The Week That Was

Another week down, only about 9 to go til Christmas!

Did we mention that Gustache the lamb died last Saturday night? Seems he wanted to live up to his name and did get a gutsache - bloat - poor wee bugger.  So that's all the Tuturau lambs gone - obviously the hill-born couldn't cope on the flat!  Just Cuddles and Shadow - the originals - left.  They seem to be going okay - are now down to just one feed each morning as we wean them off.

The calves are doing okay - no more scours at all and lots of running around the paddock (Pippi and Ginge especially).  Beefy is looking stronger.  Daisy is still a grump when it's time to feed - thinks that once she's had her treat she can get out of feeding so it takes a bit of strategic positioning to block her from moving around too much. Does anyone know a builder who could make more of a stall for her to stand in? Can't think where I could find a handy one!?

Have started offering a bit of meal to the calves after their evening feed  but they are not really interested.

The Highland cows, especially Ruby, are not impressed by Bess the dog.  She followed me into their paddock and Ruby chased after her.  Not a pleasant sensation to suddenly have a huge shaggy (pointy horned) cow rush past you at quite a speed! So Bess has quickly learned to keep her distance from them.

Can't say the same with the cat.  Bess is getting more ambitious about getting closer to Rumbles, while staying just out of claw-swipe reach (and I thought they'd be such good friends!)

What next???? - by Rumbles

WELL! Now they've gone and added one of those horrible hairy barking things to the mix - you know, the kind of four-legged freak that lets the humans order them around and exploit them for entertainment such as that silly chase the ball-bring it back-chase the ball-bring it back lark!

Yes, a d-o-g! I am NOT AMUSED! I have already chased the hairy black thing, known as Bess, at full speed past the lounge windows, hoping she would run away and never come back, but the gate was shut so she ran around the lawn and over to Jenny to be rescued - big sook!

It'll be because my awesome ginger tail was puffed up to four times its normal size, making me look so much bigger, that scared her! Big SPCA-rescued 8-month old wimp. I have decided that I will just keep stalking her and scowling at her from inside the windows - ha! She's not allowed inside like I am!!! (though she does try).

The silly thing is loving being tied to the humans, namely Jenny, to be taken for exercise along the road (definitely shows the species' stupidity) and has been brainwashed into looking like she enjoys that ball-chase game for hours on end. Crazy creature.

She did get yelled at when she mistook the hens for the ball (I have never seen a hen hurdle a picnic table like that before and am sure she beat the 100m sprint record to get back to her hutch!)

Milk the Cow

So this morning we go over to let Daisy into the shed to feed the calves (which she did straight away) and find both of the twins are down and out with whatever it is that is making them ill.  Pippi wouldn't even stand up which is really unusual as she has been going quite well and feeding okay while Beefy only drank half his mix.  It's not worth spending a lot of money on them so could be the end of the road we think, as they should be thriving by now with the regular feeding, so it must be something else that is upsetting them.

Meanwhile, Daisy only had one calf (Ginge) drinking this morning so we thought we'd better help relieve her of some of her milk and Brian managed to get a real rhythm going and milked  her really well.  We sent Kieran to get a bowl to put some of it in and he came back with a pudding bowl! So we were able to bring back about a cup of milk which Bri has enjoyed in his coffee.  At least Daisy stood quietly and let him milk her, so there could be potential there, especially if she only now has one calf feeding from her.

Will have to hunt out my cheese-making recipes and order some rennet powders etc...

Busy Week! - New Arrivals!

Hi again y'all! Cannot believe it is Friday already! This farming-lark is seriously exhausting! Nah, just kidding - we have nothing to grizzle about, especially when we think of the farmers who struggled through the major snowstorm, seeing thousands of dollars of potential income being destroyed by Mother Nature.

We have been trying to monitor Beefy's health as he tries to recover from scours - a jab bought at the vet, plus some electrolytes, has given him a bit of a boost but he is still quite weak.  He is being hand-fed with calf milk powder: this morning he only drank half and then wanted to feed from Daisy as well (but I think he was too weak to really get much off her), but tonight he drank all of his two litres and was quite stonkered!



Pippi is still feeding well off Daisy (who is continuing to be mostly cooperative about heading into the shed for feeding) - Pippi is a real slurper (makes more noise when feeding than Kieran does!). Big breakthrough with Daisy's calf Ginge - he is now letting us stroke him while in the shed, although still a bit suspicious of us.



Ruby



Yesterday Brian and Kieran fetched our two new girls - two Highland cattle cows - from Lachie and Leigh Smith's stud (can't think of the special Scottish word for such a farm) at Gorge Road. Both girls are a lovely shade of ginger and suitably hairy, with horns. (Of course, that's not to say all Scottish girls are ginger, hairy or horny! Please keep all rude comments to yourselves!)

The one-year old, who we've called Kiltie and the plan is to breed from her, made an immediate impression by breaking her horn on the stock crate, leaping over the stock crate to get out of the trailer, leaping over the farm-gate, galloping to the next gate and leaping that as well (cracking the top wooden rail in the process)! So is she a highland dancer or what? She ended up in the calf paddock so we decided that was better than out on the road and have left her there to calm down and get used to the change in situation.

Lachie thinks she may have been stressed by having been in such close quarters with the older cow (Ruby is two years old and these kind of cattle have quite a hierarchy going on). Ruby is wary of us too but was much calmer once off the trailer (maybe it was Bri's driving that they didn't like?) Ruby is destined for gracing our table.
We had hoped to get Kiltie to wander back over to the paddock Ruby was in but Kiltie seemed blind to the open gate and it ended up being Ruby that wandered through to the cow paddock.  So now all our bovines are in the same paddock and seem to be all content with each other (although Ruby spent much of the morning following Daisy around - most likely only wanting to ask her why she's not wearing a fur coat too!)

Early Morning

Ahhh, the fresh air, the lambs and calves, hens, cat, smell of green grass and poo...the promise of a nice sunny day...

Farmhand S.O.S.

I am most happy to see Jen's resident humans return home from their adventure up in the big smoke known as Auckland and she seems pretty pleased too.

I'm happy because now it means there is someone else hanging around to give me the attention I deserve, or that the nearest available human isn't too exhausted from having to attend to all the stock (as well as painting two bedrooms, gathering and hanging two pairs of new curtains, rearranging furniture, tidying the child-being's wardrobe, mopping up the flooded laundry because the outlet hose came loose) to give me attention.

I thought I would never get fed last night as I watched Jen trying to play tag with the cow (who is lame but can still run quite fast). Pippi the calf didn't have the hang of it...she kept rubbing against Jen but it was Jen who was in and she was hopeless at catching Daisy or Ginge! As for Beefy, he was exhausted from his big walk from the pen back to the shed and seemed a bit overwhelmed by all the activity.

But then Jen made an SOS call to Megan and Richard who were absolutely awesome emergency farmhands who came and helped with the game, and getting Daisy to go into the shed and feed the calves. Daisy was most ungrateful for the little molasses/grain treat that she was offered as a thank you, but this morning and again tonight she gobbled it up. No-one offers me any treats - maybe I should bring them some birds...nah, I'll think I'll sleep on it!

Famous Five no more, ;-(

Saturday - the littlest lamb and only girl, Timmy, just did not thrive and died yesterday, poor wee poppet.

The other four (boys) are just gutsaches and getting bigger every day!

Suck-cess! (Today anyway!)

Yay for Daisy the cow! Twice today she stood quietly in the shed and let Pippi have a drink and I was able to pat Daisy too.  We're still not best friends though - at tea time I had to chase her a bit to get her into the shed but once she was in there she behaved herself.

Considering that on Thursday and Friday she wouldn't let the 'twins' go anywhere near her - was still pushing them and kicking at them or wouldn't even go into the shed (and for a lame cow, she can certainly move when she wants to in a different direction to where we want her to go!)

But Beefy got scours again, just when we thought he had come right (most likely from the inconsistent feeds).  So on Saturday I decided I'd better put him in a pen to keep an eye on him and he managed to get him to follow me into the into the house paddock but then he decided he didn't like that idea, so I had to half drag him towards the pen.  I figured it would be easier to get him over the fence than to try dragging him all the way through three gates as we no doubt looked quite ridiculous; so at the fence, which is 3 rails high, I had to wrap my (thankfully overall-clad) arms around each end of the calf and hoisted him over the rail.

However, his back hooves were still on my side of the fence but I had already lifted as far as I physically could, so had to then try to 'gracefully' get him to the ground on the other side - needless to say if Beefy could talk I am sure he would say there was nothing graceful about it! But hey, he was now in the pen (and I was stuffed!)

So with an uncooperative cow, the twins have been having bottle feeds - though its been very watery today for Beefy (will get medicine for him tomorrow at the vet), and Pippi was also showing signs of the runs today too - hopefully Daisy will keep being helpful...

But then, tomorrow is another day!