Bee~ Journal of then...

[Quail_Antwerp]

Uh, yea, uh....well I'm speechless!

 

[justusnak]

Oh Bee! 2 more calfs!??? I would be thrilled with one..and you have 3 now! (can you hear the jealous envy dripping here? ) LOL I have never been to an animal auction...and I think I better NOT go! There is NO tellin what I would come home with..and might have to live in the barn with if Hubby had HIS way! LOL
I will say a little prayer for Jerky...I hope he pulls through!

 

[Beekissed]

Uh, yea, uh....well I'm speechless!

Aly, I am NOT vying for your title of Mrs. Doolittle!! Trust me!


I sure didn't get the good deal that you did, Quail, with your two gems. These youngsters cost me $40 each!!! The beef (Angus) bottlers were bigger, shaggier and went for over $100 each. These two looked the best of the bunch, if you can imagine that.

I figured Blossom would be more likely to take them on if they were about the same size as, or smaller, than Shade. T-Bone is about the same height as Shade but lacks her fat, glossy bulk.

This gives me a grand total of 6 ruminants on my land....way too many once they start eating grass, so I will have to see how many is too many and if this grass and my supplemental food sources can deal with it. The last thing I want to do is overwork this grass! All the calves will be gone in the fall and maybe sooner if it looks like the grass will be overused.

 

[2dream]

You will work your magic. And all will be well. Maybe Jerky will end up being the best of the lot. You just never know.

Oh - and don't take your sister to any more auctions.:/

 

[Javamama]

I bet this will work itself out in a way you would never imagine. God often takes what we think are our most foolish decisions and turns it around for good.
(I might edit this post after I am fully caffeinated if it doesn't make sense )

And blossom is looking wonderful! I can't believe how quickly you turned her around.

 

[Dace]

Oh my gosh Bee...you have jumped in with both feet!
Holy Cow hehehehe

I'll be watching to see how your new additions settle in.... something tells me that jerky will be fine under your care

 

[noobiechickenlady]

I've got my eyes on a beautiful little Dexter just outside of town. She's small enough to lean across without stretching. I'm taking tips from your journal on the care & feeding, basically learning all I can about it before I really decide to get her. She's got my heart, but I don't know about the pocketbook yet.
Bee, I love the names. Jerky & T-bone, thats just cute. My science teacher in high school had pigs named Bacon, Ham & Sausage.

 

[big brown horse]

How about "Elly May"?

 

[Beekissed]

You guys have made me feel much better about the decision, to be sure!

I will tell you just what I did with the little fellow last night and today.....last night I didn't feel he had gotten much from Blossom so I gave him about a pint of warmed Blossom milk with a little brown sugar and half a Lomotil! I had these laying around and they are probably way outdated, but I thought--its worth a shot to slow down those bowels! Lomotil is an anti-diarrheal agent.

I did the dehydration test on him last night before bed and right after his feeding and he had a 3-4 sec. lapse for the tenting of the skin. You see, I read about scours on the net and they described the different stages and treatment of dehydration on there and told about tenting, or pinching, the neck hide up and seeing how many seconds it took for it to snap back.....basically just what we do with human patients.

According to this scale, Jerky was pretty dehydrated but not near critical yet. This morning, to my relief, he has no tenting of the skin and he took to the teat without any encouragement. His stool is a little less liquid, still a little bloody, so I gave him another half pint of brown sugar milk with a little Lomotil today. He is stronger and more aggressive on the teat, still bright-eyed but tires easily.

None of the treatments advocated slowing down the hyperactive bowels and I wondered why. Its the loss of this fluid that causes the dehydration process, so why not slow down the bowel motility a little until the fluids can be re-absorbed, if possible? Just musing.....

Might thin down some yogurt tonight and see if we can't reculture this little one's bowels.

T-Bone is a voracious udder killer and we hesitate to let him at Blossom free choice for fear that we will walk up in the orchard and find only a shriveled skin, some hooves and horns left of the old dear!

We gave the boys these very food oriented names as we fully intend them to fulfill their destiny in the food chain. No emotional, sweetsy, meaningful names for these little meat racks, no sirree!

I can tell that Eli is already getting a little fond of T-bone and Jerky, as they allow us to pet them and scratch them and Shade is Miss Princess Shade and would never deign to allow a human to paw at her body!

She definitely acts like she thinks she is royalty and above the law.....she jumped over a 3 ft gate last night and rejoined her mother, after passing through a two strand electric wire enclosure! :/

 

[lorihadams]

Oh my word, you are just glutton for punishment aren't you? I know everything will work out, your grass might suffer for a few months but all will be fine! We have faith in you, girl!!!