I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post it. Thought I'd post it anyway.
We finally managed to go riding yesterday for the first time in 2 months. The weather has not been cooperating at all, with ice, snow, high winds, bitter cold, all conspiring to keep us out of the saddle. And then Touche managed to get a stone bruise which effectively kept him out of commission for another couple of weeks. The horses have been bored, hanging around looking over the gate, kicking at each other and chasing around. But yesterday, it was not too numbingly cold and we had a free couple of hours, so we scraped some of the great clouds of winter coat off the horses- they have started to loose their thick fur; even though it still feels like winter I guess their biological clocks are telling them otherwise. We saddled them up, Louise having her usual battle with the grumpy old mare, who spends the whole time she is being saddled looking threateningly at Louise, waiting for her chance to show that person that she will not be dominated. Louise, with the aid of a riding crop, or talking stick as she calls it, always wins. She doesn't have to use the crop. She just has to show it to Miz in order to win the battle.
My saddle is a great big ancient thing- my only inheritance from my father (except for my large nose). It weighs a good 50 lb. Luckily Touche is a big fellow and can take the weight. I have a lighter saddle, but he is not comfortable with it so even though I find my father's saddle a little uncomfortable myself and way too heavy to carry, the horse must come first. Touche has not grown any smaller over the winter. In fact, looking up at the height I had to scale when I finally came to mount him, I figure he has grown an inch or 2. He is a good horse, very patient, so he stood absolutely still while I hauled my own not inconsiderable bulk up on to the saddle. It was like mountain climbing! I had become quite good at scaling his height over the summer, but appear to have lost my agility in the long dark months of winter. I have come to realize that I will have to keep in shape for mounting over the winter, set up a dummy horse to keep my legs limber, even when I can't ride. Another option is to teach him to stand by a mounting block, which is fine until I either voluntarily or involuntarily dismount and have to get back on out in the field somewhere.
It was lovely getting out to ride. The horses were feeling pretty good, it being nearly spring and having had no real exercise. I had to hold Touche back, something I never have to do normally as he is content to plod along looking at the scenery. Mizeri was nearly exploding with the need to run, so we gave up on the idea of a trail ride and worked them in the arena for a while. They haven't really forgotten any of their training and Touche still does an awesome stop, but even he was thinking naughty thoughts and had to be kept busy. We have all missed riding and are looking forward to more good weather.
Monday, 17 March 2008
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Adventures in A. I,
As I have mentioned in earlier posts, getting Buttercup bred has been proving more difficult than we first imagined. Way back in October, we had borrowed the gomer and had had the AI guy out once, to no avail. Buttercup was still not pregnant. Gillian, our vet, had suggested we wait until spring when she should start to cycle again as she didn't appear to be coming into heat. So all winter we waited, feeding her huge amounts of grain to improve her condition. Well, now it is March, and finally, finally, there are signs that she may be ready to be bred again.
A couple of days ago it all happened. We called the AI guy, who came out and checked and said, yes, indeed, she was coming into heat. He would come back in the evening, bringing the straw of semen. Nine pm he arrives. It is dark and we never got around to putting electricity in the cow shed so we are doing all this by the light of the truck headlamps and a couple of flashlights. Buttercup, seeing the halter, and the AI guy, makes a quick exit out of the shed. She may not know exactly what is in store but she knows it probably won't be much fun for her. With a bit of bribery we get the halter on her and tie her up to a post. I won't describe the whole experience, as it starts to sound a bit perverted when I describe it, but ultimately, it seems we have a very good chance of having a calf next December.
A couple of days ago it all happened. We called the AI guy, who came out and checked and said, yes, indeed, she was coming into heat. He would come back in the evening, bringing the straw of semen. Nine pm he arrives. It is dark and we never got around to putting electricity in the cow shed so we are doing all this by the light of the truck headlamps and a couple of flashlights. Buttercup, seeing the halter, and the AI guy, makes a quick exit out of the shed. She may not know exactly what is in store but she knows it probably won't be much fun for her. With a bit of bribery we get the halter on her and tie her up to a post. I won't describe the whole experience, as it starts to sound a bit perverted when I describe it, but ultimately, it seems we have a very good chance of having a calf next December.
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
The Mad Hen
A farmer has certain duties and responsibilities. He/she, having chosen to have livestock, has a duty to care for them properly, to make sure they have food and fresh water, a nice cosy place to live and a decent quality of life. In order to be a successful farmer, however, there are other duties too, things we don't like to talk about so much. For example, a hog farmer, however much she loves her pigs, still, at the end of the day, has to send those wonderful little characters off for slaughter, a dairy farmer has to remove the calf from its mother at a very young age and start artificially feeding it, and an egg producer has to cull the old unproductive birds.
We, at the Round House Farm, do pretty well with the care of our animals. No one could say they are in the least bit neglected. In fact, they get their breakfast and supper well before we do, most days. But it is the other aspect of livestock farming we have more trouble with. Sure, we did manage to send the piggy-wiggies off to end up in the freezer, but not without some qualms and regrets. The calf, though, is still, at 8 months of age, nursing from his mother, a situation we justify by saying that it means we only have to milk once a day. No, the real problem lies with the hens.
Laying hens are very productive in their first year of laying, often laying an egg every single day. By the second year it is down to one every second day, and by the third, well, it is whenever they feel like it. We don't run a battery hen production line. Our hens become a bit like pets- we name many of them and know their characters- and it is hard to say that just because they are not laying an optimum number of eggs that we are going to prematurely end their lives. But perhaps we carry it a bit too far.
Our friend, Jo-Ann had a few hens. One day last summer she called and said that one of the hens was being badly bullied by the others. Hens are like that. They are like nasty little kids in the playground. If one of their group shows a sign of weakness or the fatal flaw of being 'different', they begin to peck at it and pick on it. We all been there as kids, either at the giving or receiving end. Anyway, she suggested that we try her with our flock- as we have more birds and they are used to new ones coming in. It was a disaster for the poor little hen. Not only was she being pecked to death, but she was not used to going outside, so she would huddle in the hen house, miserably picking up a few crumbs of food. We will have to get rid of her, we thought. Let's see if she gets along with Peggy's hens. No luck. The pathetic little creature was becoming more and more bald, and Peggy didn't want the responsibility. So back she came to us.
We put her in the big barn, where, it being summer, no animals were living. We fed her inside, and she had her favourite spots to roost. She laid a few eggs and clucked around quite happily, coming out to greet us each time we came into the barn. She had access to the outside, but seldom ventured beyond the threshold, except the times she disappeared. No sign of her in the barn and it was dusk. I called. None of her usual hen noises. I went to look outside around the barn, thinking I might just find a pile of feathers, all that is left after some predator carried her off. I was just about to give up when I saw a silhouette in the distance, on the other side of the horse arena. She was sitting, huddled up, obviously lost. I tucked her under my arm and carried her back to the safety of the barn. This happened a couple more times in the course of the summer and each time we thought, she is just a very dumb bird. We took to calling her "Mad Hen", assuming she was agoraphobic as well as a bit mentally deficient.
This week we discovered a reason for all her problems. She has cataracts. One eye is very cloudy and she has no vision in it and the other is starting to go the same way. This explains why she never cleans up the food pellets that have spilt around her dish, why she gets lost outside and probably why the other hens picked on her. So here we have a half blind hen. Really we should do the proper farmer thing and end her life. I mean, what kind of farmer keeps an old blind hen? But we have grown very fond of her. She appears to be affectionate and interested in seeing people. She is not doing anyone any harm there, wandering around the barn. And now she has a buddy- one of the Light Sussex hens who Louise found outside the hen house looking very bedraggled and sorry for herself. They seem to get along quite well, though Mad Hen was a bit agitated at first, perhaps remembering her poor treatment from the other hens, perhaps just not wanting to share her safe haven with anyone else. So we will keep her for now, until her disability prevents her from enjoying her life, or until we get up the courage to do what a farmer really should do- get rid of the unproductive stock.
We, at the Round House Farm, do pretty well with the care of our animals. No one could say they are in the least bit neglected. In fact, they get their breakfast and supper well before we do, most days. But it is the other aspect of livestock farming we have more trouble with. Sure, we did manage to send the piggy-wiggies off to end up in the freezer, but not without some qualms and regrets. The calf, though, is still, at 8 months of age, nursing from his mother, a situation we justify by saying that it means we only have to milk once a day. No, the real problem lies with the hens.
Laying hens are very productive in their first year of laying, often laying an egg every single day. By the second year it is down to one every second day, and by the third, well, it is whenever they feel like it. We don't run a battery hen production line. Our hens become a bit like pets- we name many of them and know their characters- and it is hard to say that just because they are not laying an optimum number of eggs that we are going to prematurely end their lives. But perhaps we carry it a bit too far.
Our friend, Jo-Ann had a few hens. One day last summer she called and said that one of the hens was being badly bullied by the others. Hens are like that. They are like nasty little kids in the playground. If one of their group shows a sign of weakness or the fatal flaw of being 'different', they begin to peck at it and pick on it. We all been there as kids, either at the giving or receiving end. Anyway, she suggested that we try her with our flock- as we have more birds and they are used to new ones coming in. It was a disaster for the poor little hen. Not only was she being pecked to death, but she was not used to going outside, so she would huddle in the hen house, miserably picking up a few crumbs of food. We will have to get rid of her, we thought. Let's see if she gets along with Peggy's hens. No luck. The pathetic little creature was becoming more and more bald, and Peggy didn't want the responsibility. So back she came to us.
We put her in the big barn, where, it being summer, no animals were living. We fed her inside, and she had her favourite spots to roost. She laid a few eggs and clucked around quite happily, coming out to greet us each time we came into the barn. She had access to the outside, but seldom ventured beyond the threshold, except the times she disappeared. No sign of her in the barn and it was dusk. I called. None of her usual hen noises. I went to look outside around the barn, thinking I might just find a pile of feathers, all that is left after some predator carried her off. I was just about to give up when I saw a silhouette in the distance, on the other side of the horse arena. She was sitting, huddled up, obviously lost. I tucked her under my arm and carried her back to the safety of the barn. This happened a couple more times in the course of the summer and each time we thought, she is just a very dumb bird. We took to calling her "Mad Hen", assuming she was agoraphobic as well as a bit mentally deficient.
This week we discovered a reason for all her problems. She has cataracts. One eye is very cloudy and she has no vision in it and the other is starting to go the same way. This explains why she never cleans up the food pellets that have spilt around her dish, why she gets lost outside and probably why the other hens picked on her. So here we have a half blind hen. Really we should do the proper farmer thing and end her life. I mean, what kind of farmer keeps an old blind hen? But we have grown very fond of her. She appears to be affectionate and interested in seeing people. She is not doing anyone any harm there, wandering around the barn. And now she has a buddy- one of the Light Sussex hens who Louise found outside the hen house looking very bedraggled and sorry for herself. They seem to get along quite well, though Mad Hen was a bit agitated at first, perhaps remembering her poor treatment from the other hens, perhaps just not wanting to share her safe haven with anyone else. So we will keep her for now, until her disability prevents her from enjoying her life, or until we get up the courage to do what a farmer really should do- get rid of the unproductive stock.
Sunday, 2 March 2008
Blizzard!!
Huge storm today. 90 km/hr winds with snow going horizontally. We were due to pick up a bale of haylage today, but decided the horses could make do with baled hay for a couple of days. With the snow drifts in our yard, there would be no getting out with the trailer anyway. Mizeri is not so happy about this development and takes out her ill-humour on her favourite target, Touché. He is still limping, but not so much, so he can hobble away from her fairly quickly. Is it cruel to keep him outside with her? They seem to have settled now and are resigned to eating their second rate hay, so we will leave them.
The rest of the critters and their slaves are inside our various homes, huddling away from the storm. We will wait it out.
The rest of the critters and their slaves are inside our various homes, huddling away from the storm. We will wait it out.
Saturday, 1 March 2008
Lame horses
Despite all the signs of spring- the ground hog not seeing his shadow, seeds arriving, the clocks about to go forward- winter lingers. Today was a nasty, bone-chilling day. My DVD on training your horse to do tricks has arrived and I am eager to get out there start working with Touché and teaching him to bow. I have visions of Touché and me at the Oxford Exhibition, receiving our ribbon for ... well.....for.... I'm sure we will win something... and taking a bow.
Of course the weather is not the only thing stopping me from working with my horse. Silly young fellow managed to injure himself somehow when we left him out in the pasture alone. We had put Miz and DT in the barn to get DT used to being in a standing stall. Touché decided he wanted to be with them and started running about frantically and did something to his foot. He is now limping around feeling very sorry for himself. I am assuming it is just a stone bruise and am trying not to worry about it too much.
On a brighter note, now that the seeds have arrived, it is time to start thinking about planting. It won't be long before the snow melts and we can start that whole cycle of planting and weeding and weeding some more. Remind me of why we do this?
We have also found a source of piglets for the upcoming spring. We have reserved 4 little Tamworth piglets which will be ready in a few weeks. Unfortunately, we have sold more than that so will need to find a couple more babies from somewhere else to fill our quota. We may have to resort to getting some of those pink pigs.
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