Having livestock means hard choices.

Having livestock means having to make hard choices, they are entrusted into our care. We keep them for food, we keep them for protection, we keep them for companions. Eventually we are going to have to make a decision about them for end of life. 

We decide when it's time to be butchered, when it's time to move on to someone elses care, when it's time to put them out of their misery, or end suffering. This last week I had to make a terribly hard choice, that many people would not agree with. I had to find somewhere else for Apache, my blind gelding. He was finally completely blind. He may have been able to see some shadows far away, but he was blind. 

He was doing fairly well out in the pasture by himself. As long as he didn't have any contact with the other horses, he didn't loose his mind. If we tried to take Ben past him, or off the property, he paced, he whinnied, he tried to plunge around and not move at the same time. It was very sad to watch. I tried putting him out front with the cows. He paced so much he made the front pasture a bog. 

I put him in the dry lot and fed him hay, but when the winds came, and we get hellacious winds here in Idaho, he freaked out trying to find shelter from the blowing sand. Trying to walk up to him and catch him to put him in the round pen was almost dangerous. He didn't want to listen to pay attention to where I was standing to avoid running me over. 

In the round pen he couldn't hear Dave's horses out back and worried himself into a frenzy trying alllll day and night long to find a way out of the pen. He was loosing weight no matter how much I fed him. He banged into the water barrel, tripped over it, scabbed up his shins. 

Last week the calves figured out the fence wasn't hot down in the one corner. My steer broke out 4 times in one afternoon, even with adding a third hot wire. We had to move all three of them up into the round pen until I can pay to have someone come out and drill through the lava rock just under the soil, and make a new fence corner. The round pen is a good 60 round, but there just wasn't enough room for two- 13 month old steer, one 4 month old steer, and one blind horse. 

I put Apache out on the short pasture and in trying to find his way to Ben, he bumped the wire fence pretty hard. It wasn't hot, but it was enough to knock some of the wire out of the insulators and bring the top of the fence down.  He got tangled up in it. He managed to get free, but what if he didn't? What if I hadn't been home?

So I called Steve. He's the horse trader I got Ben from. I didn't want to have to take him to the sale. It would have been a terrifying nightmare for him to try and run him through the sale. I didn't want to think about him in a feed lot getting ready to be on a truck bound for Canada when he can't see. I don't have the money to euth him and have him hauled off. 

Steve agreed on coming out to take a look and see what my options were. I know what he is. I know the horses he buys sometimes end up at the sale and on a truck with the kill buyer. He doesn't try and hide it. He's a horse trader and everyone knows it. 

Steve and his wife came out with their truck and trailer. I got Apache haltered and he got some hands on with him. He agreed with me that he wasn't dangerous. He stopped when Steve intentionally stopped in front of him and didn't say Whoa. Apache just backed off a few steps. I said to him i was being a realist, that I knew he might end up on the kill buyer truck. He told his wife she had a new horse to ride. See what they could do. He told me he'd put Apache down if things didn't work. He wouldn't ship him. I believe him. 

I cried, I haltered him and led him to the truck. He loaded very cautiously, but jumped up without freaking. I cried some more when they pulled out of the driveway. It was terrible, but it was something that needed to be done before I came home and found him bled out from impaling himself of a tee post. 

Norman makes a friend, Red Rangers, Creepy Meats

Life is slowly adjusting for the blind horse and his owner. I know he can still see some out of the right eye, but I can see the silver growing in the pupil. I'm learning all sorts of new things. I'm learning that Apache swinging his head side to side to see out of the "good," eye will smack me in the head with the lead rope every time. I can ask him to Whoa and he will stand there for an hour, until I turn my back to hook the fence, and then he walks into me. Whoa is just a silly mouth sound that humans make when there is no lead rope attached to his halter, and therefore should be ignored. Dusk is the hardest time to work around him. Earlier and he can see better. Later and he can't see crap so relies on me for guidance. Dusk is the only time the horse eating monsters that live in shadows on the ground will come out and try and eat his ankles. I'm more nervous about the fact I'm riding a blind horse, than any of the responses he makes to stuff around him. Ben being lazy trips far more often than Apache trying to pay attention.

Apache was calm enough today out on his own to be turned out in the pasture all day. Sometimes he gets so worked up looking for the other horses that I'm afraid of him hurting himself on the fence. We've been throwing Ben out there over night and bringing him up in the mornings. After I let Ben out to run and get the farts out, I take Apache out there and let him graze for about three hours till dusk. He's learning where the fence is, and running around like a ninny is not doing anything good for him.
(Psst, Mom. See all the green grass? Your horses would love it. Move to Idaho)

See Mom, this is why you want to move to Idaho with me. 

Norman has been nibbling hay and trying out his calf grain. We go for a walk in a leash into the pasture to nibble some grass. Today I decided to introduce him to Apache.

Run little steer, run

He thought all that grass was the best thing ever. It was taller than he was in places.

 Apache watched him zoom around the pasture, but he wasn't spooked by the little bugger at all. 

They were grazing side by side after a while. 

The Creepy Meats are HUGE! Just last week I was looking at them thinking they were right about six weeks or so, and with restricting their feed, and letting them free range, I prolly had about another two weeks or so to go before starting to butcher. Nope. Them suckers are packing on the pounds over night. It's like trying to wade through a pile of puppies in the morning when I go out to feed. They're climbing all over my feet, weaving between my legs trying to trip me, pecking at my pants, anything to make the food drop down faster. I'm almost afeared of loosing a limb when I set down the pan full of crumbles.

I do the, "Here chicky chicky chicky," call when I feed so I know I can always call them in for the night with food. Feeding the Rangers in the garage and calling chicky chicky, I hear this tapping on the back door. I open it and there is the whole flock of Creepy Meats. Just standing there. Staring at me. "Yo Lady, you gonna feed us?"

The other morning I tried going out the front door so I didn't have to wade through a seething mass of white chickens. The next morning this is what I found when I opened the door. They were going to walk right in and make themselves at home.

I think they're stalking me. 

Here's a pic from today. The black hen is the Jersey Giant that thinks she's their momma.

The new Red Rangers and the five new pullets are outside full time now. I didn't have another pen for them and the momma hen wants to run them out of town. The Creepy Meats want to eat them along with anything that holds still longer than three seconds. So I had to find somewhere to put them. The boy and I drug the brooder crate outside. I wrestled up against the side of the chicken run and layed it on it's side. The wire top is now a side and the solid bottom is now the back. It's all hillbillied together with the bed extender from the Ford, temporary fence posts for the horse fence, a tarp that got blown against the barb wire fence and is full of punctures, and what ever pieces I could find to make a door of sorts. I did honor Scott's one request, and used none of the damned hillbilly bailing twine. I used the thin wire that was wrapped around the roll of chicken wire that I rolled up and saved, (hid so it wouldn't get thrown away like it prolly should have, but I knew I could find a use for it)

The little banty pullet is so cute with her feathered legs and feet. The grand baby calls her Phyllis 

The new calf is here. Boys got their feet trimed

Our calf for this year was born this morning. Andrea and I went over this evening after Scott went to work to pick him up. He was dry and his umbilical cord was starting to shrivel up. These are both really good things to helping the calf survive. The most important was that he'd already had his colostrum from his mom this morning, and they sent me home with another bottle of colostrum for this evenings feeding. This is the third calf this year we've gone over and gotten. Andrea has the other two at her place. Both of them are doing very well.  I've helped Andrea feed calves when they were away the last two years, but this is the first time starting out everything on my own. The last two years I either went out and dropped a bottle in the holder and they did their thing, or I just dumped milk into buckets. I did keep the first calf of this year over here over night while she built her calf pen, but she did the feeding. She had to straddle the bugger and get him in a head lock to fight him to learn the bottle. This guy I have caught right on. When I went back out to see if he wanted to finish the rest of his bottle, he wobbled right over to me, and ate with just my hand under his jaw.

I know calves are born out in the pasture, in really cold conditions all the time, and they make it just fine through the night. I still felt bad though when he was shivering, so I cut up and old stained sweatshirt, and now it's a calfshirt.

I've been trimming feet on our geldings for a while now. I have my horse trainer, who also is my farrier, come out ever so often and check to make sure I'm doing it right, and not messing everything up. This winter I was quite a weenie and didn't trim as often as I should and the boy's feet got away from me. I was an hour under Ben just working on his fronts two weeks ago, and I still didn't get them to look like I wanted. Mind now, I'm using just a rasp, no nippers, no knife. His feet are amazingly rock hard. Dirk came out and snip snip, rasp rasp and done. I was right about his heels needing to come down a bit more. His backs had frog material growing out over the groove, and I don't have a hoof knife to trim it back. Dirk said they were looking good, just needed some fine tuning. 

Apache on the other hand was a wreck. Not his feet. His eyes. I had caught him up out of the dry lot earlier in the afternoon. I had him tied up, brushed him out, looked him all over, picked out his feet. I put him in the round pen with Ben and he walked through the gate with little hesitation  He was fine. He was a little high headed walking between the two trucks, but he didn't lose his mind or anything. 

It was a whole other story when I pulled him out of the round pen. He didn't want to walk through the gate, he needed some serious coaxing. He was really high headed, shying away from me. He jumped through the gate when he just barely brushed it with his hip. He landed almost on top of me, and did manage to step square on my foot. I couldn't tie him up without him jumping back and panicking when he touched the hitching rail with his chest. He was acting very flighty with Dirk picking up his feet. It was very sad to see the difference in just a couple hours, a little more wind, and the sun just barely starting to set. 

After Saturday, I am very much re-thinking whether he is safe to keep or not. He smacked into the panels of the round pen after I put him in there Sunday. I didn't dare try and get him back through the gate Sat evening  but I did put him in there Sun morning.  If he is acting that wild, and that blind, he isn't safe out in the dry lot anymore. It's T-posts and hot wire. I isn't ideal for a sighted horse with the T-posts, but it's what I can afford. I won't be able to put him out on the pastures to eat grass if he can't see the fences. It's not safe. My budget calls for not having to hay them through the summer and into November. He'll always have to be in a pen by himself. Horses are herd animals. They don't like to be alone. I hate to think about putting him down. He's only 7. I've seen other horses have long happy lives after loosing their sight. I just don't know if I can give that to him here. 

Morning Pictures From Around The Farm

This morning was so nice out. I got to sleep in for an extra hour and a half. Went to grab the camera to take pic while I did chores and it was dead. I had my phone though, and took a ton of pics with that. I had the whole crew out with me this morning.

Kiki, Fudge, Fudge, Bastard, Wiley, Molly

Ashley and the chickens all came too. 

Ben is all butt hurt at us. It's finally warm enough at night that we don't need a tank heater to keep the water from freezing. I threw his fat hiney in the round pen. He spends all day pacing, so he's getting some exercise with his diet. 

He eats faster then Apache, and then would clean up Apache's hay as well. He's starting to look like a hippo. Even though he's only walking, he spends most of his day moving instead of just standing in the dry lot, or laying down. A little exercise is better than no exercise. 

Apache is getting all his hay now. He wasn't getting thin really, but he wasn't packing on the pounds like Ben was. He could stand to gain a few. He's almost totally blind now from as far as we can tell. He doesn't see anything out of the left eye any more. He still stands and looks towards the garage every morning waiting for his breakfast. When I call out Pooooneeeehs, he whickers to me and can focus in on where I'm coming from. He finds his hay by smelling for it and I shake it so he can hear where it is. 

Dave turned his horses back out from his catch pen, into the pasture last night. Apache got pretty upset calling out for them and trotting back and forth along the fence. I kept an eye on him for a few hours to make sure he wasn't going to try and go through the fence, but he settled down. I would have put Ben back in with him if he had gotten too upset. By this morning he had settled back down and was eagerly looking for breakfast. 

The boys got wormed again last week. We used Zimectrin Gold. 

Dave's horses back out on pasture with Stormy looking for breakfast

The chickens even came with me this morning, clucking and talking the whole way. They followed the dogs and the cats across the dry lot out to Dave's pasture. 

You can see the chickens off on the right hand side following us back up the road.  Kiki and Bastard were right behind me

The chickens last year never really ventured into the trees out front. This year though I think they've realized the treasure box of bugs and worms hiding under last year's dead leaves. I lost Mr. Mean, the rooster, a few days ago. He followed Rebeccah's girls back through the whole in the fence. I went out there with a few scraps of chicken wire and he hasn't made it back over again. Of course Rebeccah's girls are missing out on the buggy goodness under the cottonwoods, but... 

We got most of last year's old dead grass burned out of the front pasture. With only two horses out there, there was a lot that didn't get eaten. Burning off the old dead stuff makes way for the new grass to come up better, and adds a few nutrients back into the soil faster than letting it rot away. 

Old Man Fudge got pretty heavy this last winter

I actually had to water the flower garden last evening. I have bulbs coming up all over the place. Some of them I have no idea what they are. They came to my in a box that Shelly at work had brought me. She dug them up last fall when she was redoing her flower beds. I have Dusty Millers out there that are coming back for their third year. They said they were only an annual plant when I bought them. I have a few violas that made it through the winter and have a tiny tiny flower on them. Tulips that I bought on clearance a few years ago. Daffodils that I found growing out along the bottom of the drive way that I dug up and divided out last year. I have two hyacinths at the bottom of the bed that are coming back for their third year, and a row of grape hyacinths along the house. 

And some more random pics I snapped through my morning

Apache

Bastard Kitty

Friends

Apache and Kiki

Chicken in a box

Kiki

Bastard Kitty and Kiki

   

Frosty Foggy morning

I meant to put this post up a few weeks ago when the weather happened. I put the pics up on face book and totally forgot about putting up a post here.

 I woke up to a heavy fog. The kind were you can't see the neighbor's house across the street. You can't see the hitching rail in your yard from the front door at 2:30 in the morning when you go out for that last armload of wood to stoke the fire before you fall asleep for the night. The kind that really isn't fog, but is a low hanging cloud that is parked over your house, settles on the ground and is letting out a misty, spitting, spray that from the sky and coats everything in ice. Freezing fog. It was just at the edge of being too warm to freeze and be snow, but freezes up once it's stuck to some solid object.

I got a phone call from the neighbor at 5am. My day off of course. I didn't get to the phone in time, but got a frantic voice mail, there is a horse loose, one of the truck drivers from Glanbia almost hit it, please, please go check and make sure your boys are where they are supposed to be. She'd checked her horses and they were still penned up.

I grabbed up a flashlight and went outside to check. I had to be almost on top of the dry lot to see, but yep, both geldings where blinking at me from the dry lot, wondering if it really was time to be awake and fed. Nope. Walked down the drive getting coated in a fine wet mist and back to check on Dave's horses out back. I couldn't see a thing past the fence, but I could see that his gate was still closed. Romeo, one of his geldings, has been known to be an escape artist, but everything was still locked up tight.

Over to the neighbors with my flashlight and a halter. What I thought I was going to catch was beyond me, but the need to be a hero sometimes out weighs my common sense. The guys were on the front porch talking, and told me there was a loose horse in the empty field next to the house. They had seen it, but it dissapeared into the mist before they really could tell what color or where it came from. They didn't think it was wearing a blanket, so they didn't think it was one of mine, but it was for sure going to get hit by someone coming down the road.

It was coming up on shift change at the plant and people were going to be rushing to get to Glanbia, or heading home after a 12 hour shift. The road we live on has a 50 mph speed limit, and you couldn't see from one telephone pole to the next down the road. Hitting a 1000 pound horse at 50 mph in the early morning was going to kill both the driver and the horse.

Armed with my flashlight and halter I walked into the field, stopping every few feet to listen. I could see the headlights from the neighbor's truck making a pitiful attempt to cut through the fog from across their pasture and into the field. Big moving blobs of shadows in their pasture was their two horses blowing and snorting at the something that was me out in the dark where, there shouldn't have been anything.

I was a few hundred feet from their fence line walking on what was left of the tracks from the heavy trucks that had been in that previous fall harvesting the corn.  I could see my feet in the light from the flashlight, but not much beyond that. I see the neighbors horses ahead of me and off to the side when the suddenly get excited and start making those whinny and nickering noises horses make when they see another strange horse. That bugger had just walked up past me, between me and the fence, and I never even saw it.

It's a big dark shape snorting and dancing there at the fence line. Poor thing is got it's head in the air, blowing out it's nose, and you can tell it's spooky. I tried to walk up slowly, but it just trotted back towards the road. I can just barley make out the palomino across the road trotting back and forth against Roger's fence line across the street. The horse I'm following in the bay mare that is supposed to be in with him. She walked back across the street and into Roger's yard. We can't get close enough to get a halter on her. I know she's not broke at all. Rusty walks with me over across the street.

Roger is deaf, he can only hear with his hearing aids in. Banging on the front door and calling his cell phone meet with nothing. I can't even see where the mare got out, or a gate to get her back into the pasture in his front yard. I'm prepared to stand and guard the driveway till either he wakes up, or it gets daylight enough to see. There isn't anywhere for her to get back out on the road except for the driveway. This is really not something I Want to have to do. It's freezing outside, and even though I have on my overalls, winter coats, insulated gloves, and my hat, it's going to be a cold, wet wait. It's something I Was Going to do though to make sure she didn't get hit.

My neighbor comes over to help Rusty and I try and figure out what to do. He's a big guy. He banged a lot harder on the door than I had. YAY! Roger wakes up. We got a halter on the mare, and found out where she'd busted through the fence. We put her away, they fixed the fence,and I finally went home and back to bed.

The fog continued through the early morning and made for a beautiful sight when I woke up. Be prepared for some picture spam. 

Tree behind the kitchen

Boys, looking towards Will and Andrea's  

Boys, looking towards Dave's

Even Stormy's eyelashes got frosted

Benjamin

Ben, frosty mane

Pumpkin and Romeo, frosty tails

Dave's tractor

Trees out front, looking towards Rebecca's