Dog Coat Blowin' In the Wind


This past week it started to get hot out here. Consistently above 90, somewhat high humidity, but still kinda dry for Tennessee because we haven’t had much rain. The dogs have been going nuts at night with the coyotes all around. Sheba has noticeably lost some weight, so we’re feeding a bit more than we usually would. Sophie is still her playful self, but you can see it in the dogs, they’re much more on-guard than they've ever been. Instead of sleeping in the shade during the daytime they’ll regularly move back and forth between the pastures, sometimes pausing for a while in the middle. We found scat around that appears to be coyote, but tough to know for sure. No animal losses yet, but I think we’ll get a few more dogs...

But I digress. The point of the whole post is that the heat is leading to the dogs blowing their coats. Well, at least Sheba and Izzi are, Sophie’s not quite yet. And what exactly does “blowing coat” mean? It’s kind of obvious, but I didn’t know the extent of it until our dogs started. It’s literally what it sounds like. All of the long hair on the dogs blows right off in big clumps. When we got the Great Pyrenees girls they had big fluffy coats. Especially on their rumps. Big fluffy butts, kind of like our Silkie Rooster, Elvis. Now the Pyrs have trimmed down substantially. 

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Pallet Pen for the Piggies


8-Pallet pen for the weaners

When we posted about the great pig escape a few of our awesome readers suggested testing out a pallet pen the next time. Instead of releasing them into an area solely protected by electric fence, maybe put the electric fence inside a pallet pen and let them get used to it first. It sounded like a good idea, and an affordable idea, so we went with it.

In order to construct the pallet pen we first headed over to a neighbor’s place to pick up some used pallets. We thought eight would be good for each pen, the boars in one, the gilts in the other. He didn’t have 16 pallets, so we just got 8 and put all four of the pigs in it. Then a few days later we got 8 more from a different neighbor and built another one. One thing's pretty certain around here: there ain't no shortage of old pallets. 

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Wild Turkey Egg Snack


Sophie, the culprit

We milk the goats twice per day. Once around 7am and once around 7pm. They like consistency and if you can get the milkings twelve hours apart that tends to work best. Typically, when we go out to get the goats Sophie and Sheba will greet us at some point along the way. They hear the gate rattle and if they're not busy doing something else they'll come up and walk with us.

On the weekends I'll usually join Sweetbreads since I don't always get to join during the week. On Sunday morning it was business as usual. Sophie and Sheba joined in for the walks. However, on the evening walk Sophie and Sheba were lagging behind. I didn't know why. It made me worry. Were they sick? Were they dehydrated? Did they have lyme disease? So many thoughts run through our heads these days at even the faintest sign of something abnormal. Being observant is critical. 

 

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