Sleep Deprivation

Bob Calves

Bob calves are the male calves from a dairy farm.  A dairy farmer generally has no use for a bob calf so at a few days of age they truck them to the auction.  Thirty odd years ago we paid the dairy farmer down the road one hundred dollars for each three day old bob calf we bought from him.  We did this two years in a row and each time we got three.  Three is a good number since if you lose one you still have a pair to keep each other company.

We bought calf milk replacer and taught the calves how to drink milk out of a pail.  We fed them a starter ration to get them eating solids.  The only health issue we had was scours or diarrhoea.  One calf consumed a lot of Pepto Bismol.  After about a month or so the calves were turned out onto pasture.  There they stayed until it started to get cold in about October.  Then we brought them in a fed them corn for about a month before they went off to the butcher. 

A recent visitor with whom we shared calf fun thirty odd years ago was reminded that she was not disappointed to see the calves go.  They weren't cute anymore by the end of the summer.  This is true for just about any farm animal.

At any rate, this year we had planned to do the same thing.  However, the dairy farmer who got barely twenty dollars a calf two years ago now gets well over four hundred dollars a calf at the auction.  We decided this was not a cost effective venture.  Our goal was to keep a calf in our freezer and sell the other two.  Suddenly there seems to be a huge call for veal bob calves.  This may be due to the overall rising price of beef and oil.  In the meantime we will purchase a side of beef from our butcher friend again this year.


Barking

In anticipation of new lambs I began to leave Ruby out of the barn at night.  That is, I did not lock her in with the sheep.  She could get in the barn through the doggy door.  To my surprise I found her in with the sheep in the morning as she climbed or jumped back in with them.  She certainly is bonded to them.

As a result of my permission, so to speak, to be outside all night, Ruby has become very active at night.  She barks at just about anything.  This has diminished a bit as the weeks have gone by.  Now there seem to be spurts of barking by both dogs during the night.  Although we appreciate very much having these girls on duty we are having to learn to sleep through it and this is taking some time.


Muskrat Killer

A new duty with the night shift seems to be the reduction of the Muskrat population.  Perhaps it is the reduction of their numbers that has resulted in less barking at night.  Ruby has now brought home three dead muskrats.  There are no markings on them and she does not seem to eat them.  This photo shows her proud self with her catch that she brought right to the sheep's hay pile.





Babies

Spot was the first to lamb on April 17th with twin boys.  Smudge had a single female that evening.  Marmalade had twin boys the next afternoon.  At 2:45 a.m. on the 19th Olive was found to have a female single.  Early that evening, Olive's daughter Nancy gave birth to a single female. 

The pattern is clear:  twins are male and females are singles.  All are healthy and well.  Nancy, a new mother, needed some help and lots of encouragement.  She and her baby have bonded well.

This is Spot in the photo.  She is sporting the latest sheep coat in our flock.  It seems the sheep have discovered that you can scratch your back on the underside of the bucket on Oz the tractor.  The effect is black grease in your coat.  This gives added meaning to the expression "grease fleece" which is unwashed wool containing lots of lanolin.

It was a very busy few days and the first two nights I was deprived of restful sleep.  When the dogs woke me up I went out to the barn.  Otherwise I found myself lying there and worrying. 

I have been very concerned about how the dogs will react to a lambing sheep.  So far, all is well.  Ruby stays out of the way while Millie is desperate to eat the afterbirth.  I spoke to my neighbour on this and got a few pointers as one of her dogs does the same.  I have locked the dogs outside of the barn several times.  Monitoring is needed until we all figure this out.

More baby photos will be posted soon.  Interestingly, Spot was one of the first to lamb last year.


Maple Syrup

Here is our complete production of maple syrup.  Okay, some is missing from that tall narrow bottle as we had some on blueberry pancakes - yum!.  This is the result of tapping two trees plus a donation of some thirty litres from a friend.

Next year we will tap more trees but have not yet decided how many.  Boiling down the sap on the cook stove in the cabin worked very well indeed.  All of the equipment has been cleaned up and put away until next year.  Oz has some work to do back at the cabin to put up a stash of wood for next season's sugaring off.