Comeback Kid

At some point between the 2 am and 6 am feedings yesterday, Charlie managed to get his hoof underneath him.  He's up and running normally now as if he never had an issue with his leg.  We're pretty thrilled.

And since he can now keep up with his brother Ed, the biggest question is- exactly how much trouble can two little lambs get into while inside the house?

Ups and Downs

Whew.  Ok, the last 48 hours have been...crazy.  Just crazy.

Dutchess had her lambs, who are a ram and a ewe late Wednesday night.  Early Thursday morning, Contessa also had twins, a ram and a ewe.  Unfortunately we lost one of Contessa's lambs overnight. 

Thursday morning before work Adam noticed that Milady was also going into labor.  He had to leave, so he had his dad check in.  A few hours later, Dan noticed that Milady was having issues; her contractions had stopped and he could see the a nose and a hoof.  Dan helped her have her twins, both rams, but Milady had a prolapsed vagina and was having issues after her delivery.  Her issue was resolved and she's doing well, but she didn't bond with the lambs after their birth.  Consequently, we now have two bottle babies in our mud room.

This is Sir Edmund Hillary (so named because he likes to climb on top of Adam before he gets his bottle) or Ed for short:

Ed is a great explorer.

And this little guy my sister has named Charlie:

When Charlie was born, he wasn't putting weight on one of his back legs.  We thought we were going to lose him at first, but he kept fighting.  This morning, he got his leg underneath him and has started to put weight on it, but isn't quite on his hoof yet.  He seems to be walking on his ankle joint instead.  He's getting stronger though, so we have hope for him.

Hopefully we'll have pictures of the other lambs soon.  One ewe left to deliver. 

New Arrivals

During lambing season, it seems to be that the worse the weather, the more sheep want to give birth.  Beautiful balmy spring weather?  No lambs anywhere.  Having a blizzard?  Expect lambs popping out all over the place.  Anything to make the shepherd trudge out into the snow every hour.   
So it was only natural that since tonight we have this:

we just got these:

Dutchess's twin lambs, a few minutes old.  Mother and babies are doing great!

True or False?

So I was grooming Storm, one of my french angora bunnies, last weekend and she looked fine.  Great.  I even plucked her a little bit to get some of the loose fluff out and she was looking fantastic.  Naturally, to Storm, having things going well means that it's time to create havoc. 

When I went outside a few days ago I noticed that she had a couple of bald patches.  And by a couple, I mean that her entire stomach and parts of her legs were naked.  Trying to figure out where all the fluff was going (and fearing she had eaten it, yikes!) I peeked into the covered part of the hutch.  And my rabbit was building a nest.

Now, she's only housed with her sister and has never, to my knowledge, even seen a male rabbit so this nesting thing took me by surprise.  After a frantic consult with the angora rabbit group on Ravelry, I learned that some female rabbits can apparently go through a false pregnancy, where they build nests by pulling out their fluff and adding it to hay to prepare for the baby rabbits.  Which will not be coming.  We have no idea WHY she thinks she's pregnant, but knowing that she's not the brightest carrot in the bunch and that her sister Nimbus is a bit of a brat, Adam envisioned the conversation went something like this:

Storm having just eaten a very large carrot.
Nim:  Wow.  You're getting pretty fat.  Are you pregnant?!
Storm:  Hmm, I don't know...
Nim:  I bet you're pregnant.  Yep, definitely pregnant.  You need to build a nest.
Storm:  A nest?  Really?
Nim:  Yeah, you need to pull out all of your fur and build a nest.  I mean ALL of it.  You don't want those babies to get cold.
Storm:  All my fur?  But it's March!  And it's cold!  Can't I use some of your fur?
Nim:  Well, no.  I need my fur.  And besides, YOU'RE the one that's pregnant.  But don't worry, I'll totally help you when the babies get here.  *snicker*

Hopefully she'll snap out of it in a few days.  Spontaneously deciding to pull out one's fur is not really a great quality in a fiber animal.  Poor silly girl. 

Saturday Morning Feeding

Gaia

Eirene

Vorenus and Adam

Sheepies

Princess

Dutchess

Sweet Pea

Thumbs, our part time barn cat

Geese coming home! 

Like a middle school dance

As it starts to warm up around here (Spring?  Really?  Did we make it through winter?!) the animals are naturally becoming much more active and well- friskier.  This is much more apparent in the chickens, because with the melting snow they are everywhere these days and because we have quite a few males and females.

Which seems to be creating a bit of a problem for our Newfoundland.  Apparently Thora has appointed herself Chaperone of All Chicken Interactions and has decided that there should be no chicken touching whatsoever.  None.  Zip.  Zilch.  All chickens should be at least a foot away from each other at any given point in time.  She hasn't quite broken out the ruler to enforce this law, but she has been seen diving headfirst into the chickens to separate any who might look particularly...amorous. 

This does not bode well for our hope of baby chicks this spring.