It Takes A Farm Club ...

I've thought about titles for this post for a couple of days, but I've been too busy and/or too tired to write it. It Takes A Farm Club to Run a Farm. Or Farm Club Experiences Life and Death. FC met here on Saturday. I am so appreciative of everyone in FC. I know that they are getting experiences they wouldn't otherwise, but I am benefiting tremendously as well. There was a lot going on that day. My day started with a ewe that I though might have milk fever. I treated her with calcium gluconate and put her with her lambs in a pen so I could watch her. The first FC members arrived as another ewe, Onyx was lambing. DSC_9422Lambing pens ...DSC_9420...and the rest of the barn were cleaned while we kept an eye on Onyx.DSC_9416 Onyx is a BFL/Jacob cross bred to a Jacob. She had a black lamb and a Jacob-looking lamb while FC looked on. I'm glad that she lambed in the barn. If she had been in the field I would have been looking all over for a Jacob ewe missing a lamb.DSC_9451Look at the horns on that lamb. Ouch!DSC_9418 It's unheard of to irrigate this early in the year, but we have had almost no rain since December. The irrigation district charged the ditches so I put in a call for water. Gynna and Lisa helped by clearing debris from the ditch.1-DSC_6566 We checked this ewe lamb's broken leg.DSC_9434 I showed FC members my bone-yard ( a pen where I put skulls that are in various stages of decomposition). DSC_9414Shelby sat with the ewe who later died (not of milk fever, but  a metabolic problem similar to pregnancy toxemia, according to preliminary necropsy results).1-DSC_6540Then we had to bottle feed her lambs. (The day before I had just grafted the bottle baby I had onto a ewe. Now I have more bottle lambs.)DSC_9423 And there are always plenty of lambs to hold. DSC_9413We checked all 70 lambs for split eyelids and number of horns and I gave them all BOSE injections. I don't have photos, but a guest of a FC member worked on my buttons--sanding buttons that I had cut out months ago. DSC_9552 We can't have Farm Day without Donna's brownies...and now Lisa's sheep cookies and  Mary's O'Henry bars.DSC_9507  Thank you to everyone who came and helped and then shared the warm afternoon sun.