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What to call it: Mud Engineering, Makin' Meanders, Prairie Island Rutting Season? Since I am no longer professionally restricted to verbiage appropriate for impressionable ears, I shall label it as I feel it, in my anxious mind and aching shoulders, back, & legs: F'ing hard work! Slogging through it, shoveling it, spreading straw to thwart it . . . my days revolve around run-off and mud management. Mind you, I'm not complaining. Winter 2018 has delivered, and I'm grateful for that. Nevertheless, mud and healthy newborns are incompatible, and, for now, mud holds the trump card. (That phrase has new meaning for me in light of the political chaos of this week. Perhaps I should capitalize it, but . . . never mind. The news from DC feels too remote, too out of control, too potentially disastrous to focus upon.) My muddy mundane reality has predictable consequences and is all I can handle for now. Among its possibilities: 1) Scours. We feel lucky to have had only one case to date, a week-old lamb that we popped into an isolated stall--along with her mum and twin sibling--and dosed with electrolytes and antibiotics. She is now back to full bounce; 2) Sore mouth - a pox virus that produces painful blisters on lips, gums, nostrils that can be transferred to the mum's udder, causing her to refuse to let lambs nurse and often precipitating mastitis. Several lambs, mostly triplets, have it. I'm catching lambs, treating their blisters, and checking ewes for asymmetrical udders and signs of soreness, particularly among those triplet mums that are receiving oats and free-choice, high-protein hay to encourage ample milk production.
That brings me to our unprecedented statistic. 20% of our Prairie Island ewes are now raising three lambs. Needless to say, Jim and I are maintaining keen vigilance and treating potential lamb/ewe/calf/cow problems without delay, Before, after, and in between, I am focused on mud, refreshing my carefully engineered run-off channels every morning, and tending to new ruts each time I drive crosswise over my drain channels with deliveries of hay and straw to ewes and lambs eager for feed and dry bedding.
That brings me to our unprecedented statistic. 20% of our Prairie Island ewes are now raising three lambs. Needless to say, Jim and I are maintaining keen vigilance and treating potential lamb/ewe/calf/cow problems without delay, Before, after, and in between, I am focused on mud, refreshing my carefully engineered run-off channels every morning, and tending to new ruts each time I drive crosswise over my drain channels with deliveries of hay and straw to ewes and lambs eager for feed and dry bedding.
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