Well, the drift of snow that was outside the door of the Emo Agricultural Research Station has finally melted—likely with the help of the rain. I really find this an ugly time of the year and without sunshine it is even less desirable. I know it will change and soon things will be green and beautiful. The time between that and this is not my favourite.
The Rainy River Federation of Agriculture (RRFA) hosted a great Ag Day on Saturday. It was a decent day, so I was concerned about attendance, but they had a great bunch of people attend. Thank you to their board for taking the time to put the event together.
I was thinking I would come home from the event and get my cows and calves in and vaccinate, but instead I decided to make Reubens with the dill pickle sauerkraut I purchased at Lowey’s. If you are a sauerkraut lover, you should try it!
On Wednesday last week, three of our ewes lambed. Two sets of twins and the other had triplets. Things seemed to be OK, but then I noticed the one set of twins looking rather thin. I tried to milk mom out because she had a nice udder, but nothing would come. I had Dr. Stacey check her out, and her mammary glands are blocked and there is nothing much you can do. It likely started after weaning last year. So, bottles were started.
Just for fun, I went into the other pens to make sure they were getting milk and all was good but one of the triplets was interested in a bottle as well, so she is getting some supplement because she does nurse from her mom. Friday night doing chores, the one twin sucked his bottle well, but he just wasn’t doing great. He drank his bottle but had no zip in him.
I checked his temperature and it was low, so into the house I brought him and wrapped him up and put him on the heating pad. It was only a couple of hours, and he was watching Laker hockey with my mom and me. He stayed in for the night, but I took him back to the barn with a sweater on because though the mom couldn’t feed him, she was sad that I took him away.
Boy lambs are harder to have in the house because you can put a diaper on the girl lamb, but it is harder to find something to collect pee from a male. He would have been happy to stay in the house but…. So, we have a couple of months of feeding lambs which you expect with sheep.
Sunday rolled around and so did the miserable weather and though I really tried to talk myself out of vaccinating the cattle, I put on my rubbers and made it work. Well, with the help of my mom, cousin Charlie and Marlee made it for the yearlings. The cows and calves came into the corral quite well and the mess isn’t as deep as it’s going to get.
The cows needed three needles and are finished with vaccines until fall. The calves get one needle and a nasal vaccine. They will be back in for a booster of the needle and a dose of dewormer (Longrange) in three weeks. We will also sort them into breeding groups at that time, and it does take a little longer. I wasn’t sure if the yearlings would come in easily, but they did so they also had three needles and will get a booster of one in three weeks and Longrange. Thankful for my helpers, but I tell you I was tired last night. It is a big job doing them all in one day, but it is off the list for three weeks.
