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First lambs are due in a little over a week. Ken and I had planned a short two night stay in a B&B not too far away, for our anniversary, back before breeding season and before we knew that Cozette would be due the same week. We cancelled our B&B plans because there was no way we'd be able to relax, worrying about whether Cozette was lambing or not. This will be her first lambing as well as ours, so it didn't seem like a good idea to go away, even if it was only a 45 minute drive. We're still taking vacation that week though - I'm taking the whole week and Ken is taking part of it. Hopefully everything will go well, but I've been stocking up on things that might be needed if they don't.

After Cozette, I'm not sure who will be next. Penny, Rose, and Orange are all due about mid-April, and Quinn, if she's pregnant, would be due at the end of April. Quinn is playing with us, making us think one day she is pregnant and the next day she's not. I'm leaning towards that she is, but I'll probably change my mind again.

Right at the moment, we are having a huge thunderstorm. It's been alternating between downpours and showers, and the water is rapidly rising in the ditches. We had gotten the chicken yard and part of the pasture successfully pumped out, and then today's rain undid all that in just a few hours. And now the heavy rain is coming down and it's really getting flooded around here. The next four days are supposed to be clear and warm, which is good news.

The radar says the system is almost past us now. Good thing, because otherwise we might have wanted to start building an ark. But I guess that's not going to be necessary.

Feels like we've gone back in time to last fall when it wouldn't stop raining. We had a sudden warm up recently, and all the snow melted in two days. All the ditches and creeks were running full to the brim and they had a flash flood watch for some areas. We don't get flash floods around here, not like the ones where rivers crest and wash down streets or anything, but all the low-lying areas, big and small, fill with water. Somehow the town engineers managed to figure out how to move water north towards the lake, but it's a slow process given the lack of significant slope in this area.

So, our poor sheep are once again surrounded by water. They have a dry shelter and partially dry-ish yard, but everywhere else is either under water or very squishy. It would be impossible to have sheep here at all except that this waterlogged condition is basically limited to several weeks in spring (except of course for last fall). The areas now covered by water turn into lush lawn/pasture later in the season. The spring water does provide us with several weeks of various frog and toad choruses, which is nice, and I guess we'd miss it if it didn't occur. Of course, then there are the mosquitoes.....

We cleaned out the ram pen tonight. It was getting rather...ripe... in there. The bedding was piled up about a foot and was starting to cook pretty well in some spots as we found when we started to dig. We didn't want the barn burning down, so we forked out (or rather, my husband forked out) the bedding and we replaced it with clean straw. The old stuff we piled at one end of the garden to continue its journey into compost.

The chickens I think are really enjoying the warm weather and the muddy conditions. Makes it easier to hunt for worms. They spent all of the cold part of winter in the coop, even though we opened the door every day, but at the first real sign of spring they started popping out. Probably had cabin fever by that point.

The first lambs are due in about 3 weeks. I hope it dries up some by then!

It's not technically Spring yet, but it felt like it today. Here's some photos of the sheep and chickens enjoying the weather.

I found an Australian site that is dedicated to educating shepherds about intestinal parasites and how to defeat them. It's called WormBoss and I think it's a great site. It's oriented towards Australian producers of course, but there is a lot of useful info, no matter where you live. And, they have a great theme song! Click on the link that says "listen to the WormBoss song". Very catchy tune, with 4 verses and a chorus!

In other news, Falkur is still recovering, but doing well. The vet said she saw "tons" of worms and coccidia in his fecal sample, and that was 7 days after worming him with Cydectin, which was a bit discouraging, considering his worms should have never seen Cydectin before. The coccidia probably took advantage of his run-down condition, but I wasn't expecting the worm eggs. She doesn't do per gram egg counts which is a bit disappointing, so I'm going to learn to do them myself - bought a microscope and will get the McMaster slides. I've wormed him again tonight (12 days after the first worming) and will take another fecal sample to the vet next weekend. I'm also going to get something from the vet to treat the coccidia so they don't get too cocky and try to take over the joint. But he's still eating his head off and has gained a little weight back, so that's all good.

Speaking of poop, we came home tonight, opened the back door, and were assaulted by a wave of poopy odor. Kola, our male greyhound, had a case of the runs and had soiled his crate big time. Just the thing to come home to on a Friday night. Luckily it had warmed up today to above freezing and it was possible to take the crate, his bowl, his bed, and the nearby floor lamp outside and hose them off. I guess the flavored rawhide retriever roll didn't exactly agree with Mr. Sensitive Tummy. Poor guy. Now he has to fast for half a day and then have yummy white rice for breakfast!

Looks like most of our ewes are pregnant. There's one I'm not too sure of, but the others are showing definite signs. The one due first is looking positively blimp-like, and she's got about 3.5-4 weeks to go. I'll try to get some pictures of them tomorrow and put them up here.

Here are some things we had on hand which helped us nurse Falkur through his crisis (see previous post):

-Nutri-Drench for sheep
-LA-200 (oxytetracycline long-acting antibiotic)
-ProBios Plus paste (vitamins and good bacteria to restore rumen flora)
-Corn oil, blackstrap molasses, and light karo syrup in a 1:1:2 mixture, called "Magic" for a good reason
-Selenium-Vitamin E gel
-Drenching/feeding syringe
-Cydectin sheep drench for those nasty worms
-Vitamin B complex with B12

There are probably additional things that others might use or add to this list. I felt fortunate that I had ordered the feeding syringe and the Vit B complex just before this incident occurred, because both of those were very helpful. The feeding syringe has a long angled stainless steel tube with a ball tip which makes giving wormer or Magic much easier. The Vit B helps stimulate appetite.

The Cydectin was the biggest immediate need of course.

One thing that would yet be helpful would be some Kaolin-Pectin (basically Kaopectate for livestock, in a larger bottle) because Falkur ended up pooping cowpatties. This was probably mainly caused by the sugar contained in the Nutri-drench and the Magic, but those things did give him much needed energy, iron, and other nutrients. Even without the Kaolin, he's starting to poop less like a cow now, as he's been on just hay and grain for a couple days. Another dose of Probios probably wouldn't hurt either. I'm not too worried about the cowpies at this point, only because his attitude is great, and he's eating and drinking normally.

For any shepherds out there, what other items do you have in your ovine medicine chest?