I felt there was hope yesterday. She wolfed down her porridge and was accepting of the syringes of water, downing a good 16 ounces, warm and with a little honey. She did not greet me this morning and I felt immediately a heaviness in my heart, but she was not gone. I put a good layer of fresh straw for bedding and moved her onto it. She was a rag doll, lifeless and unresponsive. Her big head fell loose and her eyes were closed. 

She refused to eat anything at all. I got some water into her, but that was difficult and she was not interested. Pearl had given up the fight. 

I made her comfortable as I could, changing her position from as she had been overnight. She was well covered with two fleeces and even though the temperatures were close to minus 30 with the wind chill, there was warmth in her body. I feel she will not be there in the morning. 

I am so sad and heart broken. There was nothing more I could do. The rest is up to her. 

If one is going to keep livestock, at some point, they will get sick. When I first started farming, I, of course, wanted to ensure every animal under my care was healthy and if, for any reason, became ill, I would do everything to reinstate its health. This is a very poor farming decision, unless, one has copious amounts of money to dispose of. 

The first animal to become very ill was a purebred Cotswold ram. I called the vet, who came out that afternoon, and determined he had an infection of something somewhere and prescribed Amprol, an antibiotic. A blood sample was taken and sent to the lab, and sure enough, came back with the infection diagnosis. I drove in to pick up the Amprol and administered it as indicated and the ram nearly died within two days. I remember holding his big head up and telling him though raspy breath and amidst tears falling, that he had to make it. I stopped the Amprol and he began to recover, though slowly and he never gained condition, eventually dying within the year. The ram coast $450 and the treatment cost $1200 and a bit. That is why veterinary care for him was not an good economic decision. Still, I had to try, but I also learned that sometimes, doing all I can had to be enough. 

This winter I have had some problems. It is hard to determine exactly what they are, because each animal has different symptoms, though they all result in very poor health. One goat has become resistant to worm medications, is anemic and unthrifty. She is 7 years old, as well, which is not terribly old for a goat, but for those 7 years, she has given me 25 kids. Her body is spent and she is not able to support any poor health. Again, I am trying. I have visited the vet on her behalf several times and finally came away with Flukiver, a newer worm medicine, at the cost of $250. plus a bottle of Newcells, which is a blood support vitamin mix that must be injected for 5 days. when signs of anemia are present.

I have two ram lambs, twins, that have never been healthy since birth. They are hardly any bigger than they were at weaning, not having grown at all. Both went down, unable to stand, about 2 weeks apart. I dewormed them again and used the Newcells for 5 days. Even after the 5th day, one did not have the strength to stand. I put him straddled over a bale of hay so his body would be used to the upright position and left him there for several hours. Then I gave up. I fully expected to find only a carcass the next morning, but he was nowhere to be seen, at first. He had recovered! He was with the boys, eating away. But he is extremely thin and not healthy. It takes a very long time for an emancipated body to gain health. Many I know would have not bothered and knocked the little guy on the noggin, since he will not bring any profits to the farm. 

And finally, there is Pearl, a 2012 (so 7 years old) Cotswold ewe. She is huge and beautiful, or was when she arrived last summer from another farm, though she was a little thin then, and I was immediately concerned. Over the last six months, she grew thinner even, but was not isolating herself from the flock and when I used the Famacha system to check her state of anemia, she appeared OK. But, that whole group of 4 beautiful Cotswolds were problematic. 

Those Cotswolds did not know how to forage and stayed in their pen primarily, not going out to look for food with the rest of the flock. Since I do not feed ruminants grain on the farm, they were somewhat hungry. I thought this would encourage them to go out with the flock, however; they ate the grass sprouting in the dry lot where they came in at night. This is a terrible thing, because, the parasites are shed in the feces and crawl up the grass to the tips, in turn wanting to be ingested by some wary host, which in this case, was the sheep. I began to lock them out of the night pen forcing them to go out to pasture with the others, but they did not stop eating the bits they could find in the pen, where they far preferred to stay. My own sheep have instincts which prevent them from doing that. They know better and will not eat grass in the dry lot.  I learned that in some cases with older animals, they cannot be retrained, even when it comes to their survival. They did not have the instincts preserved that my native sheep do, because they had been brought food or spent time in small areas with food for their entire lives. I would not welcome older animals to the farm again, UNLESS they thrived in a forage based pasture system on previous farms. 

So, three days ago, while doing morning rounds, I heard a forlorn baaing and sure enough Pearl was down. Now Pearl weighs a good 150 to 180 pounds and I cannot lift her. It was very difficult to even drag her, but she had gone down at the feeder and was being tromped on, so  she needed relocation as soon as possible. I dragged her down the fence line to a safer place and propper her up against a straw bale. She could not hold her head up and had no interest in food or water. She was anemic, but not terribly so, just very thin. I dewormed her and started her on the Newcells to begin to build blood. She would not eat or drink. 

The next day I fully expected to find a dead sheep, but she was still alive. I tried to force feed her a mash of wild raspberry leaves, wild mint, rolled oats, honey and a bit of apple and yogurt. She would not eat, so I put honey in warm water and carefully syringed it down her throat, being careful that she would not aspirate and choke. She got two more litres of honey water that day and a shot of Newcells. 

Yesterday, I made up her mash and force fed her, but in the evening, she willfully munched, even though she could not hold her head up. She got her honey water and then I covered her with two fleeces for the night, because it was getting cold and had become very windy. I certainly did not want her to use her energy to keep warm, but to get some gumption into her muscles. 

This morning she quickly ate her mash with relish,well not pickle relish, but with gusto. Instead of wild raspberry leaves, I added dried Uva Ursi, but the apple and honey was there too. She was able to drink from a bowl instead of having the water syringed in, but I had to hold her big beautiful head up. She also greeted me with a soft baa, which melted my heart. Pearl is a far cry from out of the woods though. She is not even strong enough to hold her head up, let alone move that body of hers. I will give her another shot of Newcells later at lunch time and try to get some hay into her. I will soak the hay in hot water after chopping it with scissors so it will be easier for her. When she is better, my plan is to steal cud from a healthy ewe and transplant it to her, giving her a dose of good bacteria for her rumen. She gets a little yogurt and sauerkraut , but just enough to keep the bacteria up and not to cause her to bloat. The sauerkraut is home fermented and very healthy for the gut. 

So, it is a hard winter. The vet tells me that worm resistance is her number one call for sheep and goats at this time, and the older animals, especially, are succumbing. It has been an odd winter with periods of extreme cold, followed by near zero or slightly above zero, which is hard for the animals. When it is cold they eat a lot to stay warm and since they are strictly grass fed, it means filling their feeders several times a day. Nursing these sick animals also takes a huge amount of time, but that is part of practicing husbandry. Large farms do not bother because for them, as I mentioned, there is no profit in the animals' recovery versus the time spent nursing them to health. 

Please send Pearl your kind thoughts and good intentions and prayers (if you do that) for a complete recovery. I believe that even across a globe these feelings of hope conveyed are not lost. I am envisioning Pearl in the fields this summer and will continue to do all I can for her, as I would for any animals or anyone in my care. We are all sentient beings and we need to love and nurture and do what we can. 

Namaste. Here is to Pearl!

I like to think that I have an indomitable spirit. Once when I was quite young, maybe a teen or early twenties, that was how I was described. It stuck in my memory for some reason, likely because I liked that idea. So, with that indomitable spirit, I formulated a plan, and set to work. Six hours later, I had done it! I managed to remove three huge rams and get them on the other side of the farm to their home, plus put medicine in all the sheep and a few goats, except one, Kara. 

Kara is a jerk! I am not sure why, because she was a triplet from Daphne, my best goat, and Daphne's kids are wonderful. Her twin sister, Kia, is sweet natured and curious and comes to me to get a little pat, but Kara heads for the other end of the pen, wildly screaming every time she sees me, as though her life is at stake should I come near her. She is on the sale list, though she is beautiful, an F1 (first generation cross) mini Nubian in a lovely fawn colour. She was bred to Wimpy the Second this year, a tri colour Nubian buck. The mini Nubians, except Marie, who decided she wanted to get bred by Stevie Wonder, not Wimpy and somehow got herself out of one pen and into the other, rather miraculously, are going to have 3/4 Nubian babies. I am hoping they will be hardy enough to this climate, since Nubians do struggle with the extreme cold. Anyhow, I will have to work on Kara today, plus the other goats in the other pen and the rest of the rams across the driveway pen. Not many, compared to the hundred or so I managed yesterday ALONE!

I broke the cuboid bone last week in an unusual way. It is the bone that the metatarsal attaches to and it is a hairline fracture, nothing much really, and does not require casting or even bandaging. But yesterday, a big ewe stepped on it, and after that I was walking like Festus from Gunsmoke (you will have to look that up if you are not very old). Today it is swollen and painful all over again. I was out to check on the critters this morning. Bob Cotswold had his big head stuck in the feeder, so I rescued him and other than that, the plethora of ravens eating the dog scraps, was dispersed because I picked up the raw bones and meat bits. Anyhow, that broken bone still makes me hobble around in pain, but I will definitely have to treat the goats and the rest of the rams. One untreated animal with lice can reinfect the entire farm and I do not want that! Fortunately, sheep lice do not live on humans, but they can bite humans. Gross! I only got one bite from yesterday, whew! 

Today is beautiful! It is warm and melting, the usual January thaw. It snowed last night, enough of a dusting, maybe 3 centimeters or for those who better understand inches, around an inch and a little bit. But the snow is squishy and soft. I am just finishing my second cup of coffee and will have a cup of bone broth with fat before going out. There is an inch of beef fat on the bone broth in the pot and in the cup, I would say the fat, melted of course, covers the broth. I am attempting to reset my leptin using the Keto diet. 

Speaking or resets, yesterday, after wrangling those sheep, my knees were so painful that I could only hobble. Couple that with the broken bone in my foot and I felt a hundred years old! I have been reading a lot about cold thermogenesis and healing, so I put ice packs on my knees and left them there an hour. The pain and swelling disappeared with no medication and lasted through the night. Today, there is little swelling and little pain. I think there is definitely something to the idea. Long ago I happened to catch a short documentary on open heart surgery in a remote area of Siberia where they had no medication for pain. They used ICE!. The person was put to sleep and then covered in ice until the skin temperature was a certain level and they operated and closed and continued the use of ice until the person was well enough to gain normal function, which was not long and the recovery was nothing short of miraculous. I tucked that tidbit away in my mind. There is an American doctor who is promoting ice therapy, cold thermogenesis, and used it on himself after surgery for a speedy, pain free recovery. I must say, it worked on my old knees! 

Have a wonderful cell phone free day! Ha! Imagine that! Let's see tomorrow if I manage to get the rest of the critters on the farm medicated today. Toodle doo!

What a winter it is thus far! It seems this year is a year for things to not be easy, unfortunately. First off, finding someone to help on the farm is near to impossible. One would think, with people out of work due to the crash in the oil, especially in this area, any job would be fought over, but that is not the case. For some reason, people are not hungry enough yet, and their mindset has not changed from the idea that they are worth 30 dollars an hour. All I really need are two strong people to wrangle sheep and hold them while I administer some medications. Oh, and to help remove the rams from the breeding pens, but I think I can do that. 

The sheep have lice! Of all things, lice and I have zero idea from where they have come. Only once, many years ago, have lice been present on the farm. Then there were few animals and it was an easy fix to dust them with powder and give them a shot of ivermectin. Now, with 70 some sheep and 25 goats, that is a big job. And every sheep and goat must be done or the risk of reinfection is pretty great. How will I do Karin Llama on my own? I can pet her, but she will not stand there and let me put anything on her back or down her throat. I need to think creatively. Perhaps a bag over her head and a rope around her neck and quick action will work? How to get that done? Hmmm. 

The sheep and goats are for sale. As soon as we are clear of the lice, they are, that is. Karin can stay here with 10 or 12 sheep and 6 goats. I feel that is a good number to manage by myself. The ducks and chickens are for sale as well. I do not sell enough eggs to warrant selling eggs, even at $5 a dozen. I have said this before, but folks, especially folks here, still think that eggs should be $2 a dozen, even though they charge $125 a big bale of hay. Another Hmmmm! 

I have a thin goat who is showing all signs of anemia, which means barber pole worms. She has been treated many times with Ivermectin and Safeguard. At age 7, she is getting up there, however; she should still have lots of good years left. This barber pole medication resistant strain had to have come in with some sheep acquired this summer, because it was not on the farm previously, well not for many years. Many years ago, a man gave me 14 beautiful Nubian doelings and every single one died. They had been dewormed and were wormer resistant. Even at the veterinarian's the day before she(Nubian kid) died, he admitted he was at a loss as what to do. I cried so hard and still tear up. But none of the other doelings that went to two other farms died, so to this day, I am still unsure what happened. The man who left them here had them living in the back of his truck for about ten days, so perhaps it had something to do with it. So, so very sad, it was. 

But back to Daphne. Finally, we have a new vet in town that has some knowledge about goats and sheep. She informed me that everything I was doing was right and if she was not responding, she had become resistant to Ivermectin and most likely 'white' wormer medicines as well. She gave me a list of things to do including 5 days of Newcells shots to build the blood, an oral drench with Flukiver, and some good minerals and salt, which they have access to always anyhow. Flukiver costs $250.00 and is available in one size only and expires in 1 year from purchase. Yikes! See why I cannot continue to farm? A bottle of Ivermectin was $40 8 years ago. Hay was $40 dollars a bale. 

I spoke at length to a very nice lady who came to view my Airstream (long since sold) a couple of years ago. She read that I was retiring and wanted to know more. She is also a farmer in the area, albeit conventional, not organic and assured me that cycles are in life and in farming and although prices are crazy high now, they will come down somewhat in the future. How far in the future, one cannot know, but I cannot stay farming. 

Last year the man who had rented my pasture for several years, did not show up. I called and also left messages and finally in mid June, he responded saying he was not coming. I lost 2500 dollars there too, because it was too late to rent the pasture since those who needed it, found it by then. But that is not the worst. My cows are with the boarded heifers and bull every year and I count on the bull to create calves for my girls also. Last year, the bull next door busted through the fence AGAIN, but this time some of my cows (I only have 4) went onto his side. He thought they were all bred, but Elsie was not and I am not sure about the other two and I am not sure when either. I asked to rent the bull for another month, and the farmer was not interested. It was already late August then and I could not find a local person willing to bring a bull by for a couple of months, so Elsie remained open. Shona aborted last week. The only thing I can think of, since I did not see the fetus, is that the hay was bad. So 2 of the 4 I am sure will not have calves this year. Nor will Elsie give me milk. 

Isn't it starting to look bad? Egads! I do feel like throwing in the towel, selling the lot and giving up, but that is not like me. 
So, I hope for at least 2 calves. I have discovered that I am not much of a fan of beef, even my own strictly grass fed in unsprayed pastures grass fed beef. Compared to lamb, it is just not that great. My kids were interested in some beef until I asked them to cover the cost of it, just the cost, which turned out to be around $4 per pound cut and wrapped. That is still cheap for organic grass fed beef, but nope. I sold some to the butcher to cover his costs. But I think I will stick to lamb and chicken. Piggy Soo is in the freezer, along with her buddy Tasha. I loved piggies and enjoyed raising them, though the taste of pork is way down on my list. Lamb, goat, goose, chicken, beef and pork are my preferences in that order. Knowing that, I won't likely raise anymore pork or beef for my consumption. It is around $75 to have a lamb butchered, cut and wrapped and it is $900 for a steer. Big difference! 

So, back to the farm. During the past 8 years, I have learned so, so very much. 
1. Location IS everything. Be where your market is, or be willing to bring the goods to the people. 
2. Be in a like minded community. I would have loved to be in Nelson, an organic progressive Earth loving area. This is something that did not cross my mind when I moved. I know better now. They are happy to pay $5 for eggs there, because they understand the value of organic humanely loved animals. Here,...not so much. 
3. Have animals that the local people know, or, once again, be prepared to take the animals to where people are interested in them. Suffolk sheep and Angus cattle are what they know here and forget educating. That saying...You can bring a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink! must have originated here. 
4. While I can do everything alone, I no longer want to. If you do not have a means of built in help, do not assume you will find any. I used to pay a local man $10 an hour to work here. He was happy because he was older and finding a job for himself was near to impossible. I loved him because there was nothing he could not do or make out of what was already here. He grew up with nothing and learned to make do. I loved that. But he got older too, and unable to work, so I lost his very valuable help. Here is what I do not get. Alberta's minimum wage is $15 per hour. After taxes and deductions, the take home is around $10 and hour. Yet, locals will not consider working for $10 cash and are still in the mindset of at least $25 cash for unskilled labour. Yet another , hmmm. 
5. If you do not produce food for your animals, ensure what you want is reasonably locally available. This has been a huge struggle since the onset. People produce hay here, but they spray the crap out of the land first to kill the weeds, which are hugely beneficial for stock to eat, and then they plant timothy, alfalfa and brome. Just 3 grasses, well, technically alfalfa is a legume, but still. Then they have to provide copious amounts of minerals to make up for the deficiencies in the feed, because the good stuff, the weeds and shrubs, are gone and the variety of grasses are gone. Imagine you living on 3 food stuffs only. See. I have had a tremendously difficult time finding natural pasture unsprayed hay locally, and unsprayed grain too. MS, fibromyalgia, diabetes, obesity..well you name it, is linked to leaky gut now and guess what? Glyphosate is the number one herbicide, originally registered as an antibiotic, copiously used here and those diseases are rampant. Convincing the locals there is a link is a lost cause. So, back to the original plan. Move. 
6. With the poor economy, I did not have a fail safe for my 10 year plan to play farmer and then sell everything and move. It did not occur to me at the time of acquiring the farm that I would be stuck. I have to reinvent myself right where I am and that is the next project I am working on. Stay tuned. 

In conclusion, in this mini novel (thanks to those who have made it this far), there are so many possibilities and now that I understand the locals better, the next move or I should say step, will be to ride out the storm and do what I love - make soap and cosmetics, sew and crochet, garden and ferment, but sell somewhere else. This, I am working on. Have a most wonderful blessed day.