Daddy Stanley seeing what his son, Aidan, is up to.
There are two baby llamas on the Fat Ewe Farm, an appaloosa boy and a fawn girl. They will be going to live with my cousin Barb and her daughter Aidan, whom Aidan was named after. Aidan, the human, wants to teach Aidan, the llama, to be a pack llama and possibly pull a cart. He is the perfect fit for that too, because he is so friendly and gentle. The llama babies are growing and are out in the pasture with the grown ups now, and the horses, but unfortunately for some strange reason, the colt has nibbled the ear tips off the fawn baby, Jeanette. She is still beautiful. They were enjoying the cooler weather today and Aidan was showing off to Jeanette by climbing up on the bales. She was amused and came to see him, but did not follow him up so high. His daddy, Stanley, was also curious and said hello to Aidan up there. Llamas are among the sweetest, friendliest and pleasant animals I have ever known. Yes, they spit at each other, but they have never spit at me or even so much as laid their ears back to me. We are buds!
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The Muscovy ducks are sunning themselves on the warm and humid afternoon. The weather brought the small mosquitoes out and they are vicious, biting right through jeans. Andy, the farm carpenter, has built a rain and sun shelter for the sheep. This will have a half plywood back for a wind break and a tarp over the entire structure except the front. The livestock panels have to be wired together to stabilize them, but the shape makes the structure wind resistant. Even when we had a near tornado last summer, none of these structures budged. Andy also worked on the Tajmacoop, a three season chicken coop. The upper compartment has three perches for the birds and they are housed by plywood on all sides except the bottom. For winter, bubble foil wrap insulation will cover the structure, straw bales will line the bottom and sides and two heat lamps will be installed. There is also an insulated chicken coop, but the floor is not insulated and the feet froze on some of the birds that did not perch. The goats were allowed out in the main yard today. Yesterday several small poplars were felled with the skid steer and the ground was torn up for terraced gardens. The goats were out and the llamas thought they would visit too. Zeb thought he would help me set the electric fence up, but got his hoof caught and broke three wires, of course. The goslings and ducklings got their own hoop coop complete with a little shelter and a heat lamp. They were scared stiff, but eventually at the grass and played in the water. You would think, that with the new found freedom, the goats would head for some of their favourites, like the caragana, lilac or poplar leaves that are just emerging, but nope. They head straight for the grain. Grain is like heroin to them. One taste and they are hooked and must have their fix. Fortunately, the bags were all tied with the anticipation of this episode. I had to separate the male Llama from the male alpaca immediately. Stanley was hurting the alpaca quite badly, biting him and knocking him down. They are terrible in fights. The alpaca wanted nothing to do with the Stanley though. Stanley stood and spit at him for a while, just in case. Willa is in the foreground supervising. And that was today at the Fat Ewe Farm! Lucy Llama had her first baby, a little girl with a spotted brown and white, with a touch of black soft coat. Lucy is a correct llama with nice conformation and good banana ears. She is halter trained, though I have not put a halter on her.When I have to move her, I simply twisted a twine like a halter around her nose and head and led her with that. I knew she was pregnant for sure after Karin delivered her little one a month ago, but was unsure of Lucy's date. It is hard to tell with llamas. Joyce llama lost her baby because she had it in winter and it froze before it could stand. I was sad, but what could I do? Llamas are supposedly seasonal breeders, that is breeding so the llamas are born in early summer, so obviously something was not quite right for her to have the baby in January.
Anyhow, the little one was strong and up and able to look to nurse, but Lucy's milk had not come in. From what I can gather, the cria's sucking stimulates the onset of the milk and the first 24 hours there may not be milk at all. This is contrary to most other species that must drink within an hour or two of birth. I am thinking that the llama baby is getting a little each time. The llama mother's udder is inside her body, so it is difficult to tell if she has milk. Lucy has four teats that are tiny. Compared to the teats of a goat, they are about a quarter of the size. One would think that with the size of the cria, the teats would be larger than on a goat, but that is not the case. The cria attempted to nurse quite a few times and I did observe her sucking, so perhaps she was getting something. If she is robust and doing well then no intervention will be necessary. Crias tend to be very hardy and self sufficient and are extremely hard to bottle feed, so it would be wonderful if it all worked out in her favour, and mine. Welcome to the world little one! Harley, I love you and I am so glad you came home. It started out a great day, despite the snow, because Harley, who was missing for almost 2 days, was home. This dog is my best loyal protector. He is highway savvy and watches when he crosses the road and seldom does he anyhow. He chases the neighbour's dogs back home as far as the highway and comes back, but he has many scars and sore spots from fighting with the Rottweiler, German Shepherd and the Rottie cross that live across the highway. He also chases the coyotes away. I would hate to lose him and was so grateful to see him this morning. And if you have ever wondered where the term 'bird brain' came from, take a look at this. The snow has covered the food in the chicken's pen and they cannot find it. This has happened before. If something, food or water included, gets covered by snow, the chickens have no clue where it has gone. Bird brains! The snow was odd today. It was below zero, yet icicles formed on Lucy Llama's coat and were frozen rivulets going down her sides. She has not yet been shorn this year, thank goodness. Who knew it would be so cold for so long? People who have not had sheep, goats or llamas around here have no clue how to feed them. Their "premium" alfalfa hay, which cost me 90 dollars a bale, delivered, is useless here. The sticks and straws are all left and these animals only pick out the leaves if they can. What a waste!
I love my little goaties, even though they pick through their hay and eat the best parts first. Then if they have stepped on the hay, they do not eat the rest, so lots is wasted. There are some sheep in with the goats and they are not quite as fussy, but will pick the best out too. I don't mind feeding the sheep and goats. It involves hauling toboggans of hay unrolled from large round bales at this time. Until the bale forks come for the skid steer (and that is a long story as to why they are not here), this is the method that I must use. There is no way to move those big bales, only to unroll them vertically and haul the hay. The little goaties get a lot of their hay on the other side of the fence along the fence line, because they can stick their heads through the fence and eat the good parts and NOT step on the rest.
The problem is, when I felt sorry for the horses, I let them out, thinking they would run to the bush to eat the good things there, but no! They ran straight over to the llama's side and they now dominate them, not allowing them to eat at all. The llamas are going to starve if I do not get the horses out of there, but I cannot open the gate wide enough. They came on their own by traipsing through the deep snow all around the perimeter of the farm yard, but they won't go back. I want to lock them up again and force them to only eat their own hay. It was not as though they did not have enough, either. Their feeder was always full, but it was more work than eating it off the ground as the llamas do. Piggie horses. I am waiting for Willa to jump the fence into the goat's side, because the goats are pregnant and they get premium alfalfa hay in this last two months prior to delivery, while the horses get a taste of the good hay and then get standard grass hay. You know the old saying about the grass always being greener...? So, because there is so much waste feeding this way, I must do it twice a day, or the animals just walk on it, poo on it and waste it. Instead of 4 hours a day, yesterday, in the bitter cold of minus 20 with a windchill factor making it feel like minus 25, and snowing on top of that cold, I spent 6 hours out feeding and watering. I do need to get busy making soap for the farmer's market too. Tuesday is shearing day and the goats and sheep will be moved around. Hopefully some one will be able to open the gate by digging out the frozen snow and ice and the horses can go back home. The cria, baby llama, is only a few days old. When she was new born, a friend and his wife and I, moved her along with her mother to a safer pen with a good shelter. Try as I might, I could not get mama llama to stay in the shelter, so I put a gate up. The mother could jump the side easily and did, but until today, I had no idea how she got the baby out. At first, I thought that perhaps she somehow lifted the baby out with her strong neck, but that wasn't it. Really, there should have been no way for the baby to get out of there, yet she was out in short order both times I locked her in. It was a mystery.
Robbie checking Jeanette. Hello little girl. It is the way with a new mother. She is unsure, over protective, over reactive and not sensible sometimes. We are expecting snow tonight, not a major snow storm and with fairly mild temperatures, if you can call -11 mild. I put the cria, the new baby llama, now named Jeanette, in a pen with a good shelter with her mother, who promptly jumped the fence out into the larger pen and called for her baby to join her. I had barricaded the baby in and I did not think she was yet capable of jumping. I even provided mother Karin with a straw bale step to go back to her baby when she wanted. Yesterday, she insisted on removing the baby to the back of the pen where there are some every green trees, not enough for real shelter, but better than nothing she thought. When I returned to check on the pair, the baby and mama were again in the back of the pen in the trees. Argh! So I picked baby up and carried her again to the shelter, tied the barricade in place this time and even though Karin jumped right back out over the fence, I was pretty sure Jeanette could not get out. But when I checked just before nightfall, out she was and back with mamma in the trees. I scattered some straw there yesterday so the little one would not have to lay on the snow. So, I decided to create a bit of a shelter since the mother insisted on staying there. I had to haul the straw bales on the toboggan, two at a time and set them up as a windbreak with a piece of plywood against the north side. I scattered a half bale of fresh straw on the ground and stuffed in corner and cracks with straw as well to keep the drafts out. The only protection from above were the meager tree branches, but if baby snuggles down in the fresh clean straw, she should be fairly protected from the wind and snow. It was the best I could do since mama would not cooperate and stay in the shelter. I hope they are safe and sound tomorrow. I think the llama who lost her cria in the bitter cold was Joyce, because Lucy looks as though she is ready to deliver any day now. I will keep checking because the nights are still cold. Llamas usually have their crias between 9 and noon, though, so I do not have to worry about midnight arrivals with them. Snuggle close to mama Karin, little Jeanette. By the way, the llamas are all named after my female cousins, so my family is always with me. Blessings. I was looking out the kitchen window this morning, just after 9 and to my surprise, there appeared to be two little ears poking up in the llama area. Could it be? I put on my coveralls, boots, hat and gloves and went to investigate. Still wet from birth, the little butterscotch baby was in a kush position, that is with her very long legs tucked under her, laying down. She was small and so very beautiful. But, whose could she be. All the llamas were eating. Stanley was busy breeding Karin. It must be either Lucy's or Joyce's baby then, but neither looked like they had just birthed a cria. Stanley, you would not be breeding Karin, weak from delivery, sore from her first baby, now would you? He was. When he was done, Karin got up and went to her little one. Joyce showed particular interest in the baby and a bit later I found out why. The cria, stood on shaky legs and nursed from Karin, showing indeed, that was her mother. I went to the shelter to check things out and there was another cria there, frozen and fairly new. I suspect it is Joyce's baby and was cold, then died. It could have been any other thing that was wrong. The little one that was gone was a beautiful white girl with suri type of fibre, that is long and silky like Stanley's and white like Stanley's. Try as I might, I could not move Karin to a safer location. I pushed, I pulled and I shoved. I put her baby on the other side of the fence, and still Karin would not budge. Finally, I called my friend, Dale, for help and fortunately he and his wonderful wife (they are awesome people) came with a long rope. Dale tied one end to the fence post and put the other at Karin's behind, while I pulled pushed and shoved her through the gate. The tap, tap, tap of the rope worked and she finally went through. Then I gave the cria to Dale, who carried it with Karin following, to the new pen with the Angora goats and Walter, the Cotswold ram who is done with his job for the year. Karin did not stay where the shelter was and instead took the baby to the far side under the trees. Ofcharka and the puppies went to investigate with Robbie. Ofcharka laid down beside the baby and began to lick her cleaner. Her mom had already done a great job and she was dry, but Ofcharka just wanted to be sure. I told him to quit and leave her and he went a few feet away and laid down to watch over the baby. Good dog. The puppies were not too interested after a few sniffs and played in the snow and Robbie just wanted to know what was next, huh, huh? So, one life lost, one gained, one possibly created all in a matter of a short time. Nature is without equal in its perfection, so abundant are the blessings. I am grateful for the little baby girl cria today, and for her mom and for the father, Stanley and the amazing creation of life. Thank you Creator! In the new pen Now that is a good day! |
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AuthorFluffy writes daily about the experiences on the farm and with the bed and breakfast patrons. Archives
October 2020
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