Calf, Ears, and Kittens

Minxy, who is everything I was wanting in temperament, but lacks a little in looks.

Marion, Bunny and Desi being lazy bums.

Jazzy and Li

 

Mr. Black is getting quite the hairdo. He's the nicest as far as not scrapping with the other two bucks(Serrano is always picking fights), but also the nicest in that humans are equal to his own kind and get blubbered at just as much as other goats do. Between the three of them, I can't even go in the pen without planning to change my clothes as soon as I leave. The stinky things are always rubbing all over me, etc. Nasty!

This is the surprise calf that was born to the butcher heifer in August. He never grew well, never acted normal, and at one point I was sure he was going to die. Nobody knew what the deal was or what we could do to fix it, so we just watched. He came out of that slump, but at three weeks old, still acted like a newborn and just slept a lot. About three weeks ago, he got really bad, and Mom came in and told me "I make the executive decision that if you get that calf up and running again, you can have him. He's just gonna die otherwise." So I researched a ton, still having no clue what was wrong with him, and tubed him with electrolytes and medicine, bolused him with some huge pills, gave him some shots, and up he sprang! The electrolytes seemed to do the most good. Long story short and a lot of blood, sweat, anger, sore muscles and bruises aside(he is a month old and isn't tame, after all), he took to drinking milk out of a bucket and seems to be making progress now. Still don't know what was wrong with him-I wonder if he had trouble sucking for some reason, which could be why he took the bucket but fought so vigorously against the bottle. The heifer seemed to have milk enough, but for whatever reason he just never acted normal and barely grew.

A volunteer pumpkin plant in the cow pen. Evidently this is what happens when you feed your old carving pumpkins to the cows. It's frustrating how this plant can grow good fruit to maturity with not a drop of water having been given it from man. Yet my garden, which gets watered when I remember to do so, dies. Maybe next year I should just plant a garden and not water it at all and see what happens, or else just grow pumpkins! 

Jinger in her nearly outgrown crate, eating a rabbit for breakfast. She's been having stomach problems since I got her, and I used lots of anti-parasitic drugs and herbal remedies, but after switching her to raw and sending some samples to the lab(in which they found no parasites or anything else) she seems to be doing better finally. Still has an occasional issue, but at least it's not ever day anymore.

I do believe that she is going to be a nice prick eared girl. Short haired and prick eared-ahh, how lovely and alert she's gonna look! (Certain family members can't stand the look of huge bat ears on the top of a dog's head, but I love them!)    

(I have no clue why the typing is different here. I can only see it in the preview, not in the edit center, and can't figure out how to change it.)

That said, she's having quite the hard time deciding right now. One day they'll be mostly up like in the above picture, and the next kinda out to the sides, or one mostly up and the other down.

All of a sudden she'll decide that holding them up is too hard, and they'll drop down like a Labrador Retriever, as they did two days ago. The picture below was taken this morning, and while still droopy, her ears are starting to think about standing up again.

Our two bottle calves from back in June. They are weaned and listed for sale.

I caught the cat in a live trap last night and determined that it is a male, not a female. :( 

Mom came home from Vancouver with three kittens a couple of weeks ago. The calico is Brittany's and is named Star, the black and white is mine and is named Polly, and the orange and white is Mom's which is Copper.