Barn Therapy

Back in the swing of life on the farm is comforting and theraputic. There’s so many new things happening! I’ll start with the chickens. We have certainly had our ups and downs with our chicken flock, but have seemed to find a happy place with the number of 15. We tend to swing in 'number of chickens' from 12-18 these days. Sometimes, we accidentally get a rooster, then minus one. That just happened (again), and luckily a friend wanted him, this time. Her/His name was Cloud, a beautiful light ombre grey chicken. She/He came with a recent intake of the 8 chickens we purchased from the Old Wild West chicken farm in Oklahoma. Supposedly we had all ladies. But no. One rooster snuck in, and we did not know it for a couple of months, as it takes time to really know whose a girl vs boy when it comes to chickens. Then all of a sudden, she was cock-a-doodle-doo-ing. You know the rules around here, Sheriff says "No Roosters" on the premises. And away he went this past weekend. His best friend, Storm was left wondering what happened to Cloud? Storm was the same chicken breed, but a darker ombre grey, hence more fitting for the name Storm. So far, she's still a girl in our eyes. It's a interesting phenomenon how chickens are in a flock all together, but 'pair' up with a chicken that looks like them, and typically their same breed. After all these years of having chickens, that still fascinates me. Anyway, Storm/Cloud is now broken up, and Storm remains with us, while Cloud is heading to a farm in Lowry Crossing to be his real rooster self. Storm continues to stay with the flock with her "other" half now obviously missing.
Chicken Math, it's great. The ebb and flow of our flock is always fascinating. We seem to always be counting and recounting. Recently, I made one of my better chicken purchases! On CraigsList (not sure why I was looking for chickens there, but they DO have lots of farm animals for sale), I found the deal of a century. Four silkie hens for $40.00. They are 6 months old and just starting to lay the smallest, cutest eggs you've ever seen. Silkies = chickens, like Yorkie's = dogs. Small, super cute, strong personality, packed full of punch and pizzazz. Yes, I got four of those sweeties! A white one, grey one (bonus - technically a Frizzle! Google that), a brown one, and a black one. They have been raised together and do everything together. OMGoodness, love them! It's as if they are somehow invisibly attached, roaming the yard in a tight knit group. And the best part is my existing Ladies welcomed them freely, so +4. Boom. I'm still trying to come up with names for these cuties. Right now, we call them The Little Girls. They all give me an egg most every day.
We have had another new grouping of animals join the farm. I surprised David a couple of weeks ago with a new Anatolian/Great Pyrenees livestock guard puppy. David has been asking and talking about getting a new guard dog puppy, who our existing guard dogs would train, for the farm. Our two Great Pyrenees, Levi and Whisper (brother and sister) are the best-est and most awesome guard dogs! Lately though, Whisper has begun to limp on her back left leg, and over the last 2 months it has worsened. We had taken Whisper to the Vet (which was a event in itself, since she's never left the farm) when she first started limping, and the Vet said she has arthritis, and not much will help her. But now, it's much worse, and so back to the Vet we go. We decided on a Surgery Work-Up including more extensive X-rays and evaluation, to see if any surgery might be available to help her live a better life. If it's a hip replacement, or whatever is needed, she's still young enough to live a full life without this pain she's having. What this means in the grand scheme of things is that she cannot guard like she used to. At least not in her current condition. And if this continues, we would need to train a replacement, and take her out of working the pasture. We have decided we need to bring Whisper into the inter sanctum (kind of like our front yard), as we call it, whereby she can relax and not have the compulsion to "work". She's not able to run like she used to, and she knows that. I'm not really sure how she's going to do with that scenario, but a change has to be in her best interest. To sum it up, a new Great Pyrenees/Anatolian puppy was now a necessity. I ended up bringing home a new LGD puppy, as a love gift to David: A boy puppy that David would name Davis, in memory of his recently deceased mother, as that's her maiden name. He's a handsome 8 week old puppy whose parents guard for sheep and goats, and they are big dogs. He will be the same. But that same night, David asked if there were more puppies available. Yes, I tell him. She still has 5 girls and 1 boy puppy left. David asked for 2 more puppies! WHAT? Is one puppy not enough? "Another boy", David says, "and then how about pick out one from the remaining girls". And so I did. After work the next day, I trek back to the same farm to pick up two more puppies. The two brothers and sister are now reunited at the Graves Farm. David's own puppy-dog eyes talked me into 3 puppies total. They are beautiful dogs, and will be large and in charge once trained by Levi. The process with take at least a year, but we will get there. This is all in an effort to relieve Whisper of some of her duties, and hopefully we can manage her pain. Her pain stops even her, from her natural instincts. So we will see where all this puppy business takes us. Right now? We are in puppy heaven, soaking up the joy of their love and loyalty. The other names for the boy and girl? Since they are his puppies, David ended up naming them all. The girl: Dixie. The second brother/boy: Duke. Our new puppies Davis, Dixie and Duke will be the next generation of LGD (Livestock Guard Dogs) that will guard our sheep, chickens and barn cats. And we thank them all every day.
We have one last addition to the group to introduce. Not yet born, but in Eve's belly, is a lamb. We now know for sure Eve is pregnant, and are pretty sure Belle is not. Belle has always been shy and sheltered. We have raised her as our own baby since she was one day old, feeding her a bottle around the clock. We are imprinted on one another. This is not to say she can't get pregnant, after all, Sam did his job with producing a lamb with Eve. But Belle is Belle. She's not your normal sheep. (This is what all mom's say, right? But my child is different. Special). Yep, that's Belle. If she's also pregnant, she's behind Eve timewise, so I guess time will really tell that tale. Now Eve is obviously with lamb. The thing is, I don't know when she's due. It takes 5 months for gestation with sheep/lambs. I guess we will find out with time. Eve is doing well, and lets us love her, and pet her more than ever. She's going to be a good mama. Thank you Sam, for giving us the opportunity to have baby lamb(s). I'm going to cry that day, for sure. A new lamb born in our barn will be a joyous occasion. Eve is the last/youngest of triplets, so can you imagine how hard I'm going to cry if she has more than one baby. I have chicken skin right now just thinking about it. Goose bumps bubble all over me at the thought of "the day". The day we have a lamb born here. I'm that 12 year old girl again.
God is good, and continues to bless us. We love and adore all our farm animals. They each have their own distinct personality and add a wonderful dimension to our little hobby farm. We have a lot of work to do in regards to training three new LGD puppies into adults that will do an amazing job. Granted, David nor I have done that before. We also have research and learning to do in regards to lambing. Shepherdess Cyndi has things to figure out. But then again, everything here from chickens to donkeys have been new at some point, and we do our best to keep everyone healthy, happy and safe.

I'll keep you posted,
Cyndi

I've already named the baby lamb Grace. Hope Eve has a girl! And just like everything in life, I probably have no idea of really what's to come.