Commercial Cage Free Egg Production – Bigger Cage, Just As Crowded

Posted on 2017-05-04 by Andrea

This video promotes an engineering feat – the industrialization of cage free buildings for egg production.

https://cagefree.summitlivestock.com/

Even thinking about producing 1.1 billion eggs in only 10 layer houses in only 3 sites in the US is scary. They never show how the building looks from the inside (ie-hen view) but it’s pretty clear from the other video stills/links provided at the end how it will be. The “cage” is bigger and the amount of space provided is pretty much the same – way too small for a living animal.

People think they are doing a good thing by buying cage free eggs but big industry has figured a way to claim the tag phrase without allowing the hens to live like chickens. “Free range” has similar issues although arguably somewhat better for the hens as they are only crammed wing to wing at night (vs 24 x 7).

Use your money to provide good lives for hens by buying your eggs from a local small farmer where the hens ARE cage free!

Dominique Hen Looking at Catnip

Late Winter on the Farm

Posted on 2017-05-04 by Andrea

It’s been a busy time for farm and wildlife activities over the last month. The weather has been quite capricious as well. I knew there would be payback for the lovely warm February this year!

Chicken Traumas….

On President’s day Regina (Salmon Favorelle hen 3 years old )

Regina – Favorelle Hen

was pecked on the head so severely by Coq Au Vin (Easter Egger rooster 1 year old)

Coq Au Vin – Photo courtesy of

that the skull was visible. She made a full recovery in about 2 weeks which is yet another testament to their healing abilities and tolerance for pain (good old fashion toughness and strong will to live!).

The rooster had been picking on some of the older hens, just warning them away from his favorites, but not anything serious up to this point. My experience is that roosters that lives with a smaller group of hens will prefer them if they are then all released into a larger group. This rooster had been raised with his “sisters” until about 8 weeks when he began to be too aggressive and he was moved to a pastured area with 1 year old hens. After initial dissatisfaction (had to clip his wings to keep him in their area!), he settled in, got on with them very well and they loved him too. I’d never had a rooster attack a hen and cause such a significant wound. I put him in his own area and it was quickly clear that he’d been terrorizing some others as well because they stopped hiding within a few days. I’d thought it was hen disagreements causing the slight dissension in the main group.

Since Coq Qu Vin is very good with people I decided to re-home him thinking that starting off with a new flock he wouldn’t have any prejudices. I found a nice home for him and thought things were going well as there was no word for almost 3 weeks but alas he decided he did not like Buff Orpington hens either and he came home again. He’s in his own pen with a view of the ladies while I decide my next approach. I’m thinking of letting him run loose outside the chicken yard and roost in the greenhouse overnight.

Around the same time one of my Australorp hens broke a thigh bone completely (snapped in half) in two separate spots – one in the center of the bone, one just below the pelvis joint. No idea what happened but she was suffering greatly although she valiantly moved around using a wing to support herself on the bad leg side. She did not make it, the injury was just too severe. Most animals have appetite loss if they are in severe pain which causes them to go down, not the injury itself.

Also a Dominique hen (KFC – so named because she loves “fast food” aka corn) tore a growth off her leg which bled for a long time despite my attempts to stop the bleeding. After a week in the greenhouse with a bandage on her leg she was doing so well that I returned her to the geriatric hen pasture to complete her recovery.

Goat Issues…

The (presumably benign) tumor on James’s (12 year old Angora goat) throat finally got to a critical stage. He’s had it for over a year and I had a vet look at it soon after I first noticed it. The opinion was that it was inoperable because of the location. So…had not been looking forward to what was going to happen with him over time. The tumor had grown quite large and reached the point where his skin couldn’t stretch any more, bursting open so that he was draining fluids from the opening continually.

Since fly season was approaching and he was clearly not feeling good I decided to have the vet try to remove the tumor, knowing that there was a good chance he might not make it through the surgery. A big snowstorm was expected (>2″ predicted) and the vet wanted to do it the day of the storm as all his other patients had cancelled and he could focus on the difficult procedure. So… James went to the Vet the night before the storm and while my entire day was spent shoveling James surprised all of us by surviving the surgery in great shape.

He spent 5 days in the garage at night and in a stall in the barn during the days so he could be easily monitored in a sheltered, more sterile area. He has progressed nicely and is happily re-united with his brother out in his regular pasture. I still have to borrow the staple remover from the vet and take all the staples out but hope to do this early next week. His voice is normal again but he’s still coughing and choking more than normal. Hopefully that will slowly improve as all the muscles in his neck and throat heal.

Of course he had to give me a good scare the other night. I went out to do the evening feeding and couldn’t find him. Finally I see him on the ground at the far end of a remote pasture. I call to him and there is not motion so I start running and I can’t tell he’s alive until I touch him. Then he shifts his eyes to look at me pleadingly but patiently. He had managed to get tangled up in the electric net fence intended to keep the boys from knocking heads with the girls through the main fence. There was no electricity involved, it was just being used as a visual and soft physical barrier. He was perfectly fine after I got all the wires off his horns and front legs although he was grinding his teeth (normally a sign of pain) and for a bit I thought the plastic wires had sawed into his skull at the base of the horns. Thankfully the wires were only caught on an imperfection on his horn. Needless to say this means they won’t be using that pasture again until I can work out a better barrier. Unfortunate as it has better grass than their “home” pasture and they had been using that pasture with that fencing for months now without issue!

Bunny Mishaps….

At the end of March a baby bunny (eyes still closed) was found on the main path into the chicken yard with one eye pecked partially open and a large wound on it’s back. Since the bunny was very cold it was brought into the house to be re-warmed. There was no sight of a nest even after repeated attempts to locate one so the bunny stayed in the house while I put a game camera up over night to locate the nest.

I was able to use the game camera pictures to find the bunny nest after a few tries. There were two more rabbits in the nest also with pretty full coats and eyes closed, ears down (thus <a week old). They were in the compost pile which was pretty wet due to the recent rain and full of goat poop and smelly hay as this is where the mess from the barn ends up. I imagine this was the only place the mother could dig since the ground was snow covered from the 14 inch snow we received the week prior and the lack of any real warmup to significantly melt the snow since then. It has been the second incidence of a 60 degree day followed by a significant snowfall this year.

It was safe in that it was a fenced area with electric lines around it but not safe for baby bunnies wriggling out of their nest and attracting chickens looking for snacks. The short version of events is that after several attempts to reinforce and better water proof the nest, the mother wasn’t able to find them (even though it was in the spot she had put them in) and the injured one as well as another kept escaping from the nest and striking out for parts unknown. Since they were escaping through the fence around the compost pile there was no way to ensure their safety during the day (chickens) nor a way to keep them safe from Mother Nature at night in between feedings by their mother IF she could find them.

Unfortunately rabbits are very difficult for people to raise. They require a formula that is very high in fat and protein (not even goat’s milk at 43% fat is sufficient, cow’s whole milk is 5%) plus the killer issue is they must eat a bit of their mother’s night time poop preferably every day. Yes, there are 2 kinds of rabbit poop – dry pellets and a smelly, gooey kind they do at night. Fresh poop is needed in order to inoculate their intestines with the proper bacteria to digest the fiber in greens (grass, etc.). Without rabbit poop in their diet they will quickly die once they start eating greens. So if you don’t own a rabbit or know someone nearby with a healthy domestic rabbit and are not willing to spend $60 for the proper formula, orphaned baby rabbits are history. I had been keeping the injured bunny going on goat’s milk since that was the highest fat and protein milk I could easily find and had been hoping to get the orphan back into it’s nest ASAP. Keeping the bunny warm and avoiding dehydration were my main goals.

Once I decided I couldn’t keep any of them in their nest, I started looking for a wildlife rehabilitator that handles rabbits. The NJ Association of Wildlife Rehabilitators provides a list of NJ state licensed rehabilitators on their website. Luckily Woodlands Wildlife Refuge is located fairly close to the farm and they rehabilitate rabbits. I talked to them and they agreed the situation here at the farm could not be remedied so I dropped the bunnies off for them to raise. The bunnies opened their eyes the evening before I dropped them off and they weighed 1.8 (the injured one) to 2.1 ounces! Their eyes typically open at about 7 days. The injured bunny had healed very well and the injured eye completely opened a day before the other eye. It might end being blind in the eye that got pecked, too early to tell but it looked clean and healthy at the time I dropped the bunnies off at the rehabilitators.

If you are interested in knowing more about raising orphaned rabbits and general information on their unique needs and growth benchmarks there is an excellent website created by Ron Hines (a vet) who covers health topics on both domestic pets and common wildlife rescue info. The injured bunny really touched my heart because it had such a strong will to live and was able to accommodate all the changes in it’s short life: learning to drink from a syringe and have it’s butt rubbed with a q tip (to encourage it to go) vs the way mom did it, a strange place with strange smells/ sounds and all while blind and in pain. Maybe the bunny thought mom had made a very poor choice of nest location and was determined to improve it’s life even at 4 days of age!

Duck Sightings on the Pond…

A pair of Buffleheads had been on the pond for months, with an occasional extra male visiting from time to time. When I went to clean out the pond overflow drain the male did a fly by quite near me several times making me think they might be nesting nearby. They are cavity nesters using old Flicker or Red Bellied Woodpecker nests of which there are lots to choose from in the trees on the east side of the pond. However, they disappeared shortly after that and haven’t been seen since Feb.

More recently a group of Ring Tailed ducks were out diving on the pond. Their is also a pair of Mallard’s that have been here all winter. The female has a bum leg which may be why they haven’t moved on.

Other (Human) Craziness…

When I bought the farm in 1997 there was a large dish antenna located near the side of the house. I managed to remove the dish and find someone who wanted it not too long often moving in but after numerous attempts to use the metal support pole for “something” I realized it had to go. Another example of how much things have changed in 20 years!

Last year I started digging around the concrete footings to scope the extent of the project. Needless to say I ran out of time as I was trying to put up a new fence around the vegetable garden and that had to take priority. Since the weather in Feb, was so lovely, I returned to the task. After I got down to over three feet, it finally dawned on me that even if I could get it completely uncovered there is no way I would be able to get it out of the hole and moved somewhere, not to mention where/how to get rid of it. I tried whacking the concrete with a sledge hammer for awhile and concluded this approach would work but I’d be nearly 80 years old before I’d finished. On to the next plan.

I decided to dig a trench, push it over horizontally and then cover it with dirt. Being buried under three foot of dirt would get it out of the way and wouldn’t get in the way of planting things over it. This plan also hit a snag as it turned out that there were two reinforcing rods that extended well past the bottom of the concrete foundation! After several attempts at pushing the concrete and pole over it had bent the metal rods enough that I could hacksaw through them. Success at last as the foundation and pole slowly bent over and into it’s trench grave! It only took about 45 hours of hand shoveling and 30 minutes sawing to see this amazing sight! The trench has been refilled, three blueberry bushes are planted on top and one end has sprouted grass. Definitely a project only a crazy person would have done themselves by hand!

On to snowblower and lawn tractor repairs!

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If Alicia Silverstone was naked and telling you all wool clothing was bad, would you believe her?

Posted on 2017-02-21 by Andrea

Not I….as an animal lover and long time sheep and goat owner I can say with confidence that fiber animals need to be shorn for their health and it does not have to be a frightening experience. They don’t like having their feet trimmed either but if left untrimmed they would go lame. Nature is far more cruel than a caring owner, and every second of life is not completely idyllic for any of us.

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If Alicia Silverstone was naked and telling you all wool clothing was bad, would you believe her?

By Brian Barth on January 9, 2017 (published in Modern Farmer)

PETA, the animal rights organization, has a reputation for employing the oldest marketing trick in the book: selling their message with sex.

The latest example? Their campaign to raise awareness of animal abuse in the wool industry, which features a poster of Alicia Silverstone walking naked into a meadow, her head turned over her shoulder, looking back at you with seductive, pleading eyes. The caption reads, “I’d rather go naked than wear wool.”

Pamela Anderson, the singer Pink, and a handful of other celebrities have also bared all for the cause.

The PETA creed is that “animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.” In other words, keeping livestock for purposes of human consumption, whether in a factory-farming setting or a small organic farm, is ethically reprehensible. PETA is well known for popularizing veganism and exposing animal rights abuses around the world. But livestock farmers, unsurprisingly, have long despised their shock and awe tactics, which have a tendency to paint all farmers as evil animal abusers.

PETA’s current sheep campaign—typically broadcast with the tagline, “there is no such thing as humane wool”—was launched in 2014 after the organization released footage of sheep being cut, manhandled, and mangled at wool-shearing operations in the US and Australia. The effort got major press coverage around the world, and led to the prosecution of several of the Australian shearers who were depicted in the footage on animal abuse charges. Now that Alicia Silverstone has put her skin in the game (pun intended), PETA’s wool campaign is back in the media once again.

Wool producers, along with a number of large agriculture organizations, have fought back. In Australia, the Victoria Farming Federation filed a formal complaint when a locally popular vegan musician was featured in PETA ads holding a bloodied lamb carcass with the caption, “here’s the rest of your wool coat.” It turned out the carcass was made of Styrofoam. PETA admitted to using a prop, but maintains that it was a realistic illustration of the horrors of shearing.

A skilled shearer needs just two minutes per sheep, and at worst, leaves a scrape or two no more gory than minor shaving cut. As far as viewing the sheep’s resistance to the practice as an indicator of cruelty, she suggests one might consider the challenges of bathing an uncooperative child or dog.

Animal abuse is far too common an occurrence with pets kept by demented individuals everywhere. And as PETA’s undercover sheep investigation clearly shows, along with many others that have preceded it, some abusive individuals (unfortunately) make their living handling livestock on farms throughout the world. The question is, is abuse the norm? Are examples of abuse at a few sheep ranches enough to indict an entire industry?

We thought it would be worth asking a wool producer who claims to raise their sheep in a sustainable, humane manner how their practices differ from what PETA ascribes to all wool producers. Becky Weed, owner of Thirteen Mile Lamb & Wool Company in southwestern Montana, was a little reluctant to take the call from Modern Farmer, as she’s been caught in the crosshairs of the animal cruelty debate before and has better things to do than argue with activists about whether or not raising sheep is inherently evil.

“I am wary of PETA,” says Weed, right off the bat. “I don’t think it’s a particularly rational organization…I think animal welfare is important, but I don’t believe that raising sheep is by definition cruel.”

Her harsh words stem from PETA’s unwillingness to acknowledge the many farmers who make humane animal care a top priority, throwing animal-loving ranchers like Weed under the bus as they expose the horrors of the industrial livestock industry.

Weed, who also operates an artisanal-scale solar-powered wool processing facility on her property, says she would like to think that PETA would see folks like her as an ally. Her farm is certified organic, she goes above and beyond the most stringent animal welfare standards, and her sheep have free range on pristine Montana prairie. With 160 acres for her 100 or so ewes, Weed’s sheep are stocked at an extremely low density that’s good for the animals and good for the land. She says PETA would have the support of a lot more farmers if they didn’t paint them all the same way.

“There are things that happen in industrial farming that are outrageously indefensible,” says Weed. “Like cramming poultry in tiny cages, putting cattle in feedlots where they are standing in their own manure up to their knees, and feeding ruminants a diet heavy in grains when they have evolved to live on grass. I’m the last person who will defend them. But practices like shearing sheep just pale by comparison. I wish they would focus their efforts where the really serious problems are.”

PETA is correct, says Weed, in noting that sheep often resist being shorn and must be restrained. It’s also true that minor cuts and nicks are part and parcel to shearing, though Weed says the savage shearing shown in the PETA videos, where some sheep appear to have massive wounds with loose, bloodied flaps of skins visible, are signs of either a demented, or untrained and extremely careless, shearer.

A skilled shearer, she says, needs just two minutes per sheep, and at worst, leaves a scrape or two no more gory than minor shaving cut. As far as viewing the sheep’s resistance to the practice as an indicator of cruelty, she suggests one might consider the challenges of bathing an uncooperative child or dog. They don’t love it, but it’s one of those necessary inconveniences.

Wild sheep naturally shed their thick winter coat in spring, but domesticated sheep have been bred over millennia to have an unnaturally thick coat, which, as we’ve reported before, never stops growing. Older sheep become accustomed to the routine and put up little or no resistance. Perhaps they realize it’s for the best: after several years without shearing, the wool becomes suffocatingly hot and can restrict the sheep’s movement.

Excess wool also predisposes sheep to infections and parasites, which is why the American Society of Animal Science responded to PETA’s sheep campaign with one of their own. The tagline read: “There is no such thing as humane wool when it is left on the sheep.”

Weed says “our sheep act super happy and animated after they get shorn…they seem happy to get rid of their wool. Occasionally there may be some cuts, but I’d wager I cut and bruise and bleed more often myself working on the ranch than my sheep do when they’re shorn. I think it’s one of the least cruel things that happens to animals in agriculture.”

We invited PETA to respond to Weed’s assertion that shearing, when done right, is benign. We also inquired whether they agreed that there is typically a big difference in the treatment of animals at industrial livestock operations versus small-scale producers. We sent them a series of questions to this effect to which they replied only with the following statement:

“Sheep are prey animals, so unless they’re left alone, they’re terrified. The size of the farm doesn’t matter. Even on small farms, they’re often herded with vehicles or dogs, forced into a shearing shed, and pinned down and sheared. Even the most careful shearer often cuts these struggling, panicked, and stressed animals. The only way to ensure that no sheep has suffered for our clothing is to shop vegan.”

Becky Weed would certainly contend that there are indeed humane sources of wool clothing available. She’s one of 44 humane wool producers in North America certified by Animal Welfare Approved. And there is a new wool-specific welfare certification on the humane livestock scene, which is called the Responsible Wool Standard. They just certified their first producers this year: two in Australia, one in Uruguay, and one in Oregon.

Pushed by major clothing brands, such as Patagonia, Eileen Fisher and H & M, RWS is geared for the large-scale producers that supply the vast majority of the world’s wool supply, and came about in part due to the negative publicity generated by the PETA exposé.

So even if the group’s point of view is a little, shall we say, un-nuanced, perhaps PETA is still giving a needed boost to the ethical livestock movement anyways by helping to convince the world’s largest livestock operations that consumers actually do expect them to provide the same level of care for their animals as is often found on the smallest of family farms.

Source: https://modernfarmer.com/2017/01/alicia-silverstone-naked-telling-wool-clothing-bad-believe/

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2016 Year in Pictures

Gallery

Wet Snowstorm

Ozzie Sleeping on Washed Shetland Fleece

Jasper on Washed Shetland Fleece

Fuzzy First Day Found (~4 days old)

Fuzzy Taking a Bath

Fuzzy After Taking a Bath

Fuzzy talking to Andrea

Soaking Wet Baby Robin Day of Fledging

Geese on Shed Roof

Twin Fawns in Buddy’s Pasture

Jasper Supervising Baby Chicks

Goldfinch Family Learning to Eat Sunflowers

Goldfinch Family on Sunflowers

Goldfinch Family on Sunflowers

Goldfinch Family on Sunflowers

Sunflowers

Dominique Hen in Catnip

Coq Au Vin – Ameraucana Rooster (Photo Courtesy Alice Su)

Blue Heron on Rowboat

Cardinal Flower

Monarch Butterfly

Great Spangled Fritillaria

Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Hummingbird Moth on Lilac Monarda

Dragonfly at Pond

Ingrid and Starlight (Photo Courtesy Alice Su)

Jessie, James and Rembaldi (Photo Courtesy Alice Su)

TyDye in Deep Snow Path

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Chair Seats – Cats Who’ve Owned Me Series – 1

Posted on 2016-07-09 by Andrea

Since I can’t take the afternoon heat lately, I’ve been working (finally) on a set of chair seats in honor of cats who have owned me. The first one (described in this post) is Sandy and Rori looking out the window. I used my homespun and millspun hand dyed yarns, all of which are wool/ mohair blends (details). The backing is 100% cotton Monk’s Cloth.

I designed Blue Skies yarn with variegated blues and a bit of white here and there to look like the sky in weaving and rug hooking. Similarly I designed Forest Dreams with primarily greens and a bit of blue to be used in weaving and rug hooking for broad expanses of trees or a forest with just a hint of sky poking through. Here it is used for carpeting or a reflection of the outside grass.

“View from the House” Chair Seat

Closeup of Sky, Clouds and Bird

Closeup of Grass and Edging

Learnings

For this size “rug” (roughly 16″ x 14″), not much detail will show. Next in the series will be designed with less detail and the lettering will be made larger to show more clearly.

The Monk’s Cloth used was found hiding in my fabric stash (price was right!), but since it was 8×8 epi it was difficult to use for rug hooking. The design came out but it took more time and yarn than it should have because the yarn did not always stick into the fabric evenly. It was also hard to get the tension correct. After some searching I located 12-13 epi cotton Monk’s Cloth and ordered some for the rest of the series. The best price I found was from Earth Guild at $14/ yard (60 inch wide). The 8epi cloth was $4/ yard! It was not easy to find the right epi cloth because most web sites don’t list epi in the description.

Yarns Used

Info on the yarns used is given below. The picture links to the full description and creation details for the yarn where available.

Sky:		Sky Blue Hand Dyed (After Spinning) Millspun. Designed to look like sky with variegated blues for use in weaving and rug hooking.
Grass:		Forest Dreams Hand Dyed (Before Spinning) Millspun. Designed to look like trees/ forest with variegated green and a touch of blue for use in weaving and rug hooking.
Cats:		Tan White Tweed (for Sandy) Natural Color Millspun. Since natural black isn’t readily available in mohair (black mohair is dark grey at best) I bought a skein of Brown Sheep’s Lamb’s Pride Worsted Onyx from Alpaca Direct as they had the best price when I was shopping. It is a USA made 15% mohair/ 85% wool single ply yarn. I used this yarn for the black cat (Rori).
Clouds:		Small amount hand spun natural DWF white mohair/ wool yarn. Sport White Millspun 2 Ply 59% Mohair 31% Shetland Wool.
Edging:		Iris – Hand Dyed (After Spinning) Millspun
Birds:		Natural Dark Grey DK 2Ply Millspun 68% Mohair 32% Shetland, Blue Faced Leicester Wool
Lettering and Cloud Outlining:		Small amount of hand spun, turkey baster hand dyed roving (white with small amounts of orange and blue). A ball of roving was soaked in water for an hour, then injected with colors using a turkey baster, heated to boiling for 30 minutes to set the colors, then washed before hand spinning.

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What to do with all that yarn and cold kids?

Posted on 2016-04-27 by Andrea

Source: Goats born in Cumberland this week rock wool sweaters

My kids were always dressed in diapers with the crotch cut out to fit over their heads as they made nice disposable sweaters! Back then I hadn’t taught myself to knit and didn’t have fencing to separate does and bucks so that I could plan births for more reasonable weather months!

Little Guy (aka LG) in Diaper ( Jan. 2000)

For fun videos from Sunflower Farm check out their YouTube of kids in pajamas:

and quad kids with what looks like an Australorp hen:

Enjoy!

Jasper Welcomes This Year’s Chicks

Posted on 2016-04-08 by Andrea

Always helpful, Jasper gave the baby chicks lots of attention. Of course after above average March temperatures, April has been well below average. Thus the chicks arrived on the coldest day (24 degrees F) since late January. They are all fine although issues with the brooder light caused about an hour of worries trying to get the temperature correct.

You can tell when baby chicks are unhappy as they make a lot of noise. Happy chicks are silent or talk to one another in very soft cheeps. All the noise made them even more attractive to Jasper.

When baby chicks go into the brooder I give them water that is quite warm, about 98-100 degrees F as they will want to drink a lot and it’s important that the water doesn’t chill them. After a few hours ambient water temperature water is fine.

They do a lot of sleeping the first day, but it is amazing how quickly they catch on to eating and drinking. I start feeding them by sprinkling food on paper towels and by the end of the day have progressed to an open dish.

Watch the weavers at work! – Skye Weavers: Tweed, Scarves, Throws, Clothing woven on the Isle of Skye

Posted on 2016-04-08 by Andrea

A beautiful, informative 6 minute video of a small weaving company on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Their looms are powered by bicycle! Gives me lots of ideas. Gorgeous woolens.

Watch how we design and weave our woollen cloth, scarves, throws and more. Follow our footsteps across hills of Skye to find inspiration for our designs.

Source: Watch the weavers at work! – Skye Weavers: Tweed, Scarves, Throws, Clothing woven on the Isle of Skye

Farewell Ginger

Posted on 2016-04-06 by Andrea

April 16, 2001 – April 5, 2016
Of natural causes, heart failure.

Ginger was a sweet, beautiful goat with one of the best fleeces I’ve ever had in my goats, the best of those with color genetics. Her father Sprout was a gorgeous goat and she got her great fleece from him, and the color gene from her mother Red. She passed the color genes on with great fleeces to her offspring too. She lived a great long life, serving as the herd matriarch until two days before her passing. She went downhill suddenly, enjoying life up til the last day or so. I opted to put her down as she was showing significant signs of distress – great difficulty breathing, she would not lie down and she stopped eating. The vet said she had never seen a case of heart failure in a goat, but she had a significant heart murmur and it was likely fluid around her heart that was causing her to have such difficulty breathing out. Also, laying down would have been painful because of the fluid in her chest. I believe that my goats are veterinary “experiments” because they live such long lives – most goats (or any livestock species) don’t get to live much past 2-5 years. Ginger died of natural causes – how often does that happen to livestock? She died with me holding her and she relaxed quickly and easily into an eternal peace.

It was so sad later in the afternoon when the other does went out to pasture because Ingrid came to the corner of the barn where Ginger had been for the last day and started calling for her. Ingrid had been standing on the partition and checking on Ginger while she was in a separate pen. She called and called until I went out and let her smell my hands since I had Ginger’s scent on my hands. I rolled Ginger (who was temporarily on a cart) to the pasture fence for Ingrid and the other does to smell. Then after a bit Ingrid and the others walked off, seeming to understand that Ginger would not be back. Ingrid did not cry for Ginger again.

Here as a memorial are some of my favorite photos of Ginger.

Ginger Wearing Bucket (Nov 2001)

Ginger 7 Months Old (Nov 2001)

Ginger (left) and Scamp (2002)

Ginger with Newborns Sienna and Jasmine (2003)

Ginger with Kids Leo and Rembaldi (2004)

Ginger in the Snow (2014)

A New Breed of Opera Diva: Sheep

Posted on 2016-03-26 by Andrea

How do you cast and direct an avant-garde opera starring 100 sheep in New York City — in the middle of lambing season, no less?

Source: A New Breed of Opera Diva: Sheep

I posted the request for 100 sheep to our local group, the Garden State Sheep Breeders (GSSB), but thought they would have a hard time finding that many sheep willing to commute. Due to the cost of land in NJ and eastern PA most farmers in this area don’t have as many as 100 sheep. In addition the health requirements for bringing animals across state lines and into NY are expensive to meet. All animals must be inspected by a Vet and have a current rabies shot at a minimum. Think how much that would cost for 100 sheep! Not to mention the cost of transportation and housing. Additionally they could not be ready to lamb or have just lambed due to the potential for spreading Scrapies and this is the normal lambing season. Still I’m glad that Twin Brook Farm decided to go ahead with it as I’m sure it was an amazing sight. Only out West on a ranch would you typically get to see so many sheep together. It would be quite the experience for a city dweller, one that a small farmer would appreciate as well!