On the farm

My camera did something weird to this photo, but I kind of like it.

I watched a documentary on Messner and I think Rosebud is practicing for Everest.
Here is our new mama for the year, 64. She is a great suffolk (with a little bit of hampshire) mom. She delivered 3 full breach lambs at about midnight on Friday. We stayed with her from 10-3. It was a long night but we wanted to make sure it all went the way it was supposed to. She had one ram lamb and two ewe lambs and they are all hopping around.
The heat lamp is nice and warm, so sometimes the chickens steal the lambs' spot for themselves. This time the lamb was able to sneak under it.

Here one is, hiding under mom.

A few weeks before 64 lambed we vaccinated her for entertoxemia and tetanus. We do that close to lambing so the lambs get the benefits of the vaccine through the ewe's milk. Later we will give them their own dose to strengthen their immunity. We will band their tails tomorrow. We already cut their umbilical cords shorter and iodined them. It is important to disinfect the navel because illness and disease is easily passed through the navel. Many people iodine the navel twice.

We will try a partial castration on the ram at 4 weeks. We usually just band the scrotum and it falls off, but this time we are going to push the testicles up into the lamb's body and band below that, right at the body line. The body heat kills the sperm and sterilizes the ram, but because he still has his testicles, his body still produces male hormones that help with the growth of lean muscle tissue. This kind of banding needs to be done at about 1 month of age.

Kanga and retracted tendons

Kanga is a recently aquired ewe lamb. We were unsure what was wrong with her and instead of put her down I agreed to take her. We had the vet come out and he knew almost instantly she has retracted tendons or something like it. We are giving her a long acting tetracycline to help relax her tendons while we stretch them out. To better care for her we have her in the house with us. It is a lot like having a baby again. She cries (maaa) and gets up and pees so we go clean up her towels, she cries louder so we go get her a bottle. We have to constantly watch her to be sure she does not get into trouble. We keep her away from cords because she will chew them and we give her little bits of lettuce to munch on so she is occupied. She also has my stinky barn boots on a mat right next to her to comfort her and she is constantly nibbling the laces.

She is showing some imrovement and the vet thinks she will be fine in 10 days.

Mary, Button, and vaccines

Mary and Button were both bred in early July.

In September we vaccinated the ewes for Campylobacter fetus. C. fetus is a bacteria the lives in the gallbladder and intestines of ewes. When the ewe gets pregnant, the bacteria goes into her uterus, into the placenta, and then kills the fetus. 90% of ewes who have this problem will abort their fetus, but, it is like chicken pox in that they will be immune from this after they have had it once. They can be carriers and infect other ewes, though. This shot protects them from aborting. It is given at the beginning of breeding as well for new ewes and then just an annual booster. The vaccine is also to protect against late-term abortions caused by Chlamydia psittaci. Once there is an outbreak of C. psittaci the vaccine will not cure it. It comes from infected fetal membranes, a dead fetus, and uterine discharges. If the flock becomes infected; abortion rates can get as high as 60%.

We also vaccinated them with CD&T. The T stands for tetanus. "Enterotoxemia type C, also called hemorrhagic enteritis or "bloody scours," mostly affects lambs during their first few weeks of life, causing a bloody infection in the small intestine. It is often related to indigestion and is predisposed by a change in feed, such as beginning creep feeding or a sudden increase in milk supply, perhaps caused by the loss of a littermate. Enterotoxemia type D, also called overeating disease or "pulpy kidney disease," usually affects lambs over one month of age, usually the largest, fastest growing lamb(s) in the flock. It is precipitated by a sudden change in feed that causes the bacteria, already present in the lamb's gut, to proliferate, resulting in a toxic reaction. Type D is most commonly observed in lambs that are consuming high concentrate diets, but can also occur in lambs nursing heavy milking dams." To protect the lambs, we vaccinate the ewes late in their pregnancy (yesterday for Mary and Button). The vaccine will be in the ewe's milk and protect the lambs for about 10 weeks. We will vaccinate the lambs in January again.
We also wormed Mary and Button yesterday. We did that because pregnancy and nursing is very stressful on ewes and if they are sick with a bunch of worms they will not get the nutrients they need. We will probably move them into a new enlosure in the barn in a few days after the worm eggs pass so they are on clean straw with their lambs.
The whole worm issue is not a fun one for me. I do not like giving the sheep too many pharmaceuticals. So, I purchased artemesia seeds (wormwood) to plant in the pasture. Sheep do not like wormwood and will probably avoid it even though it does a decent job in reducing worms in their intestnes. So, if they do not eat it, I will dry it and add it to their hay. If they refuse that, I will powder it and add it to their water. We will still need to use wormers, but if we use natural defenses and rotational grazing we should not need to do it as often.