Ending the Drought

We have had quite a bit of rain lately.  It’s hard to believe, but we’ve even had some flooding across the state.  It started with the severe weather and we had more storms.

It made for dramatic skies when the severe weather just missed us.

Antigone and her girl

The boys were wired with the stormy weather.

Other rounds were just nice thunder showers.

another 1/2 inch of rain (Frodo in the background)

Everything is looking nice and green.

strawberry blossoms

goats in pasture

I’m grateful my trees made it through last summer’s horrible drought.

Maybeline snacking on my lilacs

We’ve had a bit of sunshine in between the rains.

Skittles in a late afternoon sun.

There was another round of horrible storms Monday night that once again, went below the severe level before reaching us.    I did make sure everyone was safely in shelter.

Antigone was outside, but she did make it in during the storm.

We have been so lucky.  It gave us another four-tenths of an inch of rain.

The kids were all playing in the barn.

Even though they do the reading for the drought monitor on Tuesday morning for release on Thursday, we’ve even had more rain since then.  Tuesday evening saw a little thundershower that had some amazing clouds and then a beautiful rainbow!

I’m thrilled to say that across the state, the drought monitor released yesterday has shown much improvement.

And with the continued rain since Tuesday morning, I’m hoping that I will at least move up from “moderate” to “abnormally dry” by next Thursday.

The Girls Meet

I planned on putting Maybeline with Skittles on Saturday, but I spent a ridiculous amount of time looking for Penelope’s little doe.  I couldn’t find her anywhere.

Penelope had no idea where her baby was either.

Then I remembered I had heard a kid crying when I was getting ready to leave the farm, but I wasn’t too worried. I figured one of the spring break babies had overslept and was just running behind.  Anyhow, after a dozen trips around the barnyard, buildings, and north paddock, I finally remembered that kid calling.  I headed out to pasture and found Penelope’s baby happily resting in the middle of the main herd.  I think I’ve decided to name her Carmen, as in “where in the world is Carmen SanDiego?”

Carmen was happy to be back to nurse.

Unfortunately, the goats and Maybeline all followed me up from pasture, so I had to wait to get Maybeline by herself in order to bring her to the other side of the barnyard.  Even after the goats went back out to pasture, I couldn’t get Maybeline to come into the barnyard, so it had to wait again.

Maybeline wasn’t coming any closer.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, I caught Maybeline in the barnyard while the goats were still out in pasture. I shut the gate so she couldn’t go back out to pasture and then I started getting things ready so I could put her in the house pasture with Skittles.

First, I had to move food pans and then give my moms some grain in the north paddock.  I shut them up there.  I didn’t get all the kids, but Maybeline is fine with kids.  I just needed to keep all those moms from swarming the Morton building pen.

 

Next, I gave Skittles some llama feed.  But I put it on the other side of the Morton building, so I could shut her in the yard.  I didn’t want her going into the barnyard.

I got it done, but she figured something was up, so she was right back checking out my panel keeping her in the yard.  I hoped she’d finish eating while I got Maybeline.

That was the easy part.  I just opened the panel in front of the south door to the barn, and she came right on through.

Then I got a bit of llama feed, and she was happy to follow me into the Morton building pen.

She’s not a big eater of pelleted feed, so when I removed the panel into the yard, she quickly went to check things out.

Unfortunately, this was the time that Skittles finally decided to eat her feed.

Maybeline might have been checking it out.

Skittles did spit on her.  Maybeline is a good girl though, and she just left to go explore.

Skittles was really not sure about Maybeline being in the yard and Morton building with her.

I’m guessing it won’t take long for them to be good friends though.

Maybeline has a way of making friends.

The ISU Visit

I scheduled an appointment for the Iowa State University Field Service vets to visit the farm.  They were coming to do some maintenance with Skittles.  Her toes really needed trimmed.

Skittles toes

They took care of them.  They took a poop sample to test and see if I needed to worm her.  And we did an ultrasound to see if we could figure out if she is pregnant.  They did not see a cria on the ultrasound.  That means she isn’t pregnant, she’s fewer than ninety days pregnant, or she’s more than six months along.  So I’m going to go with not pregnant and not worry about it.

They did think she was a bit thin.  I didn’t think she was bad, but she has been eating a lot.  And I know way less about llamas than I do about goats.  So we’re going to keep working on her food insecurity issues, and being nervous from the move and getting her used to goats slowly.  I’m going to try to bring Maybeline in with her this weekend and get them more space.

Maybeline might not like the less space, but they need to be together.

While the vet was here, she also brought the results from the liver testing on Aphrodite’s buck.  It had two things outside of the normal range.  The iron was a bit high (likely from my well water).  Zinc was also low. There’s a lot of that right now with the last four years of drought, and the vets have been treating a lot of kids/lambs for zinc issues.  I also had someone tell me they are dealing with low selenium.

I do think Venus’s hair loss on her side could be from the zinc.

But the thing I was really interested in was the copper.  It came back as 40.  For a fetus, they said the normal level is between 25 – 150.  It’s low normal, but it really reinforces that I am giving them enough copper, and they are not about to become toxic from too much.  That is just one kid, but it did make me feel better that I’m doing what I need to do.

Cupid’s kids (Elton and Prince)

They did also say that they can do a liver biopsy and test several goats in the herd to get a better idea of where the herd is in general.  I think I’ll just hold that information in the back of my mind for now.