Good morning farmers. Today my horses get shoes! I don't think I have ever had them shod when there was this much snow still on the ground, but if I am going to ride them to get them in condition for the endurance season I have to do it. Mainly I will be riding on the county road for a while, there is just too much snow and a hard crust on it to be riding anywhere else for now. The few times I went down the neighbor's track through his hayfields didn't really do much good. They need hills and distance and something besides walking. The first ride is March 27, so you see I really don't have much time.
Last night I chased a coyote out of the sheep field. It was a rough wild ride on the 4-wheeler bouncing through the rough field in the moonlight. YEEEEHAWWWW! He came back a while later and I chased him out again, all the way to where he disappeared under a wheel line, through a fence and into the sagebrush. When I left the barn to come home I drove up the road and stopped several times to shine my flashlight out over the field, so that may have discouraged him from making another try. Update on the ewe I brought in the night before with old blood showing and in labor: she did need help, had a dead lamb and two live ones, they were all pulled and seem to be doing ok. Last night I checked her again and she was on her feet feeding both lambs. Earlier in the evening she or one of the lambs needed help to get up, not sure from the way the note was worded. She will need a shot today (oxytocin?) to help her get rid of the afterbirth. We also had a very wild ewe in the barn, she has a single lamb so I moved her to a smaller pen to give the new mother and her twins a larger pen. I just look around to see what pen is reasonably clean that has a ewe in it that can be moved if we need the pen. The one I chose last night happened to be a wild one with one lamb, it was a challenge getting her into a smaller pen. A few years ago they had a ram that sired a bunch of lambs that all got some quirky wild streak in their temperment, so now whenever we have a spooky one we are not surprised to find the white ear tag. Every year we use a different color, this year the yearlings who are lambing get their permanent tag, a pretty blue earring this time. The first two numbers of the 4 digit combination are the year of birth, the second two are the ewe number. We keep about 20-30 most years so they never run out of numbers in the same color.
Lisa, are you still in a jam? Citrus that is? I can almost smell it from clear up here. Yummy.
Have a great day everyone, count your blessings.
