, she is knocked off balance and sitting like a dog within seconds. At least it only takes one person to help her get up now, as she just needs a little boost under her back end to help her to her feet. But I am beginning to doubt if she will ever be able to live a normal llama life again. Her career as a livestock guardian appears to be over.

Windy

Windy doesn't seem terribly improved over the last few weeks either. She still doesn't hold her body straight and can't run straight. She had been in a breeding pen for a month when she got sick, so at this point, I am just hoping that she is not pregnant. The uterus is a muscle, and there is no predicting whether it would be able to function properly to expel babies.

The rest of the animals on the farm are doing well, and our first goats are due to kid around January 29, so life is about to get especially busy around here! I'm planning my spring garden and resisting the urge to order more chicks!

Is someone trying to tell me something?

The past few weeks have been rather overwhelming and a bit of a blur. It will be three weeks on Tuesday since Katy went down and this terrible adventure began. Of course, it was almost a week earlier than that when we found Timpani laying in the snow with hypothermia one morning, and I thought she had "simply" suffered a spinal cord injury, probably fighting with another goat about going into the shelter.

Now, after quite an emotional roller coaster and a $1700 vet bill, we have one less goat, another goat that holds her head cock-eyed and walks crooked, and a llama that is still partially paralyzed. Timpani's gross necropsy results did confirm meningeal worm, but they are doing additional lab work, which has not yet been completed.

Windy is on her feet all the time, but she is certainly in no condition to rejoin the herd. Yesterday we decided to move her from a kidding pen, which is only five-by-ten feet, to a ten-by-ten foot pen in the main barn, and to put another yearling mini mancha doe in there with her for company. Unfortunately the other doe did not recognize her obvious physical advantage and insisted on being a jerk to Windy, butting her, and trying to keep her away from the hay.

When I went in there last night to give them more hay, Windy decided to make a run for it when she saw the door open, and she -- of course -- ran crookedly and ran smack into my left kneecap, knocking it out of place. I had two surgeries on that knee when I was a teenager because the kneecap would go out of place randomly, and even after the surgeries, it is very loose. I fell to the ground screaming and then proceeded to cry hysterically for about fifteen minutes. I'd love to believe that Windy was trying to say she was sorry as she kept walking up to me, but I don't think it's a coincidence that she always went to the side of me that put me between her and Livi the other doe. At that moment, the only thing I could think was, "This is what I get for saving your life?" and "I have no business on a farm! I am too old for this!"

I eventually hobbled into the house and put a bag of frozen chopped collard greens on my knee and sat on the couch with the phone so I could call my husband and tell him that I couldn't finish evening chores. He was down in the creek fixing the fence where one of the llamas had escaped earlier in the day. Just when we were ready to start evening chores, a neighbor let us know that one of our llamas was visiting her place, and when I looked out the window, I saw him running down the road!

Add to all of this the fact that my chronic back pain has become debilitating the first hour or two after I wake up every morning, and I was really feeling that I was getting too old for this lifestyle. The feeling of "I can't do this anymore!" has become a recurring thought these past few weeks. And I half-heartedly prayed, "God, if you really don't want me to do this anymore, couldn't you just send me a nice message, like a job offer that's too good to refuse at a university?"

A bit later I was checking my email, and in my GoogleAlerts for "goats," there was this story about a 900-goat dairy in Ontario that burned to the ground last night. And I started crying. Simply the thought of losing all my goats in a fire was horrifying. I told my husband and son about the fire, and my son said, "See Mom, someone else is having a worse day than you." Oh, my goodness! Yes! How could I possibly think that I would sell my goats and move away from here simply because we're having a few challenges? I know that if our barn caught fire today, even with my bad knee and other aches and pains, I'd be running out there trying to save every last goat.

Yes, life is particularly challenging right now. But life will always be challenging, regardless of where you live or what you do. But like that man who says he is going to start his dairy again, we have to deal with our challenges and move on.

Katy and Windy home at last!

Mike and I went to the University of Illinois vet clinic to pick up Windy the goat and Katy the llama, along with her cria Oscar.

Katy finally started peeing and pooping again, but she still can't stand up on her own. I can now add "llama physical therapy" to my resume. We have to lift her so that she spends two, 20-minute periods standing every day, morning and afternoon. 

Yesterday morning, my daughter Margaret who was still here from Ft. Worth where she is an electrical engineer, helped me lift her four or five times. Katy never managed to stand for more than about four minutes before her back end would collapse, and she would be sitting there like a dog. Much of the time she spent standing, she actually spent with her back end leaning against the human who was next to her. This morning, she actually stood for 15 minutes! We figured that standing for one 15 minute stretch was probably better than several smaller stretches, so didn't get her up again.

Lifting her is interesting. First we put our hand under her chest or stomach, and since Katy is a llama, she is offended that a mere human is touching her, so she pushes the front half of her body up with her front legs. Then we put a towel under her and move it so that it is under the back half of her body. With one person holding each end of the towel on each side of the llama, we lift! Sometimes it is easier than others, depending upon how much Katy is able to help.

Unfortunately, this means that Oscar is only able to nurse twice a day. When Katy first went down, she was on her side, and Oscar was able to nurse as much as he wanted, but now she is strong enough to stay "kushed" properly (llama language for the prone position pictured at right) which means her teats are inaccessible to him.

As for Windy -- like most bottle babies, she has always been too friendly for her own good, but after being poked with needles more than a dozen times in the last week (including a spinal tap), she ran when I opened the gate of her pen at the clinic. She is quite healthy and able-bodied, although she tends to twist her body a little to the right, and she can't walk in a straight line. (You can see how she holds her head crooked in the second picture.) But considering the fact that she was minutes away from death last week, this is truly remarkable. Still, it could be weeks or months before the final neurologic symptoms go away. Then again, she may never be completely normal again. But considering how close she was to death last week, I have to assume that she is still with us for a reason. 

The toughest decision

Mike came into the house Monday morning to say that another goat was down.

Another goat? Yes, about ten days earlier we found Timpani, a mini mancha, laying in the snow first thing in the morning. She was hypothermic and couldn't stand. Even when she was warmed up, she still couldn't stand. Her symptoms reminded me of the goat we had about eight years ago that was paralyzed from a spinal cord injury. Goats fight all the time, and it's pretty amazing that they don't wind up with more injuries than they do. Timpani was very happy, and when we put warm water and food in front of her, she ate like there was no tomorrow. Because her only symptom was semi-paralysis, it really appeared that she was injured, rather than ill.

Katy with vet wrap on her neck, holding the IV catheter in place.
Cria Oscar has been staying with her at the clinic.

Then last week, Katy the llama was unable to stand, so we took her to U of I and learned that she had meningeal worm. (See last two posts for the whole story on Katy.) I told the vets about Timpani, but she actually seemed to be doing better by then. She could stand some and take some wobbly steps, so we thought she was on the mend.

And then yesterday, Mike found her sister Windy (short for Woodwind) laying down and unable to get up. Unlike Timpani, Windy seemed very sick. At first glance, I thought she was blind because she didn't look at me, but after flicking my fingers at her head, I realized that she could see. Mentally, however, she was absent. I stood her up in front of a hay feeder, and she refused to eat. I put a bucket of warm water in front of her, and she completely ignored it.

I came into the house and called U of I, explaining all of her symptoms. I told the vet tech on the phone that because we had already spent a fortune on Katy, who was still not well, we needed to be mindful of costs. However, I really wanted to bring the goats to the clinic because I wanted an answer. Knowing that meningeal worm requires snails and deer to reproduce and infect a goat or llama, I was wondering if that was really the culprit. Could I really have two or three animals infected? Because I had said that Windy was so sick, I didn't expect her to survive for 24 hours, she said that I could just bring her in to have her euthanized and necropsied. That was a sobering thought. I felt my eyes start to fill with tears and don't remember what the tech said at that point, but I knew that it was the cheapest, most accurate way to get definitive answers.

Windy at the vet clinic

Ultimately we decided to take the goats to the clinic and have them examined. Initially everyone, including a neurologist, thought that Windy had listeriosis. Her symptoms were classic. She was leaning to one side and had the classic eyeball twitching of a goat with listeriosis. She had to be leaning against someone or something, or she'd fall down.

Timpani in her crate when we arrived at the clinic

When they first examined Timpani, they thought that she seemed to be lame rather than ill, but as they observed her more, they noticed minor neurologic symptoms as well. After a few hours, they decided to start treating both of them for meningeal worm, based upon symptoms and Katy's diagnosis, and to also treat Windy for listeriosis because her symptoms would have indicated listeriosis, if not for the llama's diagnosis already.

Today, they did spinal taps on the goats and confirmed a diagnosis of meningeal worm for both of them. Unfortunately, the vet professor said that goats do not respond to treatment as well as llamas do. Considering the fact that Katy was supposed to be hospitalized for five days of treatment, and she is still hospitalized and can't stand, pee, or poop on her own, that's not terribly promising, and goats don't respond as well as llamas? What does that mean? The vet professor said that goats have about a 20% recovery rate.

Really, considering Windy's condition, I would think her odds are even worse than that. But what about Timpani? She was nibbling at the vet's boot liners and everything else she saw at the vet clinic. Other than her wobbly gait, she acts almost normal. The vet and I talked about euthanizing both goats and doing necropsies to be sure that there isn't anything other than the meningeal worm at work here.

I've posted a couple of status updates on my own Facebook page, as well as the Antiquity Oaks page, and a few people with meningeal worm experience have responded. One said that they had a goat that seemed happy and kept eating for a month before they finally decided to put him down. Several others talked about having goats die in spite of treatment.

I told the vet I wanted to wait until morning before making a decision. I'm afraid it's going to be a long night.

A few steps forward, a few steps back

Katy the llama is still at the University of Illinois vet clinic, and we don't know when she will be coming home. One day things look better, the next day they look worse, and some days it is a mixed bag.

The paralysis initially got worse, as evidenced by her inability to even pee or poop, so they had to insert a catheter and manually remove feces. Yesterday she pooped, so that was good. Today she didn't, so that's not so good.

She has had problems with her blood sugar, so they had to start monitoring that and giving her insulin when necessary. Today she seems to be stable in that area. They've also been monitoring electrolytes and ketones in her urine.

Being recumbent -- not standing -- is bad, so they've been lifting her in a sling twice a day and doing physical therapy. The good news for today was that when they removed the sling, she was actually able to maintain her weight on her own four legs and take a couple of steps before collapsing. But getting up is the hard part, and she can't do that yet.

Yes, the bill has left the stratosphere. But you get to a point where you've already spent so much money that you really want to get a live animal out of the deal, so you keep saying yes to each new treatment that becomes necessary.

Little Oscar is doing well. He is nursing and eating hay and llama feed, and because of all the people surrounding his mother daily, he is getting very accustomed to human interaction. If there is anything positive about the whole situation it is that he should be much easier to train after this experience.

Llama emergency

 It all started on Tuesday morning as I was pulling into the parking lot of the Illinois Farm Bureau for the board meeting of the Illinois Specialty Growers Association of which I'm a board member. My cell phone rang. It was Jane telling me that Katy was laying down in the pasture, unable to stand. I suggested that she check her eyelids, and if they were pale to give her a dewormer. I checked in a couple of hours later and learned that they had given her a dewormer and also took her hay and a bucket of warm water. She was eating and drinking but still could not stand.

When I got home Tuesday at sundown, I checked on her. She still was not standing, and although she was eating a little bit, she was not drinking. Mike checked on her first thing Wednesday morning, and she was still not standing, so I called the University of Illinois vet clinic, and they said that we could bring her in. The only problem, I explained, was that she was at the bottom of a hill in an area that was completely inaccessible by vehicle. How would we ever get her into a trailer?

The vet professor said that we could use a blanket as a sling to put it under her body, and that once we had her on her feet, she might actually be able to walk a little. So, when we were done with morning chores, Mike, Jane, Jonathan, and I went out there with a blanket and two halters -- one for Katy and one for her little cria Oscar, who is not even four months old yet, so still needs his mama.

Oscar had never had a halter on him prior to that, and he was not happy about it. First we tried a sheep halter, and he went completely nuts, twisting and jumping into the air, spinning around like a whirling dervish. The sheep halter slipped over his nose bridge and started to cut off his air, so I ran to the barn to get the smallest llama halter that we have. I didn't try it initially because I thought it would be too big, but it actually fit pretty well. He was still not impressed, however, so Mike simply picked him up and carried him into the barn to wait for his mama.

We rocked Katy side to side and got the blanket under her, then the four of us lifted her to her feet. (I snapped this picture as Mike and Jonathan came to the conclusion that Jane and I needed to help.)

We were very happy that she was indeed able to walk a little. She had trouble with her back feet, crossing them sometimes, which you can see in the picture above.

She went down completely one time about halfway to the trailer, and once we got her up again, we all tried really hard to keep her on her feet, as getting her up was the hardest part. As she went past the stall where we'd left Oscar, he completely forgot his disdain for humans and was pressing against me to get to his mama, which made leading him to the trailer a piece of cake, as he was simply following her.

After getting them into the trailer, Jane and I went into the house, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and we were on the road to the U of I vet clinic, which is normally a two-hour drive. I'd forgotten how much pulling the trailer can slow you down, so it was a little longer. Once we arrived, it took the vets and techs 15-20 minutes to get her out of the trailer. Oscar was very upset by the whole thing and spent more time spinning and jumping around in the parking lot. The poor little guy has only seen about five human beings in his whole short life, and suddenly he was surrounded by more than a dozen, but Jane did a good job keeping him from getting too wild.

Everyone finally gave up on getting Katy to stand up, and finally six or seven people pushed and pulled and slid her out of the trailer and onto a cart. They wheeled her into the clinic, and Jane led Oscar while someone else was attempting to move him by pulling on his tail, which I've never seen anyone do with a camelid, although I know people do that with cattle a lot. It didn't seem to work at all, and I'm not sure why I didn't say anything or offer to just tap Oscar gently on the back of his legs, which is how we normally train llamas to lead.

I'm not sure how we wound up with a professor, two residents, an intern, and a dozen students, but things happened very quickly. At least six tubes of blood were drawn and sent to the lab, then they did a complete abdominal ultrasound and even got an imaging specialist with whom to confer. There were lots of white spots all over Katy's liver, and although that was not normal, it did not explain her symptoms. They poked and pinched her in various places and discovered that she had very little feeling on the right side of her body. Blood results began to trickle in with some results that were not terribly surprising, such as, she was dehydrated. Another blood test looked like she was fighting an infection and that she might have a parasite problem. Ultimately a spinal tap confirmed a diagnosis of meningeal worm. One of the students showed us the spinal fluid, which was cloudy. It should have been clear enough to read through. The fluid was sent to the lab, and about 90 minutes later, at 6 p.m., as we were already driving home, we got the phone call with the confirmation. Yes, it was meningeal worm.

Katy will be in the intensive care unit for five days of treatment. It sounds scary. The resident said that she could have seizures, but they would be ready to handle that, if it happens. She will need massive doses of dewormer, as well as anti-inflammatory drugs, which could cause ulcers, but they know that and will treat accordingly. Oscar is staying with her so that he can continue to nurse as much as possible -- and also keep her stress level down.

Oscar actually continued to be a challenge after we got into the clinic and they began examining Katy. He was jumping up and down a lot, even when he was allowed to be right next to his mama's face. First they tried putting a blindfold on him, as that generally helps llamas to calm down, but it didn't work with little Oscar. So, they then asked if it was okay to give him a mild sedative because they were worried that he might hurt himself or Katy by jumping on her head or neck. I agreed, and the sedative did certainly calm him down for about half an hour. He laid down with his head next to his mama's and seemed very content. Even when he became more alert again half an hour later, he remained calm.

Meet the meningeal worm ...

The meningeal worm infects the spinal cord and brain of llamas, which is why it can be so devastating, and you can't just give them a dose of dewormer at home like you could if they simply had an intestinal parasite. Although some people give their llamas a dewormer every month in an attempt to avoid a meningeal worm infection, it is highly controversial. Although you might avoid a meningeal worm infection, you will wind up with intestinal parasites that are resistant to dewormers that are being used so frequently, and intestinal parasites can kill llamas too, especially if they are resistant to the dewormers.

As for how the llama got the meningeal worms -- we can blame the white-tail deer, which frequently visit our farm. They are the normal host for the meningeal worm. They poop out the eggs, which are then ingested by slugs and snails, and then llamas accidentally ingest the slugs or snails when eating grass. Some researchers say that they don't even have to ingest the actual slug or snail; they think that the eggs may be in the slime trail left by slugs and snails. Although goats can also get infected by meningeal worm, it is far less common than llamas and alpacas.

Today ...

The resident in charge of Katy and Oscar called me a few minutes ago with an update. She said that Katy's condition has actually worsened. The paralysis, which was mostly evident in her hind legs and right side yesterday is growing. Her front legs are becoming less responsive, as well as her tail. The resident said that it may still be reversible though, and she asked for the OK to increase the anti-inflammatory drugs. As the worms die in her spinal column, they may be causing increased inflammation, which is what has caused the paralysis to spread ... at least that's the theory.

Although Katy appears to still be making milk, and Oscar has been helping himself as much as possible, they are concerned that he isn't getting enough, so she also asked for permission to begin giving him a bottle with goat milk. Of course, I said yes. In addition to making sure that the little guy doesn't go hungry, I also like the idea of them teaching him to take a bottle, rather than me, in case Katy doesn't make it. I know how hard it is to switch a goat from mama to a bottle, so I can't even imagine what it will be like with a cria that is probably 60 or 70 pounds!

Now, we just wait, hope, and pray.

Another baby llama!

Mike really scared the daylights out of me on Monday! I heard him calling my name from outside, which usually means that someone is injured or dead, so I went running to the window, screaming, "What's wrong?" And then he said, "Sitara had her cria!"

Oh, happy day! I didn't slow down at all as I was pulling on my shoes, but I did take a second to run back to my desk and grab my camera.

We are pretty sure it's a girl, but it isn't as friendly as the little dude that was born a couple of weeks ago, so we haven't actually been able to catch her. However, unlike him, she keeps her tail up a lot, and we have gotten close enough that we feel fairly confident that it looks like a girl.

I was so excited when I snapped the picture of Sitara giving her baby a hug. Okay, maybe she was just sniffing her to make sure I hadn't switched crias on her, but it looks like she's giving her a hug!

I wanted to get a picture of the other cria next to her so you could see how much he's grown, but this was the best I managed. He does look like a big boy compared to her, and I know a couple of weeks ago, I thought he looked so small and scrawny.

We are so excited to have two, beautiful baby llamas to add to the farm.

Llama drama

We had the annual llama spa day a week ago Sunday, and as usual, the llamas were not impressed. I took pictures and was all set to tell you about how easy it was this year. There was absolutely no drama by anyone, including Sitara, who decided to stage a sit-down strike last year. She sat and sat and sat through her whole shearing and even as the shearers packed up their things and left. Finally that evening she decided to stand up again, and we could see the funny fringe of hair she still had under her chest, which was unreachable by the shearers since she was kushed (llama lingo for laying down).

The biggest excitement of llama shearing day this year -- oops, I mean llama spa day -- was that we noticed some mammary development on Katy, and that can only mean one thing .... a baby llama is coming soon!

When I was in town on Wednesday, I got a text photo with a picture of a little brown baby llama! I happened to be sitting in the waiting room at the chiropractor at the moment and like any proud grandma, I had to show off the picture to everyone.

But the next day I went outside and took a few more photos, as well as a video of the new little darling. But of course, nothing ever happens without any drama around here, and when I first went out to the pasture the morning after he was born, I thought he was already dead because right next to his mama I saw what looked like a pile of brown fluff. I couldn't even make out heads or tails from across the pasture. I'm trying not to be paranoid, but after all the death we've dealt with lately, it is hard to stay positive. As I moved across the pasture and got closer, I suppose he heard me coming with his big ol' ears, and up popped his head. Yes, I was relieved!

I should add that I didn't know that he was a he at that moment, and it was quite a challenge to figure it out by looking from a distance. He is a fuzzy little thing. Since I've never been able to catch young llamas by myself -- they are not very friendly -- I asked Mike to help me. As soon as Mike picked up the little guy, I felt under the belly, and yup, it's a boy.

We actually have no preference for boys or girls when it comes to baby llamas because they're just going to grow up and become guardians for our goats and sheep. Actually it's probably better if it's a boy because we can get him gelded (that's llama lingo for castrated), and then we don't have to worry about any accidental breeding.  If we have a female, things could get a little tricky as the only intact male on the place would be her daddy.

After Mike put the little dude down, he just stood there, so I decided to pet him, and he still just stood there looking at me with such curiosity. He let me continue to pet him until his mama got several feet away, and then he took off after her. New daily chore: pet baby llama so that he stays this sweet!

And here is the short little video I took. Can you tell I'm excited? But he needs a name, and I've never been great at coming up with names, so I need help! Mama's name is Katydid, and daddy is Dolce & Gabbana. He is all brown with a blackish-brown head, and his future career path is that of a livestock guardian. Ideas? Suggestions?

What a day!

I can't remember the last time I came inside and blogged about my day, but this was a day that won't be forgotten soon. We have an apprentice staying with us who is learning about goat birthing, and just as we were about to go outside this morning to milk the new moms -- because their babies are not nursing evenly on both sides -- I heard Sherri yell over the monitor. She was at day 148, and I was expecting her to give birth today because her udder was getting quite big when I saw it last night. So, instead of going to see the new moms, we went into the kidding barn to see Sherri.

She was pushing every now and then, and after about thirty minutes, I heard the phone ring in the barn office. It was a neighbor telling me that a llama was in her yard. Our apprentice had already seen two textbook births, and I'd explained a little to her about dealing with complications, but I said, "This is Sherri. She's had nine years of completely uneventful births. Usually when I hear a sound over the baby monitor, I come running out here to find a kid already born, so she knows what to do. You just have to wipe off the nose and put the kid in front of her face."

I called a friend and asked if someone could come over to help with catching the llama, so she and her teenage son headed over. It started to rain again, and I said, "What else could go wrong?" I realized my cell phone was dead, so we gave my friend's cell phone number to the apprentice ... just in case.

We headed out to find lady llama. We went over the river and through the woods and everywhere else, and we couldn't find the llama. After about half an hour, my friend's phone rang. The apprentice said, "A head is out, but there are no feet." I told her not to worry, we'd head back because we hadn't found the llama anyway. We were almost home when my friend got a text that said, "Kid out!" So, I turned the car around again, and we headed back to search for the llama some more. Then we got another text that said, "Buck doe twins." Finally, I headed home because I had a radio interview scheduled for 11 a.m. to talk about Ecothrifty, my latest book.

When we got home, I went into the barn to check on the kids, which were huge! Later I weighed them and found that the buck was 4.9 pounds, and the doe was 4.5 pounds, which is really big for Nigerian dwarf kids. I'm happy with 2.5 to 3 pound kids, and I'm pretty sure the does would agree with me on that one!

My friends left, and I came inside, waiting for the phone to ring at 11:00. It didn't ring, so I called the back-up number, and got a recording saying it was disconnected. Just as I started to panic, I got an email from my publicist asking if I was ready for my noon interview! Ah! The confirmation email was wrong; is said 12 eastern time.  I'm in the central time zone. An hour later, I did the interview and then decided we should head out to look for lady llama again. Turns out she was easy to find. She was in our pasture! Maybe I should have looked there earlier? I don't know. Maybe there is a place in the fence that was damaged by the storm, and she can now come and go as she pleases. Or maybe it was someone else's llama that was seen? People tend to assume any animals around here are always ours because there are not that many livestock owners in our area.

The deadline for my next book is tomorrow, so I'm hoping to have more time for blogging after that. I still need to tell you about the other births we've had so far and show you the cute pictures of the kids. We are up to 11 kids so far this year, and more are due in February.

Camelid spa day

It really doesn't matter how you explain it to them, llamas do not enjoy their annual grooming, which includes mani-pedis, haircuts, deworming, and booster vaccines. And they seem to dislike the mani-pedis and haircuts the most. Before shearing, however, they have to have the dust blown out of their hair, partly because it is the first step in cleaning the fiber, but also because clipper blades will last longer if they're not cutting through dirt.

So, here is Dolce having his fiber blown out. He is our only intact male, and he was so good this year that we were all wondering if he was sick or something. He didn't object to anything. Tuscany, however, was a different story. He is our smallest gelding, and he was not happy with any of it -- not even being put into a stall in the barn. In fact, he jumped right over the door the second we turned our backs on him. He kept throwing fits the whole time he was being sheared, shaking the chute that he was in and giving me flashbacks of the year when Dolce tried to tear it down.

But the real challenge of the day came when we tried to shear Sitara. It was easy to get her into the barn -- we lured her in with grain -- but as soon as she was haltered, she refused to move. She laid down in the stall, so we moved on to another llama. Finally, only Sitara was left. Somehow the shearer finally got her out of the stall and outside for blowing out her coat, but as soon as they were heading back into the barn, she decided to plop down right there in the middle of the barn, and she refused to move. She just laid there like a diva, and the shearer got to work. They rolled her from side to side while she made a noise similar to a mountain lion. Finally, they finished up shearing, cleaned up everything, and left. And Sitara just sat.

And sat.

And we wondered if she'd dehydrate and die. After all, it was really hot. We put a bucket of water on the ground for her, closed the door, and left the barn.

An hour later she was still sitting. Two hours later. Three hours later. Finally, almost four hours after the shearers left, she stood up. Katherine happened to see her standing in the barn, so she took the end of the lead rope and led her out to the pasture.

Decision time

Life on the homestead has been fairly quiet lately, although still quite busy. This time of year is always busy. The chaos is in my head though!

Katherine, who was only 9 years old when we moved out here, will be transferring to the University of Illinois as a junior in August. That means big changes on the farm! When people used to say that it takes a lot of work to do what we do, I'd respond, "No, not really. It's only about 30 to 45 minutes of chores in the morning and evening for each of us." I never stopped to do the math until two years ago when Jonathan and Katherine were both gone to the local junior college on Tuesday and Thursdays, and I was home alone to do everything. Multiply 30 or 45 minutes by 5, and I was doing two to three hours of chores every morning and evening, and YES, that IS a lot of work! So for the past two years, I've been telling myself that we needed to cut back, but I could never figure out where to cut.

Right off the bat, I'll say that I will always have chickens and goats. I cannot live without my fresh eggs and dairy. However, we could probably cut back on the goats. We don't need 18 goats in milk, and I certainly don't want to be milking 18 goats every single day come August. Choosing which goats to sell, however, is a challenge. I keep making lists, looking at ages, comparing milking records, and checking pedigrees to make sure I still have a wide genetic base for future breeding.

Eliminating the cows a couple years ago would have been somewhat easier than it is now that I've tasted the amazing grassfed beef that they produce. I have mostly given up on the idea of using them for dairy, but the beef is something really special that I would not be able to buy anywhere.

As much as I love the guinea hogs, I'm not happy about the idea of feeding them over the winter. They are the most amazing homestead hog during the growing season because they eat everything. They love grass and whatever fallen fruit and imperfect vegetables that come from the garden, but during the winter, we are mostly stuck with feeding them grain and hay, which I don't really like doing. Because we haven't butchered any of them yet, I don't really want to make a decision on whether or not to keep them. This fall we'll butcher the August 2011 pigs, as well as those from March, and then I'll make a decision on whether or not to continue raising them.

Then there are the sheep. I love the wool, but in all honesty, I probably have enough to last me the rest of my life. And I don't really need it. The lamb is tasty, but we have so much other meat. I can't think of any really great reasons to keep the sheep. Majik and White Feather are ten years old, so I don't want to send them off to a new farm. But I think I should probably sell the others. Then I could turn the sheep pastures into the retired goat and sheep pastures, and my old milk does could hang out with the two sheep and enjoy their golden years together.

When I asked Mike what animals he would sell first he immediately said the llamas, which surprised me. They are barely on my radar screen as they do not need much personal attention, but I suppose we should be considering everyone.

So, there you have it. I can't believe this is so difficult. I don't want my life to be completely consumed by farm chores when the fall semester begins, but at the same time, all of these animals feel like a part of my extended family. I knew my children would not live here forever, but the reality of them leaving never really sunk into my brain until now. I suppose I need to sell some sheep. It's not much, but it is a step in the right direction.

Llama shearing

Sorry I haven't posted in a week! The good news is that the garden is really shaping up, and we're making cheese daily. Our summer apprentice arrived on Monday, and it has been a lot of work helping him around the farm. We always spend a lot of time explaining things in the beginning, which is why we won't let people come out for a day to "help" anymore. We realized we got very little done on those days.

Yesterday was llama shearing day, which happens once a year. We did it later than usual this year because the cold weather kept coming back until about a month ago. Everyone was very well behaved, except for Merlin, who always spits. He actually spit less this year than he did a couple years ago.

These are the lady llamas relaxing before their spa day . . .

The llamas are put in a chute so they can't freak out and trample anyone. This is Sitara ready for shearing . . .

This is Tuscany before shearing . . .

And this is Tuscany and Dolce after shearing. I don't think I will ever get accustomed to how much smaller they are after shearing.

 Now the work begins for us as we have to wash the fiber and get it ready for carding and spinning.

How many animals?

I get this question all the time, but for whatever reason, it never occurred to me to blog about it. So, here goes . . . As of today, this is how many animals we have, but remember, lots of babies are coming this spring!

Nigerian dwarf goats: 8 bucks, 21 does, and only 2 kids at the moment, but that will be changing in a couple weeks!

La mancha goats: 2 does who will be looking for a pet home this spring if they don't have kids.

Cheyenne, a Shetland ewe

Shetland sheep: 1 ram, 3 wethers, 9 ewes

Julia Child, our first guinea hog gilt

American guinea hogs: 1 gilt, 1 boar

Katy and Dolce

Llamas: 4 males, 2 females

Jaxon and the heifers play ring-around-the-roses

Irish dexter cattle: 2 heifers, 1 bull (two calves coming in early March!)

Chickens: They're hard to count, because they don't stop moving, but it's about 40 New Hampshire hens, 3 N.H. roosters, 25 Ameraucanas, and half a dozen mutts.

Turkeys: 2 gobblers (one slate, one black Spanish), 1 bourbon red hen, 4 slate hens.

Geese: 9

Ducks: 3

Horse: 1

Chicken house in winter

Photos were from the archives as our world is currently covered in snow. It sure is fun looking through all these photos when it's 6 degrees outside.

What a week!

Last week was one of constant ups and downs, frustrations and celebrations. The microwave and heat both went out on Wednesday. Then a neighbor called to tell me that two of the llamas were in the field across the road. Friday afternoon I headed off to Minnesota and Wisconsin to pick up a couple of new animals. I have soap orders piling up, and I still don't know when I'm going to make more soap, but it should have been a couple days ago. My arthritis has been acting up, and I couldn't find time to get to either the chiropractor or the massage therapist, so my TENS unit has been keeping me functioning. I need to find the Time Store to see if I can buy an extra day or two, because everything is simply not fitting into the seven I've been allotted each week.

But I'm not complaining. It is all working out. The llamas ran right to me when I went out there, and they followed me home. Mike was able to fix the heat, and I decided that I shouldn't have a microwave anyway. Jonathan and I drove to Minnesota and brought home a new ram for our flock of Shetland sheep, and in Wisconsin, we picked up a gilt -- young female pig -- to start our breeding program with American Guinea Hogs, a critically endangered breed of swine.

The fall garden survived 18 degrees, so we're still enjoying fresh salads. We're using row covers and low tunnels. Over the next few days, I'm hoping to get up photos of the new ram and gilt, as well as the garden. I think the coyotes are also back, worse than ever, but I'm hoping that I'm wrong on that one. Sovalye the livestock guardian dog and Merlin the llama are both limping, and one of the sheep is missing. And I have a new project that I'm working on, which I'll also tell you about in a few days.

A bittersweet ending? Tune in next spring

Several people asked if I had any idea why Little Man died, and the problem is that I have a lot of ideas. Unfortunately I don't know which one is correct, or if the answer is something I never considered. I decided not to get a necropsy, because they don't seem to be conclusive very often, and most of my theories are things that could not have been avoided.

Little Man and Katherine

I took him out of the pasture with Big Mama when Katy had her cria last month, because I realized that he could get Katy pregnant. After he'd been in the barn about a week, I realized that he hadn't created a dung pile, but being new to llamas, I thought maybe a yearling wouldn't start one on his own. After all, he had to be pooping, right? The poop must have just been falling through the straw like it does for goats and sheep, and I did see a few pebbles on top of the straw. Someone posted on Facebook, in response to my post, that they had a couple llamas die of stomach torsion, which got me to thinking about whether that could have been the problem. I tried searching online but couldn't find anything on the topic.

I wondered if he was depressed about being taken away from his mother, but it had been a month. He would stick his head of out the window and talk to her, and I'd put him in the front yard, where he could also see her and talk to her across the fence.

I wondered if it was parasites, but he's been off the goat pasture for a month, and the other llamas and goats that are still on that pasture are fine.

I wondered if there was just something wrong with him. I don't think he has grown at all since he arrived here in March. We've been putting his halter on exactly the same notch for six months, and he was nine months old when he arrived, so he should have outgrown his cria halter by now. The people who sheared him were very surprised he was still so small at a year. He was less than five feet tall, which was probably one of the things I found so endearing. He was my little buddy, my Little Man.

Someone said that we'll always have a part of him in Big Mama, and it occurred to me yesterday that she may be more correct than she ever intended. I was told that Little Man was gelded when we got him, so I didn't see any problem with leaving him with his mother. At some point, in the middle of the summer, he was in the front yard walking away from me, and when he flicked his tail to the side, I happened to notice something that looked an awful lot like testicles. No, he wasn't gelded. That could explain why Big Mama spit-off Dolce when I introduced them for breeding.

Big Mama was not supposed to be bred when she arrived here, but she wouldn't let my male touch her. That was in June, and she'd been running with Little Man since arriving here in March, so she could have been a month or two pregnant when I introduced her to Dolce. We won't know until next spring, but I have to admit it's tempting to put her in a trailer and haul her down to U of I for an ultrasound. Patience is not my strongest virtue, but I'm trying to learn.

Second chances

 Little Man in front of his mother

One of the toughest things about homesteading is that you rarely get second chances. Usually, by the time you realize you've made a mistake, it's too late. This morning was one of those days. I was worried about Little Man, my yearling llama, last night, because I realized he never ate his feed from the night before. He was walking around, however, and looked fine. It seemed reasonable to wait until this morning and then call the U of I vet clinic if he still was not eating. But that turned out to be a mistake.

When I walked into the barn this morning with my milk bucket, I thought I heard him whimper, the way he does when he sees his mother across the pasture. It sounded very weak, so I ran towards his end of the barn. When I saw him laying in the straw with his head twisted around his back and his eyes open, I thought his condition had deteriorated overnight. But as soon as I touched him, I realized he'd been dead for quite some time as he was already cold, and rigor mortise had set in.

I wanted to run back to the house and tell someone, to yell at someone, but there was no one here. I wanted to complain that it wasn't fair. He wasn't supposed to die overnight. I wanted a second chance. But even if there had been someone to listen to me, there was no one who could give me -- who could give Little Man -- a second chance.

Whatever happened to . . . ?

Following my last post, someone asked about Trouper and Merlot, and I realized that there are probably a lot of stories with loose ends. So, to catch up --

Merlot is the gorgeous Shagya Arabian gelding whose owner deserted him here. He was supposed to be a pasture mate for Katherine's horse, but when Buddy died and I called Merlot's owner to tell her he was alone, she said she didn't want him any longer, "and if you're going to desert him, you can just put him down." Well, I wasn't going to do that, so Merlot is still here. He had lost some weight over the winter, but he is in great shape now. I can't even find his ribs. He has a bad case of arthritis in one of his hocks, which he's had forever, but otherwise he's doing great.

Midknight is the other horse that was here, and when I told his owner that Midknight could no longer stay here, he sold him. We thought the buyers might also take Merlot, but they decided against it.

Trouper was the dog that someone dumped on our road. He was pit bull, and he was injured badly. The pit bull rescues were full, and the mixed breed rescues wouldn't take him because they said some cities banned ownership of pit bulls, which created a variety of problems for them. He had a broken pelvis, which caused him to be incontinent, and without surgery that would have cost a few thousand dollars, there was really no hope that he would regain bladder control. As he began to get around better, he started chasing chickens, and he killed two geese. Then he and our livestock guardian had issues. I was able to break up the first fight myself. It took three of us to break up the second fight. After the third fight, Trouper was so badly injured it would have meant more vet bills, which we simply couldn't afford, especially for a dog that had so many things going against him, so we made the very hard decision to put him down. We still miss him, and I'm certain that there will be more pit bulls in my future, because he was a very sweet dog who simply had too many strikes against him.

Sterling the llama was having dental issues last winter, and they seem to have somehow resolved themselves. I'm wondering if the abscessed tooth fell out? Everything I learned about abscessed teeth in llamas sounded dreadful, and I'm glad that it cleared up without having to have a hole drilled through the bottom of his jaw, which is what they recommended at the U of I vet clinic.

The baby llama is a month old now, and we decided to name him Lance for two reasons. It looks like he's wearing biker shorts, so there's Lance Armstrong, and since he's going to be a guardian, naming him after Lancelot seemed like a good idea. I'm sorry I don't remember if it was a blog reader or a Facebook fan that came up with the name, but I love it! After I told a farm guest the baby's name one day, she thought it also worked because knights used lances!

If there's anything else that I need to update, just let me know!