Life on the Ranch

    One of our ewes ended up with a fat face yesterday. Not sure if a snake (copperhead, rattlesnake or some other kind) or a spider bite her.  She was pretty swelled up. We brought her and her daughter back to a stall for the day and night. She looks much more normal this morning.     So, what do we do for a swollen face? We keep a tube of charcoal that has electrolytes mixed in it. A few squirts of this will help to bring the swelling down fairly quickly (usually). Just be careful not to squirt too much in the mouth of the animal (like we did!) and cause them to choke a little bit on the goop!    Back in our CA days, we dealt with Mojave green rattlesnake bites on some of our dogs. We read about a home treatment that we saw work real quickly. Administer butter and whole milk to the dog (or other animal) - as much as they will eat and drink. Our little Chihuahua, Mini, got bit one time and was massively swollen. Within just about 30 minute...

    We have been adding animals to our property quite a bit. Here are some pics of the rams that have made it our way. Some of these are ones we are keeping, some are for sale and some might be for sale, for the right price! So, if you see something you like, email us.     This is Boulder, our 4-horn Painted Desert. These are known as Desert Dragons. This next one is a ramling that was born here just about 12 weeks ago. We named him Santiago. His sire is a big TX Dall and his mother is one of our 4-horn Jacob ewes. His horn growth has been really incredible. He measured over 3 inches at 8 weeks old. Another ramling out of another Jacob ewe and TX Dall ram.  Here is a red ramling - he could probably pass as a Strawberry Dall. This is Ames. He is our dairy ram. He is proven and has thrown some nice dairy ewes.  Here is a nice looking ram that my son just got recently. He looks like he might have some Mouflon breeding in him. We are hoping to...

     Here are a few pics from around the ranch a few weeks ago. This first one is a picture of Marlo (the doe at the back) and Chicci (the doe in the front). Chicci was a bottle baby of ours that we sold and then got back. Marlo is a doe we recently got from Canyon Ridge Farms. Both were a little stressed out about their new enviroment and for some reason they have hooked up with each other. It is funny to watch Marlo, tall and slender, following around Chicci, short and fat. I thought this was a cute picture of one of my daughter's relaxing in the lower pasture with a doe. What a beautiful place to grow up at. This is Aruba, one of our registered Alpine does. This was before she kidded to one big buck kid. This is Rocky, our neighbor's ram. We were housing him over our way and decided to run him with a few ewes for fall lambings.

This is Abby. She is a puppy that one of my sons brought home from the local park. She was a drop off. She has adjusted well to life on our ranch. Here she is waiting on the plate in the milkroom. Waiting for what? THE MILK FOAM OUT OF THE BUCKET!!

Here are a few pics from the past few months. These pics represent some of the wide loads that have been happening at our ranch since December! Here is Rosie, one of our Nubians. She had twins by Ace, our FB Boer. This is Rhia when she was still pregnant. She had twins also by Junior Mint. This is EweNeek, one of our Katahdin ewes. She had triplets by Ames, our dairy ram

This is a trial run of a slide show I made over at photobucket.

See waaaayyy out there in the pasture? Those are the first few chicken tractors.        What is a chicken tractor some of you may be wondering? It is basically a portable house for chickens. The idea is that the tractor is somewhat lite weight so that it can be moved a short distance once or twice a day. The chickens are given water and fed a small amount of food. They also are expected to eat all the bugs (like TICKS!!) and poop as they do so. This is turn helps to fertilize the pasture. From what I have read, it is a great system. Oh, they also are expected to lay their eggs so we can collect them!

see what happens when one of my sons and me go to an auction . . . we came home with a few MORE animals!! Cute SPOT pigs:  Ohhh, a bottle calf for some of the extra goat milk:  And, another big horn ram to fatten up for a few months!

It was bound to happen . . . trapping and catching hogs. The area out here has hogs runnin' all over the place. Well, my nephew and a few of my sons are slowly getting into trapping wild hogs so that they are not a nuisance to the land out here. Here are some pics from a recent catch of just 2 female hogs. There is talk of building a trap that will be large enough to catch and hold 30 or more hogs.