Fencing

We've been busy lately. As the days are getting cooler, we're reminded that winter is just around the corner, and we still have work to do before we're hibernating.

Yesterday, Mike and I put up a new woven wire fence along the east side of the near pasture. There was an electric fence there when we moved here, but it was woefully inadequte for goats. We moved the original three wires closer together and added three more wire, thinking that would do the trick. That worked for a few years, but then the naughty goats were born. I guess I can't blame them entirely. I don't think it's a coincidence that they were bottle-fed and spent many days in our house and in our yard. They know the world doesn't end at that fence. So, for the past two years, those little girls have been going through the electric fence as if it were merely a tickle. After all, it was worth it when there were delicious weeds and apple tree bark on the other side. If you've been reading for a while, you know that they killed four apple trees last winter by stripping the bark from them.

So, yesterday we put woven wire between the pasture and the yard. Knowing that Lizzie also is a jumper -- our first -- we made the electric fence higher on the south side, and we added ground wires, so if she touches them in mid-air, she will still be shocked. One must be grounded to be shocked, so if she touched the wires while her feet were in the air, she wouldn't be shocked at all. After working all morning to upgrade the fencing, Katherine arrived home from church to burst our bubble. "What did you do to the fence between the near and middle pasture?" As the word, "Nothing" came from our lips, we knew our work was in vain. Lizzie and Shirley are really too smart for their own good. They will realize quickly that they can go into the middle pasture then go through the south fence to freedom. So, all we've really done is made their trip to the apple trees a minute longer.

Predator update

We haven't lost any more lambs. (knock on wood) After five nights of us sitting in the pasture all night, waiting for a coyote to show up, we finally decided that our presence is keeping them away. For the past two nights, we've had a tent out there with someone just sleeping.

The dog has barked less in this past week than in any single night in the past year. Once or twice a night, he'll make a soft little bark and trot towards the fence, but that's it. We don't even hear him in the house. Last night, we were having dinner at sunset, and he suddenly started barking viciously. Mike and Katherine both ran for the pasture. The dog was barking fiercely at the fence towards the woods, but after the humans arrived, his barking subsided and then stopped. We know from experience that he would not stop barking just because we were there, so the threat must have moved on.

I wish the news were as good for the ducks. We are down to seven -- we had 14. Yesterday morning at 6:15, we heard a duck wildly quacking, but by the time Mike got to the window, he didn't see any sign of the quacking duck or a predator. The quacking had stopped, and he counted only seven ducks. There had been eight the night before. With the ducks being completely free range, I'm afraid there is not an easy answer to keeping them safe.

Night shift

Someone pointed out that we are probably dealing with a pack of coyotes, which explains why our dog can't handle the situation. He is chasing some of them while one grabs a lamb. Regardless of how many are out there, we are spending the night in the pasture now. My shift is 8 to midnight. My oldest daughter does midnight to 5 a.m., and my youngest daughter is there from 5 to 8 a.m. I think our presence is probably enough to deter them, since coyotes are shy animals and don't like humans. We do hear them sometimes, but they aren't getting very close.

It's time for my shift now. Gotta run!

Desperation

The total lamb loss is now six, leaving us with only four lambs, including Princess, who is living in the barn. This evening, we tried to catch the lambs, so we could put the rest of them in the barn, but that was more ridiculous than I'd anticipated. Finally, we decided that my oldest daughter would sit outside all night with a gun. Mike has to teach in the morning, so he needs his sleep. Before you think this sounds too "old west," I'll add that she'll keep herself awake by watching her video iPod. She just received it in the mail a couple days ago, and she's already downloaded two movies, two episodes of M*A*S*H, and an episode of The Simpsons.

The livestock guardian dog was out there last night, so I'm not sure how the last lamb was taken, other than to assume that the LGD was in the wrong pasture. He can go between two pastures, and for some reason unbeknownst to us humans, he doesn't like the pasture where the sheep are currently grazing. Still, each pasture is no more than two acres, and he should have certainly known what was happening so close. We're terribly disappointed in him.

Predator problem

We lost two more lambs, so two days ago, we decided to put the livestock guardian dog, Sovalye, into the pasture with the sheep. We've never been able to put him in there before, because he and one of the rams would get into a fight instantly. That ram became dog food this year after almost breaking my hand and destroying every fencepost, fence, and gate that he encountered. The idea of putting the dog with the sheep was something that I had not considered before, but then I noticed some of the sheep were getting into the goat pasture when the fence stopped working, and Sovalye was ignoring them. So, two days ago, I took him into the pasture with the sheep. I had him on lead and first walked him around the perimeter, then walked him up to the sheep. Neither he nor the sheep seemed particularly interested in each other, so I took off the lead. Sovalye laid down and closed his eyes!

He's been in there two night now, and we've lost no more lambs. We have, however, lost ducks. We got baby Cayuga ducks in July to replace the ducks we lost to predators this spring. Now we're down to only 12 ducks of the 15 we had. Tonight we are going to see if it's possible to get them into the chicken coop. I certainly hope so, because I'm sick of losing my babies!

Sunny skies

The bad weather finally seems to be behind us. In addition to no rain the past two days, we've also had very pleasant temperatures. Unfortunately, we've lost a second lamb. I find it hard to believe that a lamb would wander into flood waters and wonder if a coyote got the two lambs that disappeared. The side effect of flooding is that the electric fencing does not work. I know the electric fence stops coyotes because we've seen coyote tracks in the snow heading up to the fence, then there is a "mess" of snow, which the coyote probably scattered when he got shocked by the fence, and there are footprints going away. In addition to getting shorted out, the fences also catch lots of debris, like grass and limbs. Mike spent a few hours yesterday cleaning them up, re-attaching the wires, and weed wacking the grasses under the wires, so hopefully we won't lose any more lambs.

Goats in the news

I've been seeing more and more articles about goats being used to eat brush and weeds. Here is another one:
Goats enrolled to solve UW maintenance problem

And another flood

The flood waters finally receded yesterday following two days of rain. Tonight, the rain started again. Within less than two hours, the patio -- now called "the mote" -- was flooded again. We have cinder blocks lined up across it so we could get from the house to the driveway without wading through water, and the water is now less than an inch from the top of the blocks, meaning that we had about six inches in less than two hours.

As soon as Katherine noticed the patio was flooded, I realized this meant the middle pasture was probably flooded again. The ewe lamb that was lost on Monday has not been found, and not wanting to lose another lamb or sheep, I sent Katherine to make sure that the sheep were all on top of the hill, rather than at the bottom of the hill where they would get cut off from dry land as the waters rise. We couldn't find a working flashlight, so she went without. It took a while for her to return because she had to wait for the lightening strikes to illuminate the pasture to be able to count the sheep. I had insisted that if she spotted trouble, she was to immediately return to the house so we could come up with plan to deal with the situation. Katherine is infamous for handling things on her own -- even if it is dangerous -- and the last thing I wanted was her swimming in flood waters again. When she finally returned, she said that all the sheep were accounted for, so we shall hope that they all stay at the top of the hill.

Nevertheless, it is going to be a long night. I usually fall asleep easily enough, because I'm exhausted by the end of the day, but when a loud thunderclap wakens me, I'll probably lie awake in bed for a few hours before I fall back asleep. It's just what I do. Margaret has pointed out the fact that it is completely worthless for me to lose sleep worrying every time it rains, but I can't seem to NOT worry when it's pouring outside, especially when I know it's going to flood. This is the first time we've lost an animal in a flood, but I'm afraid it won't be the last. The forecast is calling for another 24 hours of thunderstorms.

Pigs, lambs, canning, and another flood

Life on the farm has been so busy the past couple weeks that there hasn't been time to do anything extra -- like writing in my blog. In fact, it's been so busy that we are not even getting everything done around here. There simply are not enough hours in a day. We have been harvesting vegetables from the garden, canning and pickling green beans and wax beans, freezing shredded zucchini, and freezing beans.

We got four new pigs a week ago. They are all boars. We moved the two older boars to another pen. They were approaching puberty, and it's too early for the gilts to be bred, so we separated them. That was an interesting experience. We were able to coax them outside the walnut grove with a pan of grain, but then moving them 100 yards proved to be more difficult than we'd hoped. Of course, by now, we always imagine that moving animals will be a challenge, but we hope we're wrong. We decided to see if Porter, the four-month-old English shepherd could be of help, and he certainly gave it his best shot. He does have amazing herding instincts. he would get the two of them about 1/4 of the way, the one would break away and run back to the fence where the gilts were. After about 15 minutes, we decided to stop, because he is a puppy, and they are not supposed to work that long, plus it was obvious he was tired, whether he wanted to admit it or not. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth, and he was panting hard. Still, he refused to stop trying, so Margaret had to hold him.

Mike picked up the pigs, which are close to 100 pounds now and carried them to their new pen. Of course, they squealed like they were being tortured -- why do pigs do that! And one of them was so upset he peed on Mike. Now I know where that disgusting pig-farm smell comes from. When pigs are not on pasture, the pee has nowhere to go and just sits there and stinks -- which is why pigs need plenty of space.

We've had more lambs, and we've lost one. We had a two-day flood that ended yesterday. As usual, the Shetlands were out grazing in a high spot that got surrounded by water. Katherine was able to get them to move across it to dry land, and everyone was accounted for at that time. But then later in the day, she went out there, and one of the ewes was screaming her head off. Her lamb was nowhere to be found and still has not shown up. We are assuming that she got caught up in the flood waters. It was thigh deep on Jonathan, who is 5'10" tall, and the current was swift, so it could have easily picked up a young Shetland lamb.

Princess is now living in the barn and hating it. She has become too active to live in the house. She runs around everywhere and pees everywhere and nibbles on everything, including power cords. When we are outside, she follows us around like a puppy. She is our shadow, regardless of which two-legger is out there. She clearly identifies with humans as "her" kind. I've taken her to the sheep pasture several times, and she is clueless. The first time I took her out there was four days after we brought her in the house, and her mother still recognized her. She called to her and came up to her. It looked like she was telling her welcome back -- "Let's go honey." But Princess had no idea that that was her mother. She stuck to me like glue. I've taken her out there several times since then, and Pocahontas still looks at her -- stares at her -- but she's stopped talking to her. She comes up sometimes and sniffs her, but it looks like she's given up. If a sheep can look at another being longingly, she is. It's really sad. One day I sat out there with her for an hour, hoping she would start playing with the other lambs, but she didn't. When one lamb came up and sniffed her, she jumped away. I was happy that by the end of the hour, she walked up to another lamb and sniffed him. Progress!

There is still so much to do before winter. Hay is scarce this year, so we need to get more pasture fenced for the sheep. We have more than enough pasture to support all of our animals over the course of a year, but without proper fencing, all that land is worthless.

Poodle sheep?

When I say that we shaved the lamb's back end, I mean we shaved the lamb's back end! We wanted to make sure we exposed all the maggots. Now we realize that Princess looks like a poodle, rather than a sheep.

No more new lambs, but this is Minerva's ram lamb that was born Saturday afternoon. She gave birth to him in the same dusty spot that Princess's mom lambed, and he got a bath from me! I wanted to give Princess and her sister a bath, but I was worried that Pocahontas would reject them because they might smell differently. After spending hours picking maggots out of Princess's back end, however, I realized that it would be no big deal at all to have a mom reject a baby. In that case I would just have to bottle feed the lamb. I took a bucket of warm water out there and rinsed him as well as I could, then I used the towel to continue cleaning him. I figured that as long as I didn't use anything with a scent, there shouldn't be a problem. And today, mom and lamb are still doing great!

Porter is still being hyper-attentive to Princess. The poor lamb can't go potty without his undivided attention. I thought I had finally succeeded in convincing him that he didn't need to clean her bottom as she was peeing, but then he started licking the grass after she walked away!

Today I was doing some school work on the bed in the guest room, and when Princess joined me, I just had to get the camera. She is just too cute! I think I might just be worse than a new mom!