Moving the fence

We spent the last two days fencing the unused portion of the orchard and down the driveway. I hated the thought of moving such a nice straight fenceline.

We got the whole thing done in just 2 days. Now on to the paddock!

We had a whole week of no rain. Hooray!
It was still cold Monday to Thursday, but Friday and Saturday were beautiful.

Last week, Blacksheep, out last pregnant ewe had her baby. It died shortly after birth, probably due to being breech. It was also very cold that night. So all lambs are born and we are only waiting on one goat.

The babies that we are hand feeding have now graduated to the pasture from the barn. That makes the chores much easier.

On Sunday we got 5 new ewes. A lady that lives in the next town needed to find a new home for them so Eric graciously volunteered. Ao I took some time on Friday to make a nice 'chute' over the ditch to the pasture. Eric took the truck to pick up Brian's trailer and brought them over. We got them out and easily into the pasture. then Sampson proceeded to chase them. Eventuallly everyone settled down.

So now we have 12 adult ewes and 3 baby ewes. We also have 6 ram lambs, one of which will be traded for a full Katahdin ram.

Update

Over the past 2 weeks we have had 7 more lambs. Two of those ended up being orphans. Their mother decided not to feed them so we brought them in the house. After a week those lambs and the goats graduated to a small stall in the shelter. So no more livestock in my house.

We drag hot water, hay, feed and milk down to the shelter every day. We still have two ewes in the 'maternity ward' waiting to have their babies. Finally we got the 4wheeler working so we are able to drive all stuff down in the wagon. That was a marvelous thing because those 5 gallon gas cans that we used for the hot water are really heavy.

We are still hand feeding the 2 lambs and Eclipse. Unfortunately poor Nestor died. He was just fine one day, and then the morning feeding the next day he didn't want to eat much and he seemed tired. At the noon feeding he wouldn't eat anything and his stomach was really distended. He didn't want to get up and walk either. We called a vet and left a voicemail, and Eric called all of his 'goat info' people. We found out that sometimes bottle babies will guzzle the milk if the nipple hole is too big and they swallow alot of air. They cannot get rid of that air and it just gets worse and makes them lethargic. That gas eventually kills them. The only thing that can be done is to open a hole into their stomach to release the gas. By the time we got this info little Nestor had already died.

He was the sweetest little goat and we will all miss him.

We go through 1 bag of dog food, one bag of sheep feed, one bag of corn for the pigs 9 bales of hay for the sheep and 1 large round hay bale (cows) each week. I am looking forward to when I have money in the farm account to pay for this.