Just When I Needed You!

Rachel at Welcome To Wilmoth Farms was hit very hard in Kentucky by the ice storm that passed through on Tuesday, January 27th.

If you follow my blog you know that during that storm our little Angus was born. My first thought while he was thawing out in our living room was, I knew Rachel will have some advice for me since it has been many, many years since we raised any calves on bottles.

I had many questions, like how long he should have colostrum, since his Mother never let him nurse? If the goat colostrum that I had on hand would work since the roads were so bad that we couldn't get out to get anything else? How much should he be drinking and how often?

Then the really, really big question, how do you stop these scours????

But alas, Rachel is still without power and Angus may be half grown before she is back among the enlightened. She did read my post about Angus and left a comment but she is only checking in when she can. Since for some reason I am not able to post comments on her blog, I will just have to communicate with her here.

Hello, Rachel, hope you are doing well and I hope that your place is thawed out by now and clean-up is nearly done. I really hope that you get your electricity back soon. But I must say that these on again, off again scours are driving me mad!

Angus is healthy and strong, has bonded with my DH and follows him everywhere he goes. He always runs in a gallop with a few twists and bucks. When he is hungry, he comes to the door and rattles the doorknob, this gave me quite a fright the first time that he did it and I was here all alone.

Since he is staying in the barn right outside my living room door, I am seeing most of his bowel movements and smelling them. Some are firm but some like the one that I slid in the other night and almost fell are very runny.

I would appreciate your home remedy for scours very much. He is currently getting 6 quarts of medicated replacer per day with some yogurt and an egg in each bottle. He is also getting mushed up Calf Manna and we are putting a couple of tablespoons of Pepto-Bismol in each bottle if he appears to need it.

Too Cold

I know that I said that I love snow and cold weather but I don't like this bone-chilling cold. The wind chill today could be -10 and my old bones are screaming for warmer weather. It is suppose to get warmer, even up in the 50's, then all of this snow will melt and we will have mud and flooding but I have already got my snow fix for this year. I am ready for Spring.

Angus is doing well, he is following my DH around while he feeds in the evenings. I got a video of him out in the snow last night. I will try to post it here when I get some more time.

I really love feeding and milking but it is all that I can do to make it outside when it is this cold. I don't remember worrying about the chickens this much, it is so hard to make sure everything has fresh water all of the time. They don't seem to want to drink until the water freezes solid and that happens about 10 minutes after you carry hot water to them.

Enough whining, I just want to thank you all for doing your part to combat Global Warming, your efforts are working and I think those in Kentucky would agree with me.

Proper?

I finally got my Lifetime Handgun Permit in the mail. I got it laminated and put in my wallet. Now I am wondering how long my lifetime will be. The paperwork that came with it says that it can be revoked at anytime if I do not remain a Proper Person. Now, I am not sure if I am even a proper person on a good day. It could be that I am more of a proper person than most people are.

I am not sure what the word "proper" even means. I suppose that it all depends on who you talk to. I know a lot of people who are not proper but that doesn't mean that they are law breakers or even bad people. I think this word pretty much leaves the door open for my lifetime to be cut short at anytime.

Back to the election, all is not lost, even though my State (Indiana) has changed from red to make me blue, California did shock me by taking a stand against gay marriage. I am considering moving to Kentucky, Texas or Alaska because they are all red States.