Sunday, February 8, 2009

Herd Health Day

Saturday was herd heath day, the day we trim nails, weigh them and give any necessary shots. We've found that the older ones who we have a weight on, we trim their nails in the field rather than put them in the chut. The Chut seems to freak out the older ones. The little ones we need to monitor their weight (to make sure they are growing and to know how much shot to give them). All our littles ones are growing nicely. Sommerfield is now 124 pounds, perfect for her to be bred this spring. Maddie is 103 pounds (finally over that 100 mark). Bugs (Lightning) and Tehya were both in the 70's (75 and 73). Tehya is a big girl given she's two months young then Bugs but only a couple pounds less. Shelby is our little one at 60 pounds, but she also gained the most in the last two months. She's cathing up just fine.

We had a bit of a thaw too, so spent some time getting up the poop. It's been a debate of mine when it's cold out whether to chip up and dig up the frozen poop, or let it lay until it thaws. There was one spot in the boy's paddock where I did chip and dig and that spot ended up in a pond :( I had similar things happen last winter when I did the chip and dig thing. In the girls paddock I just scrapped up what poop would come up. Now on a day when it thaws a bit, I could scrap up a lot more. This seems to have worked the best.

One concern for the day is that when we went to feed them in the evening, Kateri was limping. We aren't sure what could have happened to her front leg. The most likely is that she pulled a muscle when we were trimming nails and giving shots. She is a fiesty girl and fought us a lot (Tucker pushed me into the snow and I couldn't get up, and Sancha spit at us, but Kateri was bucking and fighting quite a bit that way). We will have to see how she is today. I hope it heals quickly.

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