Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!
The snow is falling here,around 4" so far, so a nice white Christmas for us.
Hope you all enjoy your holidays!!

We will be watching closely for signs of a new addition or two...

Robin as a young heifer on her first day at the farm

Robin this fall


I will be taking a bit of a break...see you in the New Year!!

Rare Breed of sheep in need of help

As a owner and conservationist to rare breed livestock including a small flock of critically rare sheep,I wanted to pass this info along and strongly encourage you to sign the petition to help save a rare breed flock of Shropshire sheep in Ontario.

This truly breaks my heart....

Dec 8, 2011—Hastings, Ontario—The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has elected to destroy a healthy flock of rare heritage breed Shropshire sheep at Wholearth Farmstudio, a Northumberland County farm that conserves heritage livestock genetics. If the 44 animals are killed, the breed will be several steps closer to extinction with only 107 registered breeding females, 38 ewe lambs and 16 rams remaining in Canada. At one time the Shropshire was the preferred sheep breed in North America, with over a half a million registered animals. The Wholearth flock bloodlines trace back to their 1882 descendants by way of the first Shropshire sheep imported here from England at the turn of the century.

Heritage breed farmer/shepherd Montana Jones has spent the last 12 years preserving their rare genetics and is alarmed that despite lab results proving her entire flock tested negative for scrapie, CFIA officials have decided to ‘depopulate’ all of her beloved QQ genotyped sheep. Sheep that have a QQ genotype are considered less resistant to scrapie, however that does not necessarily mean those animals would ever acquire it.

You can read more about them here or at the blog  here

There is also a facebook page Save Our Shrops- ShropshireSheep.org that I recommend you join if you have facebook.

Wordless Friday...

This big guy has been munching away for the past few days on a unfortunate raccoon...hoping he decides to not bug my chickens....

Calf update

Thanks everyone for your input and help naming this little girl.

So here is Gertie, she is enjoying a nice day outside with her momma and Ginger.

Our week has been very busy around here.
Gertie was having some trouble nursing...Ginny had so much milk it made her teats so enlarged and sore that Gertie had trouble getting a latch on them.
Ginny would get fussy and stomp her back feet when Gertie did get on,thus knocking her off.
After a few days of assistance from DH Gertie now has teats that are a good size for her to get on all by herself and Ginny is much happier to have no swelling and a release of milk.

Gertie is special and has inherited a very special trait from her momma, she has blue eyes...
Ginny does don't have blue eyes but all of her calves have them and so far her oldest calf Francis has also passed on the blue eye gene.
I don't know much about cattle with blue eyes and it seems quite rare...does anyone know about this? have you seen it before?
They are quite stunning...some are a azure blue but Gertie has a almost sapphire blue..I will try to get a good picture of them .

I have to say I love all of my calves born on this farm but once in awhile a real special one tugs your heart strings.
Gertie has been tugging away, She is so in love with people.
If she see's you she will jump up and run right over to lick your hand or nudge you for a scratch.
I have big plans for this girl,I think she needs to start halter training in a few months and stay right here with us on the farm,I can't see her going up for sale next year,she's just to sweet.

I will try to update you with more happenings around the farm in the next day or two,things are just starting to get very busy around here.

All dry...

Now to pick a name...
some that have came up..two hubby picked,two I picked.
What do you think?
Any suggestions?

*Hamish, pronounced Hay- mish, traditional Scottish name, it is a boy name but I think it's cute.
*Pricilla
*Gertrude/ Gertie - meaning spear of strength
*Maeve,pronounced may-v, Gaelic name meaning intoxicating.

Introducing...

Last night we moved Ginny in th barn,this was not without her putting up a fuss.
After searching for her we finally found her,her keeping away from the group was a good sign that the calf was coming soon.
We called all the cows down from the Oak field to the barn yard and tried to seperate Ginny.
Usually her stomach will cause her to be first in line for the grain bucket so we bribbed her into the corral behind the barn.
Irene followed but that was ok because it kept Ginny calm.
Our new door came in very handy as we lured her through and into a box stall.
She was not happy and showed it with a big kick to the stall door.
We gave her a bale of second cut,this interested her for all of 5 minutes.

Ginny jumped and tried to go through the gap between her and the sheep...I was terrified of her getting stuck  or landing on my sheep.
Hubby got in with the sheep and pushed her legs back through to the box stall.
We then had to add additional boards for height so she couldn't try that again.
After chores where done we checked her a final time before closing the barn for the night.

The morning was very crisp,the ground was frozen solid.

At 7:50am Ginny started labor.
It was progressing quickly.
By 8am she had half the calf out but appeared to be having trouble.
I realized only one leg was out,the head and shoulder.
I called for hubby's help and he confirmed one leg was still in, a normal birth will present both feet first,then nose,head and shoulders.
Hubby gently manipulated the leg and just like that Ginny gave one big push and the calf was out.

I was shocked at how big the calf was!!
The calf weighed 10-15 lbs more then what we usually see for a Highland.
I thought Yeoman would have smaller calves then Lucas.

After momma starting cleaning her baby and it tried to stand I discovered it was a big red heifer when she fell over.
So here she is,minutes old....

I'm off to the barn to see hows everyone is doing...I will update you later with dry pictures.

Wordless Wednesday

Why oh why?

We have been having a terrible week with the return of coyotes.
Last night may have been the worst as there were so many of them!!

I awoke out of bed at 3:39am to the sound of my dogs barking.
We jumped up each opening a window....the sound was terrible.
A huge pack of coyotes were going wild in the horse fence.

I wanted to put this up so you get the idea,add way more barking and double the amount of coyotes,put them 200 feet from your house,barn and livestock....worst feeling ever.

coyotes howling

There had to be 10 maybe more.
One big one was barking aggressively like a rabid dog,one smaller,younger one sounded to be whimpering like it was hurt,the rest were howling and chattering.
I have not ever heard so many different calls and noises come all at once!

Once the coyotes would quiet for a moment a creepy noise that sounded like a whistle was blowing was coming from the back field behind the barn.
When this whistle noise would sound the coyotes would go wild.
My husband thinks it was a bird...I checked today for night birds that could sound like that,the closet was a red tailed hawk but I'm not convinced it wasn't my neighbor who has traps set for them trying to call them in.

With cows due it is nerve racking to say the least.

Sunday night around 2am, several were here.
One behind the house by the horse fence,one by the barn and one behind the barn in with the cows.
They were barking.
The one in with the cows whimpered as if it were hurt,I heard cow horns clanking together...I assume two tried to pin the coyote or at least hit it and were successful but  hit horns in the process.
That was the last sound Sunday and they moved on.

They have been here nightly for over a week.
I suspect the fact that my neighbor is baiting them to traps is the main reason.
I'm not happy about it.

I will try to take a video tonight if they are back, of the howling.
Why oh why do they even exist??
Such a terrible creature.....

Does anyone know of a coyote call that sounds like a whistle being blown or is it a red tailed hawk??

I hope they move on but I know that is not likely.
I just pray my cows and barn cats continue to be safe......

Bulls and Breeding

Here at the farm we currently have two bulls.
Our current herd sire Yeoman and our up and coming herd sire, Stirling.

The difference is night and day,not only color wise but size wise as well.
Black Highlands,known as Kyloe, are from a harsher climate in Scotland producing a smaller,compact more hardy animal over the generations.

 Yeoman

Stirling was born here at the farm,his dam is Robin,in our header picture, and his sire is our old bull Lucas.
I was immediately smitten with Stirling from the moment he was born.
He was such a spectacular shade of silver,nothing like we have ever had before or since born on our farm.

One day old.

As Stirling grew I knew he would make a fantastic breeder.

Stirling posses strong, powerful, correct conformation, easy temperament and comes from a long history of superb calf production including Gille Buidhe of Benmore, who is recognized as one of the foundation sires of the breed..

 Two months old and already showing his correctness and fleshing.

His superb correctness and excellent fleshing would greatly benefit our breeding program allowing us to produce animals that could be used for the show ring as well as steers for the table.


In the future we will use him to breed any heifers produced by Yeoman,the combination of the pedigrees will produce some amazing offspring and I'm excited to see the outcome.


At 20 months old I'm very proud of my boy...

In other exciting news involving our herd sire we have another calf(s) due very,very soon.
By January Ginger our Jersey will bless us with another calf.
I hope it is a little black heifer and she is as stunning as her sister Sugar!!

Ginger is getting wider by the day.
Sugar has been turned in with the other cows for now,I don't think she is nursing but she could be sneaking a drink every now and again, Ginger needs to keep all that for her new baby.
I've been waiting to see udder enlargement to go with that belly!


Ginny is getting very close as well,her udder has filled with twice as much milk as last week.
As you can see from the picture she is very "loose". It's not a great picture of the udder but you can see it's below the knees.

Another cow in question is Robin,Stirlings dam....
The question is when?   
We will have them preg checked at the end of the week to determine calf size and a approximate due date.

Yeoman has been a busy boy!

How time fly's

Well one year ago on November 30th we welcomed the birth of a sweet faced Jersey x Highland, Sugar, to our farm.

I'm so impressed at what a big beautiful girl she turned into.

At twelve months old she stands only 2" shorter then her mother and weighs in at nearly 800lbs.
She has taken on allot of the Jersey character, long legs,long face and the tell tale white band around the muzzle.

Who would have thought a year would pass so quickly....so many days spent teaching her to be a good cow with manners..

They payed off ..

Sugar will be bred to our bull Yeoman next summer and have a calf of her own...one can only hope it will be as spectacular as Sugar is.

Happy birthday my beautiful girl!!!

Loss

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. 

~ Helen Keller

Wellington....

Be at rest my boy.