Livin' my life on the farm

...Friday...

I woke up around 7:30 to make milk for the bottle lambs and checked on a ewe lamb we had in the house cause she wasn't doing good yeterday, she had really bad scours.  She had died over night, but atleast she died in her sleep. I headed out to the barn around 8am and found one of our bottle lambs dead.   We don't know what happened to him. Maybe it just got to cold(the tempature dropped from the 60s-40s to 30s - teens). While I was out there I found another ewe lamb that is lame in her back right leg. She seems to be able to get around well enough but she just drags the leg along. I grabbed her and looked at the leg. It appears to be in fine working order but the bottom hock/joint/ankle is pulled so the hoof is streched out backwards. And if you try to strech it to the natrual position it feels like well best I can discribe it is when you squeeze your hand in a tight fist for a minute or so and then really slowly open it you get that creaky feeling. That's what it feels like. We're going to keep an eye on her see if it comes back around.

Tomorrow we have special music at church service. Eekk! I'm so nervous! But our last practice went really well. We went thru it twice perfect. yay!

Tonight I'm going in to practice with some church members. We're doing a special program for the Adult class in church. It looks like it'll be nice.

Well I got to run and finish up my school before I have to leave.

Kate

been a while

I havn't written in about my sheep doings for awhile so I'll update ya'll...haha...ya'll...

Friday one of dad's friends (Casey) called him up and asked us if he'd go over to his place and check on one of his ewes, he's a trucker, his wife was home but she'd never done anything with the sheep so she didn't know what to do.  Dad asked me if I wanted to go along cause I do most of the lamb pulling here at home, dad would but he feels bad cause his hands are so big...don't wanna hurt the mama. When we got to Casey's place his wife showed us where the ewe was and told us that she had hoofs out since 1pm. It was now 4pm and still no progress. I quickly discovered the problem after lifting the mama's tail. There were three hoofs, two back and a front. I pushed the front leg back up inside(elbow deep was I. You get used to it after doing it several times. lol) and gently pulled the lamb out.  He was a big guy probably about 10+ lbs. I didn't really expect him to be alive after being in the birth cannal for 4 hours, but there he was kicking and snorting. After laying him up by his mama's head so she could clean him up another back hoof presented itself. I pushed the lamb in just enough so I could get it's other back leg that was folded under then he slid right out. Both lambs were standing with in 5 minutes looking for something to eat. We had to help the mama up cause she was a bit sore. All is well that ends well.

When we got home we had a ewe(first timer) that had a neck and a hoof presented(it had it's head turned back). She pushed for nearly an hour till she got the lamb out, I would have helped her by repositoning the lamb but she was really skidish and wouldn't let me get close enough to help her. The lamb was still born. She started pushing agian about a half hour later but wasn't getting any where. Dad got upset at her and said to go inside for a while to see if maybe she would go a little quicker with out us watching her. So we ate supper and then I went back out to check on her. It was dark by now so I was using a flash light. I found her in the same spot with just the tip of a nose showing. So I turned my flash light off, snuck up on her and pinned her to the ground till my mom came out and helped me get her to the barn.  We got her into a pen and mom tried to figure out why the lamb wouldn't come... she couldn't figure it out. So I had my hand in a sheep for the second time that day.  It didn't take me to long to figure out that there was another head trying to come at the same time. It took me a while but I finally got the other lamb pushed back enough that I could get the first lamb out. It was kinda hard cause every time I'd get the lamb back the ewe could contract and push it right back where it was. The third lamb slid right out. All three of them were ewes and were still born. Poor things. It was kinda a rare thing the mom having triplets beings this was her first pregnentcy.

We've lost two lambs to "White Muscle Diesese". Its a side affect of the seleuimn difficentcy. What it is is all the muscles in the lambs body tighten so they are stiff as a board. It's just like when something dies and it gets rigamortis(spelling?). But the little guys were still with it brain wise. They'd baa for their mamas and such. It was so sad. They finally died from heart failure. One took nearly 2 days to die.

I've learned something new about sheep. And it makes sence now too. Some of our ewe lambs are getting these abcess type things on their belly/inner back leg area, right by their to be udder. We figured out that it's a type of  gland that's getting clogged. Maybe for when they have lambs the scent attracts the lambs to the udder area. hmm... So yeah, some of them are getting clogged, probably from laying on the dirty wet ground, the frost still isn't quite out of the ground and 50-60 degree days makes it a sloppy mess out there. We had one lamb that the area got swollen about the size of a shooter(marble) and the skin split. All of which was puss. eww. I cleaned it out and we've been giving her penicilin and it's clearing up nicely. The others that we notice it swelling up a bit we are giving penicilin to now so maybe it won't break open like the other one did. We had another lamb that wasn't walking on her front hoof. I cleaned it out and found she had an abcess. Mom helped me clean it out, there was alot of puss, and gave her a shot of penicilin and today she is hopping around like normal.

Tonight we have singing pratice, I believe, still have to make sure but tonight was the night we were planning on. A older lady(50's) in our church just moved here and is giving us girls in the church singing lessons. It's so nice of her! We are learning how to sing parts and harmonize, before we all just sang the melody. We've been working on a song and we are going to sing it in church for Easter. I just hope we can pull it off. It's kind of a hard song. It's fun tho. She told us to think of a name so our group has a name...any ideas??? I'm stumped...We have 5 girls in group, btw.

Well I've blubbered on enough and I think I can finally start some school today. yay! I haven't done any school since the begining of the lambing season(march 1st). So I'm a bit behind.

Kate