Animal Update
The animals all seem to be doing fine - at least for right now. Yes, I think some of them are perpetually on a suicide mission but for now all seems right with the world.'
Last month Eclipse, our oldest pony, got down on the ground and couldn't get himself back up. I talked to the vet and finally called the local feed store Bernardo Farm & Ranch to borrow one of their strong young men to help us get Eclipse flipped over on his other side. That was all he needed to get himself up. Since then Eclipse has figured out to roll over onto the right side if he gets down and can't get up. I thought I didn't have to worry about him until the morning we walked out to move goats around and found him down. He had thrashed around in the sand enough to dig himself into a hole.... literally and couldn't roll himself uphill. Ron and I managed to get him rolled over this time without additional help but it really does take one strong young person or two old codgers like us. I will continue to watch Eclipse pretty closely but so far so good.
Jazz had a choke issue this past spring and has been on mush ever since. We were feeding him so much mush that when his feed was mixed with water I could barely pick up the bucket. I started giving him two small buckets of feed morning and night instead of one huge bucket full. That's a lot of sloppy slop to haul from the mule to his feed bin. I was willing to do until I realized he looked totally pregnant. The kicker was that Steele, who is in the same pasture, also started to look very pregnant. Two pregnant geldings is highly unlikely so I dropped Jazz to one bucket of slop at each feeding. Much better! Now both Jazz and Steele look like normal happy ponies again.
All the goats are now back in the pasture. It took two doses of the final wormer to get Fly back to a negative fecal result but he is out with the guys again. Unfortunately for him, he was in the barn for long enough that the herd wasn't terribly receptive when I put him back with them. Who are you? Why are you here? They have worked it out but he has slipped through the gate a couple of times to spend time in the adjacent pasture with Eclipse. They don't bother each other but the feeding was a bit of a problem. Fly was tickled to eat Eclipse's feed but it has a couple of medications in it that Fly shouldn't have so I had to put him back with the other goats. Both Orion and Paxton objected to being in the barn but the transition back to the herd was easier because there were two of them. If I'd thought this out at the time I would have left them in the barn until they could all go out together.
Sadie has been working very hard on Sit and Stay and Come and Leave It and Drop It. She isn't anywhere near perfect yet but she is a bit more consistent and she does listen to me a bit better. She is also coming out to feed with me on a regular basis. She hasn't slipped under the fence to chase the goats and she manages to come back in the house with me when we're finished. She is certainly a work in progress but it's amazing how much the obedience classes have helped. This week is the final of four private lessons so I'll talk to her trainer about what she thinks should be next. We could go on to group classes or do another round of private lessons. The lessons have helped so much that we will just continue with them.
The llamas and alpacas are doing fine even with the high heat we've had recently. They stay in the shade and cush in the damp and I make sure the sprinklers go off when they are supposed to.
The cats still won't even think about coming in the house with Sadie there but come up on the porch for Ron to feed them and like to petted. We continue to find various body parts of the gophers, moles and birds they leave for us.