Farming

My dad has been a farmer, at least part time, all of my life. I always knew it was difficult. I remember him going out in storms and cold when we weren't allowed to go out. Temperatures that weren't safe for us to be out in still had to be endured so that the animals could be cared for. I remember lambs sleeping in the livingroom behind the wood stove so that they wouldn't freeze. Well, we have entered "real farming" here.

Saturday Hubby and my uncle delivered a stillborn, humungous kid. He evidently had what is called twin to twin transference. There were actually triplets, but only one received the mother's nutrients. So that one ended up too big to deliver and the others never fully formed. The poor mother that this happened to is my smallest doe. She is finally starting to show some improvement, and she ventured out of the barn for the first time yesterday.

Then Monday night Faye went into labor. She wasn't progressing as I felt she should, so I kept a closer eye on her. After about 2 hours I saw she was having the baby breech...bottom first. The dear sweet mother pushed it out that way and then delivered two more the same way! They are supposed to come out two front hooves and head first. So I had to break the sacks and help them through it to be able to breathe. Then the mother wouldn't get up. I was afraid that she was having more kids because she kept contracting, but it was just the afterbirth and shock I suppose. It was a cold night and Faye kept shaking, so I put a heat lamp out in the barn. That seemed to help her. The first baby had died, but the other two were cleaned up and doing well. So I left them with the mother and came inside. That was about 11:00 p.m.

At 4:30 a.m. I went outside to check on them, and though they weren't under the heat lamp anymore, everyone seemed to be doing fine.

I made another check about 8:00 a.m. and found one of the twins lying under the manger nearly dead. So I brought her in and did my best to work on her, but we lost her too.

So yesterday I spent the day watching the last one and trying to make sure he got through the day alive. He nursed a few times, he peed, he seemed to be doing well and enjoying the sunshine. Then I brought him inside for the night about 9:00 p.m.

I put him in the sunroom thinking that I didn't want him to get too used to the warmth of the house, and covered him with a towel in a box. The dog slipped in there about an hour later and stole the towel! So he cried and cried. I covered him up again, but again in about an hour he was crying. I thught he must be hungry, so sometime after midnight I took the little guy out to nurse. He wouldn't nurse, and started to look like his sister had looked when I lost her. So I milked the mother a little bit, and brought the kid inside to feed by the fire. He wouldn't take any of it from a dropper or my finger, but I managed to get a little down his throat.

Then he went to sleep. I think even the sunroom was too cold for him, so I got out a sleeping bag and put myself on the floor in front of the fire with him. I curled him up beside me and he settled down to sleep.

I did move to the bed in the next room after about half an hour because that floor is hard! Sometime around 3:30 he cried and I went out to check on him. I patted and whispered and he went back to sleep.

He woke about 7:00 this morning! Thank goodness he has made it through the night. I took him outside to try and nurse again, and this time he got a little bit. He has diarhea, which is not too uncommon in newborns, but kind of messy in the house. I will go out and check him every half hour incase he needs to come back in.

Madison is acting like she is going into labor. Thankfully she didn't kid last night. It was very frigid here. So we may have to spend several nights with "kids" in the house.

This kind of farming is tiring.

This is Manly; I am hoping that the name will get him through this dangerous time. He slept wrapped in a towel on the sleeping bag.