News And Drama On The Farm

With the arrival of warmer weather came graders to smooth out the gravel road. However, I still have huge piles of gravel on my lawn alongside the road. The town usually tries to clean that up so I won't mess with it until I see what they plan to do:

One morning I found my white hen dead in the coop. There were no injuries, so she must have died from being egg-bound or some other internal problem. I let the other hens out for the day and a fox killed one. Two in one day was too much, so I began locking them inside all day. I guess it's better to live in their coop than to be killed by foxes:

Remy is enjoying spring and covering a lot of ground each day while looking for grass or just playing:

He's also looking a little bit skinny, but I'll be worming him any day now. That's a twice per year job and it's just about time for the spring worming:

Blue, however, is definitely not looking skinny despite his drastically reduced rations:

He is getting less shy, though, and does run a lot while playing with Remy:

I thought all my cows were pregnant, but one morning I saw this - Rosella was mounting Scarlett and Scarlett was allowing it. That had to mean that Scarlett was in heat:

I called the artificial insemination man who promised to be out between 9:00 and 9:30, so I delayed feeding the cattle and then, when I got the three I wanted inside, I closed the barn door on them, trapping them:

I wanted the A.I. man to check Rosella since she was doing the humping, Scarlett, since she was standing when being humped, and Violet who he had said in January was carrying a calf but had never delivered:

The three of them were nervous while we waited, but I got to work herding them individually into the squeeze chute and separating them with sturdy boards, fore and aft:

The A.I. man declared Rosella to be most assuredly pregnant. Scarlett was most assuredly in heat, so he inseminated her. Her due date should be about January 16 of next year:

Violet was the mystery. I told him that I was beginning to fear a mummified calf inside her and he said that indeed, that's what it felt like. I decided to give her a bit more time and then call the vet. Violet needs to have the calf removed and re-bred if possible. If not, she may need to become hamburger: