Icelandic Sheep, Dairy Sheep and Nigerian Dwarf Goats

Fall has finally arrived dashing quickly into winter!  It's time to ready the farm and prepare the livestock for winter.  Hay and straw are on board but the long hot summer translates to lots of buckets, fans, and bins to clean while also checking heat lamps, extension cords, and lambing/kidding kits.

2019 kids were all sold before any ads were placed.  One ram lamb (Quimby) was not sold or swapped and will remain here as a wether.  One gorgeous ewe lamb (Leaka baby) is visually impaired and will stay on as a non breeder.  Queneska, a solid moorit ewe lamb, was acquired in a swap and is small but healthy, and immediately became a companion to Leaka baby.  Two mature ewes went over the Rainbow Bridge - Nina with bloat and Njala with a heat stroke.

 Apart from Naomi, the 100% Lacaune ewe who was acquired from the University of Wisconsin Spooner Laboratory, the dairy sheep were sold.  Naomi stayed on as Scott's pet and will be cross bred to an Icelandic ram in 2019.

Currently, there are 13 mature ewes and 2 ewe lambs at the Farm of Beauty.  10 will be bred, with 3 younger ewes and 2 ewe lambs as fiber buddies.

Quimby will join the 3 breeding rams - Loki, Nels, and Dominik, and the 2 wethers - Miles and Lennon, adding to the fiber pool.  While all survived the polar vortex of winter 2019, Dominik had to have his right eye removed due to a cut resultant from the barn siding that extended from his horn to his eye.  The incident happened right at the time of the polar vortex and necessitated a fair amount of post op control, so we chose to board him at the vet hospital rather than face the challenges of icy mounds and paths.  His horn had to be cut and, unfortunately for him, he cracked the other horn midway leaving a jagged edge; so that horn also had to be trimmed.  When the heat of summer came, he continued to be unlucky with his stocky build and sustained fly strike necessitating a fair amount of aftercare including daily spraying with Catron for a month.  Loki showed the beginnings of fly strike, so the vet trimmed a small portion of his head and neck fleece also.

 We experienced much sadness with the goats secondary to complications associated with kidding.  Seven does were bred.  Trixie, who had an unassisted birth of quads in 2018, again had quads.  Two doelings survived but she had to be euthanized secondary to uterine tears.  Fortunately, Precious, who was dejected after the birth of 4 stillborn kids, took over the doelings after a bit of coaxing and became quite the possessive mom when any other goats or sheep approached the kids.  Lola had a difficult delivery also with uterine tears, secondary to a large doeling that was difficult to extract, even for the vet.  The doeling lived about 15 minutes then was followed by a normal twin.  The vet felt that she would be fine but then two weeks later developed a metritis not helped by antibiotic treatment, and she also passed over the Rainbow Bridge.  Alexa, her doeling, could not be grafted to another doe and refused a bottle so we periodically let her nurse from the other 4 does that were in milk.  She became quite spoiled and grew well.  I was planning to keep her until a customer came to pick up Naomi and her ram.  The two children with the customer could not stop playing with the goats and ended up taking two doelings (Ally and Alexa who we had planned to keep), leaving Naomi for Scott.  The two first timers for breeding also had multiple births.  Julissa had quads - 2 stillborns, and Luna had triplets - 1 stillborn.  Isa had healthy triplets again, one of which was a carbon copy of her. Ruby had a single doeling, Ally.

2019 fall breeding is ongoing with Rocky and Fireball as anxious as ever to service the does.  Vanessa and Milky, two of Trixie's quads, were sold to a show home making it possible to breed Snowy (the remaining quad doe) and Spaghetti (Lola's doe from the 2018 birth).  We will be reminded of the sadness in 2019 but anticipate much joy from Snowy's and Spaghetti's kids.