Something....continued

Well, I was supposed to quickly upload the photos, and then after tea come back and edit it to contain the day's blog, but I got distracted trying to get the lamb tanning going (more on that later).
Yesterday as we had the tree protecting fences done (well kind of, they'll stop a lamb, but not a goat) we moved the lambs in to the paddock we resowed at the end of autumn, the grass in there was getting knee deep in parts (which is

really a bit long for the sheep), but it needs to be trimmed, and taking the tractor and mower in there would just destroy all the hard work planting it out, so sheep it is. We were expecting to have to herd the goats back out of the

paddock as normally once we open a gate, there are 4 goats going through it, but amazingly enough, we managed to get the sheep out of their paddock, through the goat paddock and into the next, without the goats moving.
After moving the sheep, we had a bit of a wander around, and wewnt over to see Markissa, but we left the bike on the other side of the paddock, big mistake, within seconds there were goats trying to eat various bits, and Monkey was

considering climbing on the bike, she got pretty close! So when we went back, I lifted Monkey on and went a short distance, she wasn't overly keen on that!

Once the sheep were moved, we had to also move the lamb house into their new paddock. I lifted it up so Steph could grab the rope underneath it and a big (about 12 inches long) rat dashed out and into the neighbours paddock. It just so

happened that they were on the way over to say hello etc. After a few minutes yapping, we started stamping around the nettles trying to flush the rat out, and she thankfully ran out of the nettles and back under the house. We decided to

leave her there and get Strider in on the act after the last time. Steph wandered up to the dog run, and brought them both down, and once we had Strider near the house we wound him up something terrible, and then I lifted the house. He

was in underneath it in a flash, and went straight for the rat, snap, but unfortunatly it wasn't quite enough and it started running across the paddock, with Strider chasing it and catching it. I ended up catching it and dispatching it.

Later in the day, we had the charming task of picking up alpaca poo, we're currently grazing them in a neighbours paddock, and consequently we collect the poo weekly. I must admit picking poo is up there on unpleasant tasks.

The rest of the day was actually quite restfull, I was going to spend some more time doing some moulding for the secret project, but, instead, I decided that the workshop was too much of a mess, and spent an hour or so tidying up, not

that it really made much difference.

In the late afternoon, Steph and I wandered around deciding what to do with our place, we've been offered a series of breedings to a very pretty stallion with exceptional bloodlines, for a very good price, so we've been considering that

and what stock needs to be rationalised to make space for a foal. Up till yesterday, we were considering selling the Alpacas, but the other option was to cull some sheep instead, we're currently running 5 permanant ewes, if we dropped

that to 2, that should keep up in lamb, and when we need some, we can always buy a small flock at the sales as grass permits (and it wouldn't be until next september anyway). In theory, we should be able to run 38 stock units, a horse

being 8, a foal about 4, the alpacas are around .8, goats would be about the same, and ewe plus lamb is 1. So if we had Markissa, foal, alpacas and the goats, that leaves us a surplus of about 18, but you would never want to stock that

high. So if we kept about 2 maybe 3 ewes, that still leaves us some margin, and thankfully Markissa is a "good do'er" and doesn't need a great deal of grass to keep condition (obviously that will change if she's up the duff).
One thing we did decided we would need to do was improve some fencing. We currently have a single electric strand as an internal boundry fence "protecting" the trees, that would need to be fenced properly (and if we've got foals around, then 7 wire and batten is best. So we measured up whats needed to do that, it's about 70 something posts, and around 2.5Km of wire, might try and get a post rammer, or a contractor for putting those posts in, 'cause that brings this spring's fencing task to about 110 posts (plus the tree protectors which most are not rammed yet)

In the evening, I tried setting up the next stage of the tanning of the lambs, the instructions stated that it had to have a pH of about 4, and unfortunatly I read the instructions wrong, and got my chemistry wrong, and added bicarb when I was supposed to be adding acid. Eventually I ran out of pH paper, and gave up. The lambs spent the night in the fridge, and then today I realised my mistake, I used water from the outside tap. It has a very high calcium carbonate hardness, which means it can buffer changes in pH very well (hence why it's good for the fish tanks). So I was fighting a losing battle anyway! Once I remade the solution with filtered rain water, it worked much better (and Steph brought home a electronic pH meter, which made it heaps easier).

Thats all folks, next week, the lambs are off to the works, Steph heads off to Canberra for a week (lucky girl), and I'll have to tend the farm by myself (but she gets to do the same later in the year when I head out to London for a few weeks, and the tickets are almost booked!

Something

 
 
 
  

Some fish in the tank

Well that's Saturday done....What's happened, well this morning I went into town to pick up the thicknesser, and some medication for our betta (a fish, who currently is suffering from Flexibacter,a fuzz on it's side). Whilst at the pet shop I picked up two paradise fish (see photos). Just after getting home, Keith and June (the breeders of Markissa), arrived, and we showed them around our place, and discussed a few horsey things.
After they headed off, we quickly finished some temporary fencing so that we can put the sheep in the sown paddock and they won't demolish the trees (one which had new leaves on, photos tomorrow, it's too dark now.) but we didn't move the sheep yet as the paddock is still a bit damp.

Then one the way back, we popped across to check on the 'pacas and other sheep. The lambs need to be moved on very soon, I'll probably investigate doing it next weekend, they have but on heaps of weight, so it should be quite good, we need to catch the smallest one for us, as christmas dinner.

After that, I spent the afternoon down in the garage making my "secret project", I've now done the tricky part, and on to the fiddly parts! I worked out yesterday that I need over 4m of mouldings (which I making myself). Over all I think there are over 77 individual pieces, and it's not from a plan, my own design...

Unfortunatly now (actually Sunday morning), the betta died (well I put him down last night, he wasn't improving). We had a look at the fuzz on the microscope (we have a proper scientific binocular microscope), and we could see the presence of large colonies of bacteria, and it looked like Flexibacter (round and motile)

During the evening, I went down to the workshop and made some more mouldings, the router is performing really well, it's a real shame that the router isn't table mountable, that would have been great (oh well I'll "need" a spindle moulder next)

Now to get dressed and do stuff....







 
 
  

Ah, Don't take my photo

  

Now the blog's back I can fill everyone in on some more news, firstly SnowWhite kindled a good sized litter, a few white ones, a few black and even a few agouti, not sure where the agouti came from but they'll still be edable!
You can see the Littlebush stock calander if you want here. Here you'll see what and when we've done stuff, it's not complete yet, but I'm going to make a big push to finish it this weekend.

Last weekend, Steph and I took Markissa to Tielcy Park (an equestrian center in Palmerston North) for a saddle fitting clinic. We were expecting her to be a bit crazy, as in the paddock she is quite excitable, but once we sussed out how to
get her on the float (a bum rope, we tried a lungeing whip but that did not go down well) on Friday, we were pleasantly surprised on Saturday when she was very well behaved.
Saturday morning, we got up nice and early (after not really sleeping), and I prepped the car, and Steph got Markissa ready. It took us about 5 minutes to load her onto the float, and then we headed off. We were taking it really slow 'cause it's been a long time since Markissa had last been taken for a trip. By the time we had got to Masterton (20 minutes normally), she had settled down into the ride. 2 hours later we pulled into Tielcy Park, and were expecting snorting, eyes on stalks and possibly some crazy behaviour (going by how she reacted when the Alpacas were brought in). After finding somewhere to park, Steph backed her out of the float, and lead her to the side, where Markissa promptly saw some grass and was nose to the ground....After speaking to Margo, we got a stable to put her in for the day, another new experiance...but she just walked in, and then found the hay! The most excitement from Markissa came from when she saw herself in a few big mirrors in the indoor arena, and then when one of the stallions from the same stud she came from walked past. She has a very deep and loud whiney (esp when it's in your ear!)
Steph and Markissa were the demo horse and rider for the clinic, and from the looks of things, this type of saddle fits reasonably well, a few adjustments, but nothing major, so that looks promising.

The trip home wasn't to eventful (which is a good thing).

In addition to the baby rabbits and the saddle, I've also made a start on the planting the big tank (see photos, a much better way to describe it).
Whilst on the subject of fish, one of my clown loaches died yesterday, and unfortunatly is was one of the older ones, so that sucks...

Blog's back

Sorry about that folks, a bit of technical difficultly with Google...but I fixed it (by chance) and we're back.

The last day of the holiday (and other stuff)

OK, a bit over due, but I had written something, but I forgot to save it, and consequently I lost it! Anyway, what did we do on Tuesday...The morning started with me down in the workshop nice and early on my project, prep-ing some more timber. Being typical holiday weather is was piddling down with rain, and we knew we had on of last years lambs to catch, yuck wet wool! After an hour or so in the workshop I went back up to the house, and Steph was just getting up, so after breakfast etc we waited for a fine spell and went out to catch the lamb. After a few rounds of the paddock, and not wanting to go into the race (where we could pen them) he slipped and at that point I ran in and grabbed him. Not the conventinal way to catch sheep, but it worked. Then I noticed a small problem in our plan, the stock crate was a good 80m away, and he was too big to carry. I ended up sitting on him, legs either side, arm around throat with Steph encouraging him to move forward, a few minutes later he was up and in the crate ready to go on a trip..
After dropping him off to Parkvale, we went into Masterton as there were a few bits I needed. After messing around in town for an hour or two, we headed home.
Once home I spent the afternoon, once more, down in the workshop building my project. It's still only parts, but it's coming along nicely, meanwhile Steph crashed infront of the TV with her horse tack, and spent a movie cleaning it ready for the saddle fitting clinic this weekend.

And in other news today.....Last night, as SnowWhite still had not made a nest, I decided to tweak the nesting box slightly, instead of just having an open topped box, I mounted the two boxes ontop of one another, and this morning there is a big nest made inside, so I expect she will drop today or tomorrow, if she hasn't dropped by this evening, I might set up the video camera, could be interesting.

On the tanning side, the lambs have now been in a pickle for 3 days, their not quite ready yet, but D.S. will need resalting this evening, and then one more salting, then she goes in the pickle (once dried and then rehydrated). We pick up the ram lambs fleece from Parkvale this evening, my tanning freezer is starting to get a bit full, I already have three sheep in there! I guess I need to catch up a bit.

Oh, a few photos for today, the new nursary rabbit hutch, the lambs in the pickle, and D.S. salting.

Another day, and another set of trials

Yikes, this holiday isn't really turning up to be very relaxing, but, saying that today's blog does end on a good note (for a change).

This morning I fed the bunnies, no kit's yet, but she isn't due to tonight anyway, so that wasn't a surprise. After doing a bit of house work, Steph and I trundled into town to pick up a few bits, and the scoria for the flower beds. Whilst we were in town, we also picked up a thicknesser for the workshop so that I can try and do something with the rimu boarding I aquired last year.
Once we got home, we spread the scoria out on the flower beds (in the rain), and then I went down to the workshop to play with the thicknesser, whoops, I mean work with the thicknesser...
It's so cool, crappy timber goes in, you let go and it spits out really nice boards...it has taken place as my second favorite tool (compound cross cut saw still being #1).
Anyway, I started on a project (no details till it finished).

Then as it started getting colder (and after Markissa had had her hooves trimmed by the farrier, I came inside, and Steph finished of a few things outside, including the bunnies, this is were the day went pear shaped, Snowwhite (the one due tonight) was missing!!!!! I mustn't of closed the door properly this morning, after a quick hunt around and a few naughty words, I found her in the wood shed, cold and wet. She had tried escaping from the wood shed, but thankfully it has a gravel base course that she couldn't dig through.

So now, we're sitting down to a nice cuppa and a blazing fire..
Till tomorrow (last day of our holiday).

Oh, here's the photo of the manager

  

Bad News

Unfortunalty yesterday, Devil Spawn had got worse, she was unable to reposition her self, and was not showing any signs of improving, so I phoned John (one of our neighbours), and he came over and shot her for us. After which I promptly skinned her, and did a very rough autopsy and she had intensive rotting about a hand lengths in, not pleasant....Oh well in the end we did the right thing, oh the other thing I noticed was her pelvis was very very tiny, In retrospect and with the knowledge of her pelvis size, maybe breeding her was a mistake.
After skinning, fleshing the hide (which is probably the best fleshing I've done), and digging the hole (and putting her head somewhere separate so we can get the horns!) we had lunch, and then I started on the job I was intending to do, which was set up the fish tank. After cleaning 240kg of river pebbles, and heaving a massive bit of driftwood in and about a dozen big boulders, the tank is looking really murky (I was intending typing "cool", but it's not yet, give it a day or to with the filter for that, and then I'll start heating it and thinking about planting it out.
Today I will hopefully get down into the workshop and cleanup after making the manger (photos are now on the camera, so they are getting closer), and I'm going to start pickling the lambs hides (first you dry them out with salt, rehydrate them in brine solution, pickle them in acid, and then tan them in another really salty solution with something else added), Devil Spawn will probably go in the pickle in about a week's time.
Anyway, time for a nice cup of tea.

Devil Spawn

Devil Spawn is still alive, this morning her temperature had dropped from 40.9 to 39.9, which is heading in the right direction. There is still a really nasty discharge from her bits, tomorrow I think we'll flush it with warm water and maybe explore a bit. We're keeping her dosed up on Calpro, and we've got more intracillin for Sunday (if she is still alive).
I managed to build the nursary rabbit run, unfortunatly I had one minor design flaw, it was 5mm too long to fit in the shed, so a quick mod and made it 2" shorter. Now SnowWhite has residence and hopefully she'll start nesting in the next few days. Hollywood finally realised she needed to build a nest and this morning was frantically building a nest in her feed bowl! Hopefully next time she'll get the birthing and nest building the other way around.
This afternoon whilst out (we went to the sales to see what was around, nothing of note), we picked up 530Kg of red scoria, and 320Kg of 6mm river pebbles, the scoria is for the flower beds, it looks REALLY good, photos tomorrow, and the pebbles are for the fish tank, I've decided not to do the whole sculpting thing, I just don't have the time, instead I'll just do a aquascaped tank, but still with many plants and the CO2 injector.
Anyway, this evening Steph and I are off to a french restuarant for dinner.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some good news about DevilSpawn.

Not a good start to our holiday

Well, Steph and I were intending taking a week off, and having a very restfull week, but this morning things didn't go according to plan, Hollywood gave birth over night to 10 kits, but she never bothered building a nest, so they all died!, and then when I went to check DS, she was not in a good state. We've brought her up to a compound near the house so we can keep a closer eye on her, and we've put 6ml of Intracillin and 200ml (over 6 hours) of Calpro (vitamins and glucose etc). Her temperature is pretty high, but it did drop over the last 2 hours (down to 40.6 from 40.9). I guess we now just see what happens tomorrow and if she is still around, we'll get another dose of antibiotics for her.
In an attempt to be a bit more successfull with the rabbits, I'm building a big nursing cage, 2m long, hopefully I'll have it ready for the weekend when Snowwhite is to drop.

On a plus note, we did manage to round up the sheep (which escaped yesterday!), and the other lambs are still doing fine.

Still going

I caught DevilSpawn this morning, and her back end was still quite swollen, but Steph had a look this afternoon and she thinks it looks just like a big hemotoma. One thing I didn't mention yesterday, was that one of the lambs when I skinned it had a massive hemmorage around the throat internally, which makes me think it was first out, and was presented incorrectly, and was killed during birth, and then the one behind suffocated whilst she was struggling with the first. Oh well, anyway today we moved the alpacas across to Julia's (our new neighbour) paddock, we have absolutly no grass left except for the lambing paddock and the lamb raising paddock (which has trees that need fencing off). So as to make the management of the alpacas easier, I made a manger, photos on Thursday (I forgot).
This morning whilst I was feeding the bunnies, Ruben bit me, I had handled the girls (Hollywood is due on Tuesday), and then him, I think he thought my hand was a girl and sunk his teeth in!

Bad news

This morning when I went down to check Devil Spawn around 6am, she was still alive, but no lambs, so I did some cleaning in the barn, and then when Steph got out of bed we went into town to pick up some fence posts (another 40). By the time we got back there still wasn't any lambs, and she was still walking funny!
Later on in the morning I bumbed into Rex, and whilst we were chatting I mentioned Devil Spawn, and he offered to have a look. Once he finished with his flock, he came over and we caught her, and he had a feel inside, didn't like the feel of it as it was very tight, he couldn't get his hand past the pelvis. I tried as I have slightly smaller hands; I got past the pelvis, but couldn't find anything! We then wondered if she had dropped the lambs already, so I did a quick scout around the paddock, and unfortunalty I found two dead lambs.
 

Normally you put your lambs out for the dead lamb man...but because they were so small they weren't worth anything, so I skinned them and they are now in the garage being salted. The really sucky thing is we wanted two black ewes, and that's what they were! Shit happens.

Hopefully the other ewe will do better... 

Devil Spawn Spawning

This evening when we got home, Devil spawn was in the process of getting ready to birth, we checked her again at 8:30, and she was still moving around, but not very comfortable.
This is the first time we've been around for a birth, and hopefully we haven't disturbed her too much, I guess we find out tomorrow morning we check her first thing.
Her bits were a bit red, engorged and VERY loose, we're hoping everything is OK and doesn't need intervention.
Will post the outcome tomorrow, and if it's good, photos too.

Fingers crossed.