Goats, Birds, Pups, & Stockdog Clinic

 My posts have been getting super long-I really need to go back to posting shorter posts more frequently. 

Mr. Black looks terrible, so I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with him. I really think it's a mineral issue, but he has good minerals, so that doesn't really make sense. 

I traded Molly's buckling for our old buck, Sultan. He was the first buck we owned, and is so nice and gentle, and throws great kids. For various reasons we no longer have any of his daughters, so we hope to get a few next spring, before he dies. 

Veronica, Izzy's doeling.

Fauna, Simcoe's doeling.

Flora, Simcoe's other doeling. I plan to keep Flora-she is much tamer and calmer than her sister-and cuter. 😉

 

Marion's doeling, Dora. She is really nicely put together, and I plan on keeping her as well. 

Her brother is also extremely nice looking-unfortunately, I did a terrible job disbudding him, so it's very unlikely that anyone will want him as a breeding buck.

 

Aren't these puppies so cute? 

 Brittany and I butchered 10 roosters last week.

Mark has been working on this new chick brooder for me, and it got done just in time for the new chicks! 

I successfully hatched 12 ducklings and 9 chicks a couple weeks ago. I lost one chick, but everyone else is doing great!

Coastal had a really good deal on Lavender Orpington chicks, so I snatched up six of them. One died, and I think I have 3 roosters and 2 hens left. My friend, who is an employee at Coastal, told me that there is a rumor that they will be getting another batch of Lavenders, and is going to let me know if they do indeed come. (I may have to get some more.)

I had Mark put a wire floor in one end of it, because the ducklings always play in the water and flood the pen-plus, it also keeps the chicks from scratching shavings into the water. This is working great so far.

 I brought Jinger to her breeder's place for another training clinic. She was awesome, everyone loved her(both her working ability, and just who she was) and she loved everyone. Her breeder said a couple times about how good she was, and that she made him feel bad, because the littermate he kept isn't looking so good. I kinda just thought, whatever, you know, he's just being nice: I had a message from him the next day saying how Jinger's really going to be a rockstar, and that if I decide to breed her, I can breed her to any of his males. I've thought that Jinger is really good, but I don't know much about cow dogs-to get that from him, who has really great dogs and obviously knows what he's talking about, means a lot to me. 

I also realized how nice it can be to take a strong nerved dog somewhere and have fun with it. Jinger was so opposite Kate in almost every way: she enjoyed the ride in the vehicle on the way there, and loved all the other dogs-it was so hard with Kate last fall when I went to the clinic, because I always had to be aware of where she was, where other dogs were, etc. so that she wouldn't bite them. Jinger, I could walk her off leash, through all the dogs, she sat next to them, greeted them, etc. and it was just so stress free. I really like this little dog, and after Saturday, see her as almost perfect, LOL. Just wait until she does something stupid and I want to strangle her again...

 A really nice, but older and set-in-its-ways dog working sheep. He reminded me a ton of Duke-the way he acted, and how he looked. 

And a repeat of last year-put the girl on a barrel and have her get the dog to bring the cows around her. (Coincidentally, it was a good friend of the girl who had to do it last year!) 

By the way, the dog that she is working is one of the trainer's dogs-the one I plan to breed Jinger to next winter. 😀