Spring Has Sprung

The weather has been all over the place the last few weeks it is difficult to remember what we had on which day LOL. These little lambs are down the road from us and they were a bit far away so they arent too crisp and I could only get two in the one shot. There are 7 and they are all black. Too cute!!!

The owner had a big roundbale of hay on this wagon at one stage and they have obviously eaten it all and this ram was laying on the wagon in the sun, when he saw me approaching he got up so I only got this quick shot and he herded his brood away even further.
They also have geese and this guy was perched in the sunshine and when I got too close he got up and screeched indignantly all the way over to his buddies. I am hoping that I will get there again soon with good light and that they will be closer so I can get some cute pics of the lambs.
Lori got an abscess in her hoof. I noticed a few days ago that she was limping a bit but the mud is so sticky and thick that I wasnt sure, and they sometimes pull a muscle when they try to walk and their hooves suction into the mud. Yesterday morning I went and had to force her up to the barn because she could hardly put the foot down and the mud was so bad.

I tried to clean her hoof out and her joint looked swollen but I wasnt too worried because I found nothing in the hoof so decided to hose her leg and see if it improved. By that evening she was grunting in pain each time she tried to step on that hoof and was only using the tip of her hoof. Stan luckily has had experience with trimming hooves and normally shoes his own horses which is far cheaper than getting a farrier in to do them, it can cost $120 for a set of shoes and that was before all these rediculous price hikes.

So he got her foot up and was strong enough to hold her leg when she tried to pull away (it is her right back) and he cleaned the inside of her hoof and the next second liquid came pouring out of it. She had obviously got a cut in the hoof (I wont go into details because most of you wont know what the heck I am talking about LOL) and it had started to go septic. He had a hoof cover (Like a shoe for a horse that has a base and coers the hoof) which you can put poultice into and strap it over the hoof and keep the medicine in place. Luckily she has left it alone, because she normally cant stand anything flapping or strange on her body.

This evening we took it off and it is looking really good, there was hardly any discharge and the swelling has gone right down on the joint and she is putting the foot down normally despite the shoe on it.

So that has been my few days, today it was soooooo windy, the wind always makes me feel uneasy, I hate it. I can take the cold if need be but the wind just makes me uneasy.

I got my load of hay yesterday and it is really a nice quality hay. I am still trying to get the round bales for the field. I would normally never use round bales because it is so hard to measure quantities and have only used them once 5 years ago when we couldnt get hay at all the whole summer and we managed to secure 2 round bales for an absolute fortune and within 2 days I had 16 horses off their feed. So I resorted to Alfalfa cubes which doesnt help a horse which is a browser and needs to chew and keep itself occupied. They were getting the calories but dying of boredom and it was costing a fortune. I have already substituted some of the hay this year with beet pulp but my supplier has run out and wont be getting any until June/July and they have the price listed at $10.99/40lb bag shredded beet pulp. Four weeks ago it was $7.99 a bag. Dont even ask me what alfalfa cubes cost now because 5 years ago they were $8 a bag and I used 2 bags a day on top of their normal grain.

So the battle carries on, we are keeping them fat and sassy just not occupied but health is better than starvation in my book and they are all healthy. Still hoping a few wonderful people would come and buy some of them and give them wonderful homes.

I am glad to say I am feeling a lot better with the longer days and better weather on its way. It is still in the 30s a lot but bearable and we are drying up and warming up slowly.

That's about it for today. I have a few other shots that I have done but will post some more of those tomorrow, I havent had new material to post often over the last few months so I am going to make the most of it.

(((((Hugs)))) to you all. See ya tomorrow

Lori
xx