fourfarmdogs – Page 67 – Canfield Farms

New Portable Hotwire System

Posted on March 3, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

hotwiresetup Last week I received a large order from Premier Supplies: 320 feet of portable “Electronet” fencing, and a portable fence charger with a solar panel. My long-term plan for this fencing was to help with rotational grazing and cleaving up our pastures into smaller sections. But, the short-term need was to be able to fence the dog in such a way that she can guard the sheep, but not wrestle with the lambs!

So, here they all are, in their temporary “feedlot” conditions. This little pen’s original purpose was to wait out any floods or potential floods, it is up on the hill near the house. But, it became a lifesaver when the coyotes became a problem, and the small quarters were necessary for the dog and sheep to become acquainted. With the arrival of the hotwire, I was able to make a “moat” around the center pen, so the ewes and lambs can be in there, and the dog surrounds them in an outer circle. It’s nice to have lambing happening close to the house, so I can monitor them frequently.

I put the ram in with the dog, so she’d have some company. She gets upset if she’s segregated from the sheep, or even some of the sheep, and spends her time trying to figure out how to reunite with them. This small adjustment in her space was also an attempt to gradually introduce her to the hotwire concept, in a familiar area, to reduce the trauma of it. Dogs often have a very hard time with electric shock, but it will be a necessary part of her environment, so she must learn about it!

We had one more lamb today, and the remaining three ewes should lamb any time. Once that is done, I can move the whole shebang back down to the pasture, and fence the ewes and lambs inside hotwire until the lambs are big enough to contend with the dog. I can fence the dog in, too, if I feel like I can’t catch her. I’m still working on that part.

fencer1 Here is the electric fence charger. It’s a rechargeable 12-volt battery, and the solar panel is more of a “booster” to help get a couple more days out of each charge. It’s supposed to last a week or two between chargings. The dog learned right quick to stay away from it, she is very afraid of it. And, the sheep are really too mellow to even challenge it. So, when I’m around, I can leave it turned off. But, at night, hopefully it’ll not only ensure the sheep and the dog stay in, but should keep the coyotes out.

So far, I like the Electronet. It was very quick and easy to set up. I’ll have to comment again the first time I take it up and move it, whether I manage to keep it from becoming a tangled mess! It does sag a bit on uneven ground, which makes it touch the grass more, which will shorten the battery’s life. But, overall, I think it’s a great tool, and will give us a lot of flexibility in grazing different places on the property; and possibly offering to graze the neighboring property, which has recently been a challenge for the owners to maintain.

Lamb “Superman” Capes

Posted on February 28, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

lambcoat I love the Premier Supply online catalog, they have so many sensible products for farmers. These little fleece lamb coats are inexpensive and a great design for warming weak lambs. They have neck and leg holes and are quick to put on.

This little Jacob girl has been wearing hers since she was born last week, she was so small and unthrifty, I thought she could use some help. And it snowed during the week too, so I feel it really helped her focus her energy on gaining weight rather than keeping warm. I’ll probably remove it today, now that she’s caught up physically and it’s warmer out.

The fleece keeps its insulating power even when wet, and they wash and dry normally in the laundry. I plan to buy more next time I order, because it’s nice to be able to rotate a lot of them through the laundry. I think these blue ones look like Superman colors!

Lost a Little Lamb :-(

Posted on February 25, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

ramblamb The ram lamb born to the Jacob ewe on Saturday didn’t make it, sadly. As you may be able to see in the picture, both lambs were quite thin and unthrifty when they were born. I think the ewe might not have been carrying enough condition, and since I just got her, I haven’t had much time to increase her nutrition plane in preparation for lambing. The ewe lamb was the larger and more vigorous of the two.

My mom mentioned that our old Great Grandma Cogan, a North Dakota homesteader and lifelong farmer, always said that females are usually the survivors, and it’s more typical for the males to be the weak ones. (I think she meant in the animal kingdom, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Grandma was also making a parallel to humans! 😉 ). If that ‘s true, I don’t mind, because females are much more valuable in general- you only need so many boys, and the rest have to be sold or eaten! (In the animal kingdom, that is!)

Anyway, as I mentioned in my previous post, I figured out a bit late that this guy was just pretending he knew how to nurse. By late that night, it was evident he had lost too much energy to feed himself, and would certainly die without immediate intervention. So, this, of course, is where you dive in and do what you can- defying Mother Nature because it’s potentially a $200 animal that could be salvaged. But saving half-gone infants is always tricky, there is certainly an art to it. And there are many ways you can go wrong and just arrive at what was originally inevitable death anyway.

Since there was no suckling desire left, tube feeding was the only option. I felt pretty comfortable that I did the tube feeding correctly, but at one point when he was rallying on Sunday, I tried to get him to nurse with a nipple, and that was probably a mistake. Supposedly, the risk of milk aspiration is much higher with bottle feeding than tube feeding. And it was sometime after that when I noticed rattle-ey sounding breathing – a sign of impending pnuemonia from fluid in the lungs. And, he was developing scours- I probably gave him too much formula. Not to mention that since he did not get enough colostrum, he essentially had zero antibodies, so fighting any sort of infection is too big a challenge.

So, his odds were very slim whether I did nothing or tried something; and sure enough, Monday morning he took a turn for the worse and died that afternoon. I’m sad-I hope I never get over being sad seeing an animal die. But, it’s all part of the deal, nobody as 100% survival rates in breeding livestock. And without my intervention attempt, he still would have died.

The things I think I did right: having bottle and tube feeding equipment on hand, having both colostrum and regular milk replacer on hand, and everything in a bucket ready to go. I have lots of extra dog crates, pens, towels etc so I can always bring an animal right into the house for warmth and safety. As soon as I decided supplementation was necessary, I was able to get right on it. And I felt fairly confident in the tube feeding procedure.

The mistakes I think I made- not really getting under there to verify that the lambs were actually nursing. And possibly not taking action more quickly-though this is a hard one, because you don’t want to take one away from the ewe unnecessarily, as then you may be decreasing their odds of success once you start monkeying with them. And I think I fed him too much. That is the hardest part in supplementing, as I think the goal is to shoot for barely enough, because underfeeding is safer than overfeeding. This is where judgment and experience probably play a big role, I’m sure I’ll get better at it over time.

The good news is, the ewe and ewe lamb seem to be doing ok. They are the most important ones, anyway.

Bummer Lamb

Posted on February 23, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

bummerlamb One of the lambs born yesterday was a bummer- too weak to nurse. He fooled me for a while, because he was standing there with his head up in the udder, wagging his tail. But I finally figured out he wasn’t eating, while his sister was gaining weight and energy, he was remaining a skeleton. I tried to help him nurse late last night, and succeeded in getting a little colostrum in him and getting a decent sucking response. But by morning he was weak and cold, so he wasn’t able to stick with it.

So, in the house he came, to be tube fed. I tried my best to milk colostrum out of the ewe, and I got a little, but boy she has small teats and colustrum is thick! So, I resorted to powered colustrum, which isn’t nearly as good. This lamb has a very weak sucking impulse, so tube feeding is definitely a must. He seems to be gaining strength, so knock on wood, he might make it. I was able to get a little more milk out of the ewe today, to supplement the powdered stuff.

Tomorrow I’ll have to take him to work, in the car in a crate, so I can feed him every four hours, as is the requirement for the first three days. Not to mention getting up at 2am to do one middle-of-the-night feeding.

The Border Collies think this is the best-ever: livestock in the HOUSE! 😉 Maggie must be watched very carefully, as she would be quick to kill such a little thing. Gene, in a rare reversal of her normally obsessive herding instinct, is being very motherly. She has very strong maternal instincts, and is always trying to wash and lick everyone. She’s finally getting her wish- it’s actually a big help to have her wash the milky mouth of this baby, and his back end! There is nothing like a dog tongue for non-chafing washing of orphan babies, I’ve found!

New Twin Lambs Today

Posted on February 22, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

jacoblambs Our Jacob ewe lambed today- in broad daylight, which was cool. We didn’t notice her in labor at all this morning during feeding, later I saw her hanging her head a bit. But she was pretty subtle, the next time I looked up, she had a lamb on the ground! The second one came easily about 20 min later, I helped just a bit because one leg was backwards.

The LGD was so well behaved, curious, but gentle. She licked the lambs a lot. I did separate the ewe into her own jug tonight though, to help make sure both lambs eat. They look great- a ewe lamb and a ram!

Curtailing the Exuberance of a Young LGD

Posted on February 21, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

lgc_withjug Our livestock guardian dog (who still doesn’t have a name!) is doing pretty well. She’s definitely got the right stuff- big bark, loves the sheep, weatherproof coat, and just lays around most of the day. But, right now, she is still incredibly SILLY- just like any four month old dog would be.

In general, she gets along well with the sheep, she likes them, and they don’t mind her. Their inter-species communication functions well on a basic level, they understand she means them no harm, and she seems to find them to be pleasant company. But where this breaks down is that she still wants to play like a young dog does, and she hopes they’ll want to as well! She has moments of high energy and exuberance, where she leaps about, grabs the sheeps’ body parts, and tries to get them to engage in a good old wrestle. Of course, another dog would gladly sign up for such a ruckus, but wrestling is just not in a sheep’s repertoire.

The adult sheep have been able to manage this so far, they just move away from her in irritation, or butt her to send her on her way. Though I’ve seen her tugging on their tails and ears, she hasn’t seemed to do damage to them. Her advances are purely good-hearted: I don’t see any hint of prey drive going on, she honestly does just want to play with her “friends” and she’s disappointed when they flee. But, this has not been good for the lamb. He tends to just hunker down and try to wait out the rough play. At first, she just made a few small tooth marks in him. But eventually, she bit him up good in the hock, and now he is lame. So, I had to make a separate section of the pen for his mother and him.

I’ve tried a few other things, with limited success. First, I tied an empty milk jug to her collar, with the idea being when she leaps and pounces, it’ll bounce and hit her in the face, providing enough of an irritant to slow her down. This actually worked well for a few days, she was terrified of the thing, and sat stock still for about 24 hours. But, now she’s used to it, and though I do think it makes her walk more carefully, it doesn’t slow her down that much.

lambcreep The second thing I tried was making a creep for the lamb to get into, that would keep the dog out. I made an open-ended tunnel out of a grid of wire, so that even if she did a bunker crawl in after him, he could exit the other end. I showed him this, and he seemed to “get it”- I often saw him sleeping in there, and the dog couldn’t do much to him. But, I the ewes kept wrecking the tunnel. They are shedding now, and are itchy, and they found that cramming their huge, pregnant bodies in there made for a splendid all-over scratching tube. 😛 But then they’d get stuck in there, and brute-force their way out, wreaking havoc with my petite lamb hut.

So, for how, he’s segregated so his leg can heal, poor guy. I have ordered 320 feet of electronet and a battery + solar panel charger. That should arrive next week, allowing me to re-configure the sheep and dog areas a little. Everyone can have more room, and I can separate out the soon-to-lamb ewes from the dog. Just in time, as they’re due the first week in March!

Recycling Old Farm Junk

Posted on February 14, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

recycle1 Our house, though newly-placed upon this lot, resides on a dairy farm that was homesteaded around 1885. Of course the original farm was much bigger, but our lot has/had the last remaining buildings from the old farm- the barn and the silo. The barn fell down last spring, after not having ever been re-roofed since it was built in 1902. What we have left is a major rubble pile, not just of barn wood, but of metal products of every type imaginable.

100 years of farming tends to produce a lot of stuff, and it is our aim to clean it up and get it out of here. I understand how farms get messy, because farmers are busy and tend to leave things lying around. But we’re determined that our farm not be a messy one, so we’ve been working hard to incrementally clean up this century-worth of junk. We made a big stride forward in the last two weeks, by making a trips to the dump, the appliance recyclers, and the metal recyclers.

We had two old and broken refrigerators that were in the barn. In our county, there is only one place you can bring those, and you must pay $20 per appliance (they then dismantle them, use the good parts in decent-shape appliances, and dispose of the rest safely). So, it was good to see those things gone. The barn was full of bathtubs that were used for water troughs, and there was an old truck bed lying out in the dirt. Those comprised one truckload for the recycler- this was 5/8 of a ton of steel, for which we were paid $35 (I think). We were just happy to get rid of it and have it be recycled, so the money was a bonus. We were excited to find a new metal recycling lot very close to us, so it’s a convenient trip (and always an interesting one, to witness that little-seen side of the world- all the junk our society creates, and where it goes…)

recycle2 The second load of metal was 60lbs shy of a full ton, and they paid us more that time, I think we got $60-something (not sure why- better metal than bathtubs?). There was a little bit of everything in there- stove pipe, broken gates, barbed wire, bent T-posts, black iron pipe, elecrical wiring and breaker boxes, cables, gutters, and I don’t remember what else!

We took a full truckload to the dump-mostly of old black plastic and orange plastic fencing, a few things that were broken when the barn fell (like my almost-brand-new fiberglass extension ladders! 🙁 ) and miscellaneous crud that was in the barn and around the yard.

Our Isuzu NPR flatbed truck sure comes in handy for these types of chores, and the hydraulic lift gate on the back is marvelous for lifting heavy things. It sure felt good to get rid of that more than two tons of useless junk!

LGD Introductory Training

Posted on February 11, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

lgd2 Here’s how I think it’s going to work integrating the LGD into the mix. I’m not confident that all will play out as planned. But I’ll have to be flexible and adjust the plan as I see how things are going, because I don’t really know how things will go!

Now:LGD is in a small pen with all the sheep. The idea being that she will be lonely and bond with them, not having much other company to prefer. And, that they will acclimate to her presence, having no way to get very far away from her. This part is going swimmingly- she already easily moves amongst them with little disturbance on their part, they tolerate her calmly, and she really seems to like them.

She is starting to try to play with them dog-style a little bit, which is not ideal, but expected. The lamb is already a good 20lbs, so should be able to remove himself from her silliness if he needs to, and the rest of them are big enough to butt her if she gets on their nerves. As the other ewes lamb, I’ll remove them to a separate pen for as long as I can, to give the lambs a chance to grow a little before having to contend with the dog.

The other good thing that’s happening now is the LGD is barking at night and barking at anything that approaches the pen. This should be putting the coyotes on notice that there is now a big dog in the picture. Hopefully they’ll just start steering clear of anyplace they hear her barking. And she’ll be gaining confidence that when she barks, she is able to make intruders leave.

ASAP: get that dog more tame and leash-broken. The 1st day she was here; she was stressed, and fairly demure. The 2nd day, she was feeling her loneliness, so was very solicitous of our attentions. But by the 3rd day, she’s bonded to the sheep, and is playing a bit of keep-away with people and getting very silly. Before she can leave that pen, she needs to come when she’s called and be able to walk reasonably on a leash. I suppose those are the only two people skills she’ll ever need to have!

Soon: catch the llama and move her up to the pen, so she can also acclimate to the dog. Fill in the gaps under the gates to make it harder for coyotes to get into the pasture.

At the end of the month: move the dog and all but three sheep back down to the pasture. Keep the three ewes that are due in March up by the house, with the llama, until they all lamb and can be turned back out. Since I don’t know when the Jacob ewe is due, I may let her take her chances pasture-lambing rather than have her potentially penned up all spring, waiting for her due date.

I’ve been planning to buy portable electro-net fencing in the future, so I can utilize it to do rotational grazing. That purchase is now higher priority, because I feel it’ll be safer to move the dog and sheep down into a smaller area within the big pasture. That way, the dog and sheep can spend more time bonding, the sheep won’t get too far away from the dog’s protection, and the hotwire will offer some protection from coyotes to all of them until things are more stabilized.

New LGD

Posted on February 8, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

lgd Well, here she is. Serendipitously, when I needed a livestock guardian dog (LGD), I was able to find one in a week’s time. My friends Sara Jo and John had a litter last fall, and this girl was the only one left. She is a four month old Maremma.

I know all the books say to get a “trained” adult, and only get pups when you can raise them with an already-trained dog. And I know all the books have advice on how to spend months training and acclimating the LGD to the sheep, lambing, etc. following very strict and gradual procedures. But, this advice ignores reality a little bit. It’s hard to find trained adult LGDs-I’ve been looking out for one since August. I did see one available all the way in Idaho- but it was an older dog, and I worry about buying from a person about which I know nothing. That’s not really the “dog show way.” And that’s an awful long way to drive (though I admit I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a good competition dog from anywhere in the world).

And, the training advice silently assumes that while you’re training the LGD, you don’t need the LGD to be working. This is only true once you already have one, and are training up a new one. So, there just aren’t a lot of options when you need you first guardian dog asap.

I discussed this with Sara Jo, who says she had the same problem. They were losing several sheep per week by the time they concluded they must get a dog. So, they bought an 8-week old pup in the fall, raised him in the barn with some ewes for a few months, and then put him out with the sheep and hoped for the best. And, it worked fine, and they have not had a single sheep lost to predators since then. Since then, they’ve acquired and raised several more LGDs.

Sara Jo reports it hasn’t always gone perfectly. A few times, the younger dogs have tried to play with the lambs and chase them around. This has resulted in bruised and scratched up lambs, but nothing worse than that. She finds that scolding the dog for this usually trains them not to do it. And, a few times she’s had the dog get possessive over newborn lambs, such that the dog doesn’t let the ewe near them. But, she’s just separated that ewe/lamb pair for a while, and then things were OK. I’ve read that young LGDs can sometimes be tempted to snack on newborn lambs, but SJ has never had this particular problem.

So, with this advice, and not having many other options, I decided to go for it and I picked up the dog today. Having her guard as a young dog is not without risk- though she is about 65 lbs already, she still has her puppy teeth, so she is somewhat vulnerable if she were to be attacked. And, there is risk that her immature behavior could result in some loss of lambs. But, this is better than losing pregnant ewes! She’s not going to be guarding yet, but I’m hoping with careful work, she’ll be ready to soon. I think I have figured out a decent plan for making it all work out, but it sure is a big change of plans!

A Little Home Llama Dentistry…

Posted on February 7, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

Our llama is an older lady, and we don’t know her whole history. Suffice to say it may not have been ideal. One thing I noticed as soon as we got her is that her teeth stuck out of her lips and grew at an odd angle. I’m not a llama expert, but llama teeth look like they’re configured the same as sheep- they have lower front teeth for grass cutting, that mesh with a hard upper dental plate/gum. Ideally, they should line up so that they can tear grass. Dolly’s clearly did not. I could see that when she grazed, she had to flip her head quite a bit to rip grass off, which is probably not efficient.

I’m not sure what causes this condition, but I suspect the primary cause may be no natural grazing, in an animal that’s fed hay and grain year-round (which I believe Dolly was before we got her). Eating hay and grain only requires gobbling up feed and grinding it with the back teeth, so the front teeth probably get no wear. The front teeth are designed by nature to continually grow, to compensate for incredible wear they’d normally experience from grazing. Dolly’s teeth were not only too long, however, they grew more horizontally than I would expect, and were curving to the side. I’m not sure what to think about that- perhaps it is congenital, or perhaps her too-tight halter played a role. Anyway, it needed to be fixed, because at our house, she needs to graze.

I searched for information on this condition, but found relatively little in my books at home and also on the Internet. Most mention of llama teeth is in relation to cutting fighting teeth off of male llamas- so at least I knew the teeth can be cut. I found this $219 value, intimidatingly large tooth cutting implement, the Tooth-A-Matic, but I can’t justify buying such a thing for possibly a one-time use. (It does look like it might be great if you found yourself needing to cut llama teeth very often!)

Finally I found this really helpful article, written by Eric Hoffman, complete with clear pictures, on using a Dremel tool to grind teeth down. Ok, that didn’t sound so technical once I read that. Dolly’s place on our farm is to protect our sheep investment (and she’s not doing a very good job of that even), and I really don’t want her to become a big investment in her own right. So I’d prefer to avoid vet bills if at all possible, and I am pretty comfortable doing a lot of basic medical things on animals. But, I’d avoided tackling her to do this kind of dentistry experiment, knowing that it would only add to her wariness of us, at a time when I want her to become more tame and trusting.

But, while she was in the barn recovering from her surfing stunt, I decided it was time. I didn’t want to let it go too long, because I was concerned about her ability to keep weight on if she cannot graze effectively. I didn’t know when I’d have her as a captive audience again, and I figured it would be better to do something “mean” to her in my parents’ barn, so at least she’d not associate it to being caught in our field.

So, I did it, and it turned out to be really easy! I had envisioned a possible rodeo with her bucking all over, and me and my Dremel tool going flying, resulting in me crying Uncle and calling a vet. But, not at all, she was very good. I used a metal grinder attachment for my Dremel, the kind with diamond-shaped scores along a wide cylinder. My mom helped me, and at first we did stick a broom handle in her mouth to help keep her lips and tongue out of the way. But at some point, it fell out and I ended up finishing the job just with my leather-gloved thumb holding her mouth open. She was surprisingly calm about the endeavor, and it only took a few minutes. I nicked her once in the lip somewhere just a little bit, such that there was a trickle of blood, but that was the worst of it.

I wasn’t able to get her teeth as aligned to her dental plate as I would have wished, because they are not growing at a vertical enough angle towards the plate to make a clear location of contact/meshing. And I didn’t want to take TOO much off- I wasn’t sure if I’d eventually hit the roots of the teeth and cause her pain. But, I was pretty satisfied with the result- at least they are all pretty even now, and closer to ideal. And now they only stick out of her lips a tiny bit, so she looks a little less dorky too! Poor girl, little by little, we may get her back into shape again.