Animal Lovers Web Blog

Foot problems and sheep are almost synonymous with each other and, following our terrible experience at having to have Jemima euthanised due to her lameness, we were conscious that we needed to ensure our remaining sheep’s feet were as healthy as possible.

Inspecting our sheep’s feet for the first time turned out to be a family occasion - it might look easy to “flip a sheep” on its rump in the text books but the reality is somewhat different! With John taking on the role as director of operations and chief sheep grappler, I was armed with the hoof trimmers and antiseptic spray and we were relying on our daughter Laura to persuade the sheep that this was really in their best interests, by bribing them to cooperate with handfuls of food pellets!

We found that the sheep, once settled on their rears, were generally quite relaxed, although the grunting and deep breathing did have us a little alarmed at first. Only Fluffy took great exception to be manhandled and we had to leave her to the end by which time we’d got a bit more proficient and could get her hooves trimmed much quicker.

It was quite a nerve racking experience trimming the hooves, although we had done our best to read as much information as we could find that would guide us. We printed diagrams off the internet but it’s funny how it all looks so different once you’re faced with the real thing! Laura and I had recently attended a donkey care workshop where we were lucky enough to see a brilliant demonstration by a specialist donkey farrier - he made it look soooo easy. I suspect that I was probably over-cautious on this first attempt - nearly all the sheep had some heal overgrowth which really could have done with a more aggressive trim. I felt that it was better to just nibble away at the hoof a little and repeat the process in a few weeks time. The alternative of just “going for it” and risking a bleeding foot just might have put me off ever trying again!!

It took us about an hour to get through all five sheep (we’d never make a living out of it at that rate!) and it does give you a real sense of satisfaction to see their hooves looking a little more like they did as baby lambs. I just hope that sheep are as satisfied with the whole process as we were - somehow, I don’t think so!

Diane
www.AnimalLoversWeb.com

Our baby chicks are now 7 weeks old and it is now time to start integrating them with the adult chickens. Since they left the brooder at about 5 weeks old they have spent their time in a cozy little building we call the green barn. We did build a little “patio” area for them out of wooden pallets and chicken wire, to allow the adult chickens to see them from a safe distance while they were housed in the barn. As the establishment of the new pecking order amongst chickens can be quite a cruel and even dangerous process.
Luckily, we have found that our own bred chicks have always been accepted very well into the group. Although, who knows what goes on in the henhouse overnight, other than when we have had too many cockerels, there has never been any signs of significant injuries occuring overnight.
We let the chicks into the main chicken run area over the weekend, and distracted them all for a few minutes with their favourite treat which is bread. The chicks were right in there with the others for the bread and apart from the odd little peck now and again from the hens, they held their own. Tiger the cockerel is above all that anyway, he just stoops now and again to get the pieces that happen to land near him. Most of the time a cheeky hen scampers in and steals it, just before he gets it, and he seems to maintain a philosophical approach about it and accepts this.
The young chicks managed to get their fair share of the bread. They also pecked frantically at the fresh grass and then had a general wander around the run, staying mainly together most of the time. They didn’t wander anywhere that they shouldn’t over a period of about 2 hours which was very encouraging.
All went well then on the first day and they went back into their own barn to roost at the first sign of darkness, which is about 5 pm at the moment. We plan to repeat this daily over the next couple of weeks and then extend the time they are mingling with the adults, before housing them all together overnight in the next month or so.

John
www.AnimalLoversWeb.com

Today the website has gone officially live and we have sent out our first copy of our newsletter to enrolled members of the site.
As a one off special we have included a link to download the newsletter on the home page, so that others can enjoy it as well and hopefully join the list and become active contributors to Animal Lovers web.com.
Getting the site up has been a lot of work but it has also been fun.
We have so much material on our animals that it is not yet complete and we will be continually adding to it all the time. Especially videos, which take a bit longer to process and we have loads of great videos of the our animals to upload.
We are also getting the forum set up so that our guests can have discussions with each other and hopefullly share each others animal experiences and learn from each other.
We will be active in the forum ourselves. We don’t purport to be animal experts but anyone who keeps animals does gain valuable experience. There is often not one correct way to do things and it is definitely worth having a place where people can exchange ideas and experiences and hopefully all gain from it and possibly have a lot of fun along the way.

John
www.AnimalLoversWeb.com