Sunday 13 December 2009

Finn gets a new raddle colour and a limping Holly!

Firstly the limping Holly, last week Holly decided to run up the hay wall in our barn, it's 9 bales high, after our barn cat, Lady. Then jumped down from 6 bales high! Later in the day she was limping a bit and we thought she had just strained her shoulder, after carefully checking her over to make sure she was in no pain. Anyway, she was still limping 3 days later and as Deefa was booked into the vet's for his annual check up, we booked Holly in as well. The prognosis is she's bruised the heel of her foot and snapped the tendon to her middle toe. Ouch!!! There is nothing that can be done apart from rest and try and stop her from bouncing up and down! No chance on that one, Holly is like Tigger, "top made out of rubber, bottom made out of springs, bouncy bouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun!!!!!!!!!" She's on anti inflammatories for the next 2 weeks and the toe will always stick up a bit from the rest of her toes. Evidently, snapped toe tendons are a common injury in dogs.
Finn is now on his last raddle colour, blue. I don't think we will have any ewes with blue bums, Finn is not interested in any of the ewes, just interested in eating. The ewes are not paying him any attention, a sure sign they are pregnant.
We've also moved the gimmers and ewes around. With all the rain we've had just recently the fields they are in are not poached, as yet, but the grass is looking less than appetising, so the gimmers are in the top field by the common land, the ewes and Finn are in the field at the back of the house. We've also given the ewes some more mineral licks. They have had a good go at eating them, but not as much as the last one they had. It was gone within 2 days, a sure sign they needed the licks. We will keep giving them licks now right through until after lambing, just to make sure they are in tip top condition come lambing.
Now the weather is getting colder, I'm sure there was snow in the rain this morning, the sheep are starting to eat the hay with some gusto and most mornings sees Tim and I taking between 2 and 4 bales of hay out to the hay racks, and to try and stop the sheep poaching the grass around the feeders, every time the rack becomes empty, we end up pushing them further up the fields, not easy when the fields are muddy and the wheels on the hay rack have sunk into the mud!!! As yet neither of us have ended up on our "bums" in the mud from pushing the hay racks, but there is plenty of time for that to happen!!!!!

2 comments:

Resident Vandal said...

Good news on the ewes, sorry to hear the land is so wet again. Can't mait for lambing to see what you get this time!

Jon Storey said...

If it gets any colder the ewes will have blue bums regardless of Finn's efforts.

It is so cold and miserable here that the donkeys have started to eat their hay at last. They tasted haylage a while back and will now only eat hay if they are desperate!