Stubborn Kid, Troubleshooting the Incubator, Babies, and Working Dogs

 Kind of a long post, because I have some catching up to do!

Back in March, when I started putting the kids on the lambar, I saw this shared around online. I definitely went through all of these "x" scenarios before getting most of the kids to figure it out. 

There was one kid who refused to do it. The "I won't eat, I'm not hungry, I'd rather starve" routine. Most of these kids get hungry in a couple days are start eating, but this one would NOT and started crashing. I mentioned on my blog at that time, that we'd come to a compromise-that I would let him nurse off of a doe, but he'd still be on a bottle baby, 3xs a day schedule, and he wouldn't get to nurse off of his mom. This was okay, and went on for about 2 weeks before, one day while he was waiting for the correct doe to come in for milking, he started sucking on Brittany's fingers. He had never sucked on anything other than a goat before, so I had her stuff the bottle in his mouth and see if he'd take it. He drank a couple ounces so I was encouraged to trick him! I put him underneath the doe, and Brittany covered the doe's teats, while I put the bottle alongside her udder for the kid to grab. He grabbed the nipple and slurped it all down. I tried that for a few days and then tried just offering him his bottle without the doe around-it worked! Once. Then we had to go back to the doe. This went on for another two weeks-taking the bottle one day, and then not the next. He would also randomly drink straight from the top of the bucket while the other kids were eating. Finally, a month after the whole fiasco started, he up and decided to latch onto one of the gray nipples on the lambar, and eat along with everyone else. I've never seen a kid like this before, and never hope to see one again! 

  

Going into my third year of horrible hatch rates in my incubator, I think I figured out the issue! The thermostat seems to be off, the incubator heats unevenly, and the eggs, once they get about 2 weeks old, start generating their own heat and the thermostat doesn't notice the temperature change, I guess. This last hatch, I took the turner out and hand turned the eggs, checking the temperature of the eggs twice a day with a laser beam thermometer. I rotated the eggs around the incubator, as some corners are hotter than others. As mentioned, at 2 weeks along, the temperature of the eggs suddenly jumped almost 2 degrees. I let them cool off for 15-30 minutes a day in those couple of days when I was trying to get the thermostat adjusted right, and ended up running the incubator at what the thermostat claimed was 96.2 for the rest of the incubation. Instead of hatching 5 days early, they waited until the day they were due to hatch, and I got 28 or 29 ducklings out of 40 eggs! I sold a few to a private buyer, and then brought the rest to the local farm store on Monday. 

I've got another set going and am aiming for the same results!

Anyone who says "multiple like rabbits" has never raised rabbits. I've been having so much trouble getting some does to breed! After 2 or 3 tries, I finally butchered some of those does last week. I had attempted to breed them one last time, and only 1 out of 4 was confirmed bred-the others ran from or fought the buck. I decided to wait until they would be almost due before butchering, so that I could double check and make sure that they weren't bred. The day came and I killed two of the does, got ready to kill the third, but palpated her first-she was definitely pregnant. So definitely pregnant that when we came back out 2 hours later, she had 3 kits on her cage floor. She seemed to have no interest in building a nest, so I took the babies and put them in with a different set of babies for the night. 

The 4th one, Nella, the only one I knew was bred, I had confirmed pregnant a few days before, and she had her babies overnight. She only had 4, so I gave her the other kits to raise as well. One died, but the other two are doing great! They are the white ones in the picture. 

Look at those 3 solid blacks of Nella's!

 

Hannah had a nice litter 3 weeks ago-4 solid black and 3 broken chocolates! It has been great year for gorgeous color in the rabbits!

Spruce's babies are getting big and are nice and friendly!

 

 Polly's kitties are getting big and cute! There are 3 females and 1 male, and at least 3 of them are long haired.

Josephine had a single buck almost two weeks ago. He had a rough start and still isn't normal. 

Lilac also had a single buck last week. 

 Clare's buck kids have been verified by DNA to be from the same sire. They are gorgeous kids! 

I finally got some sheep for mowing the pasture and training dogs. I wanted something that was tested for the same diseases that goats can also get, but I couldn't find many, and the ones I found I wasn't willing to pay that much for, for what I'm gonna use them for. My plan with these is to leave them up in the pasture as long as I can, and then decide whether I want to sell them, or test them before I move them down to the barns. If they were to test positive, they would be sold.

I worked all my pups today. Flint got to work the cows because he is too bitey and bites too hard to be safe for work on the goats or sheep. He's a really nice dog.

I would say he's what's called a "dirty biter," grabbing the cows in strange places. 

This bite got him flattened and he seemed to be a little more reluctant to try that silliness again.

I decided to challenge Jasper a bit today and let him try the sheep. They aren't dog broke yet, and want to face up and occasionally fight, and Jasper hasn't shown to be a dog that will bite and teach the animal a lesson.  

With me very strongly encouraging him, he started facing the ewe down instead of trying to circle every time it faced him, and when it did attack him once, it didn't phase him at all. I finally did get him to snap at it once or twice, so stopped there. Because he didn't show any fear(or hardly even notice it) when it hit him, I'm convinced he just needs time to mature and develop bite.

I even let Liz see the bottle kids. She looks extremely nice, and is very thoughtful, calm, and confident, and has a heel bite! With both Brick and Jinger being head only dogs, I didn't figure I'd get a heel bite pup! 

Although it looks quite wicked, she doesn't bite hard, and the kids weren't hurt. 

 

 We went for a walk across the road and stumbled across this Killdeer. She obviously has a nest close by and put on quite a show for us. 

Marcus brought Flint down to swim for the first time a few weeks ago, and he is hooked! He just jumps in and swims all around like Kate used to.

 Liz will wade in, but won't swim.

 Jasper is one handsome dog!

 I got some "Dogs & Wildflowers" pictures today, so stay tuned for those!