Haemonchus contortus

Haemonchus contortus

I try to live a quiet and a decent kind of life

Not predator nor prey

It's not my style to chain things up or even fence them in

I let them go their way

A rich, abundant banquet is presented at my door

I take just what I need

Using it to do what all the other creatures do:

Live, and grow, and breed

I like to think that I contribute something to my world's

Biodiversity

And in return my world responds, providing for my needs

With generosity

Your livestock grazing out there, placid, in your fields of green

Live a life I might

Why then do you vilify me, hunt me down with poison

Call me "parasite"?

(An original poem by me, inspired in part by David Mackenzie's writing on the subject in his book, Goat Husbandry)

Chickens in the Cold

Our flock of chickens has been living here for so many generations that they've adapted pretty well to the cold.  When we first got chickens, and we only had a few of them, we used to box them up into the nesting boxes on cold nights, with only enough space for each chicken to sit.  They were able to keep this small space warm with their body heat and would be quite cozy in the morning when we let them out.


Now, we have too many chickens for this to be practical, but they seem to be fine as long as they have protection from the elements and (of course) lots of food. 

The two body parts that are most vulnerable to frost bite on a chicken are the comb and the feet.  We protect their feet by giving them a thick layer of dry hay to scratch and lie in.  As for the combs, well, roosters have one of two types of comb.  Some have tall combs that are really easily frozen and some have short, wide combs that are less susceptible.  We only keep the roosters with the short combs for breeding.

A rooster with a short comb (but some frost damage on his feet)

Goats in the Cold

Imagine lying cozily in a soft bed with food piled all around you, listening to the storm raging outside.  Your friends are around you so you won't be lonely, and when you are hungry, you can just reach out for a snack.  That's how I like my goats to go through a cold snap.

When I first started to keep goats, I did  what I thought was a favour for them by buying the best alfalfa hay I could find.  It was a nasty shock to find the poor animals shivering violently as soon as it started to get cold.  I turned to my goat "bible", Goat Husbandry, and I will always be grateful to David MacKenzie for his clear explanation of this problem.

Goats eat fast, swallowing their food barely chewed into their rumen, or first stomach.  In the rumen, bacteria start to break it down and they create a lot of heat in this process.  The rumen becomes a kind of portable central heating system for the goat.  If the food in the rumen is easily digested, the fuel for the heating system is quickly used up and the furnace goes out.  If the food in the rumen is coarse, the heat lasts much longer.

Now, when the weather turns very cold, I break out a couple of bales of coarser hay for the herd.  (It's still tasty hay, just not as fine as what they normally get.)  I pile it up everywhere in the barn so that they can use it as a bed as well as dinner, and they get through the cold snap with barely a shiver.

(all photos by Laura Kelsey)

Surviving the Cold

When we hear that an arctic front is moving south, we prepare for extreme cold.  We bank as much snow as possible against the house and barn walls to keep the cold out.  We also made sure the downstairs wood stove was ready to go, with a good supply of wood nearby.  Lighting the stove in the basement keeps the floor warm, which makes an incredible difference to the comfort level on the main floor, and it also keeps stuff from freezing in the cold room.

The horses were both born and bred in the Cariboo and don't seem to mind the cold.  We have horse blankets and space in the barn, but most winters, we don't use either of these things.  We just make sure the horses have warmed water to drink and give them extra hay.  When the temperature dropped to near -40 recently, I let them out into the area where we store the round bales of hay and they were able to free-feed all night long.  Now that it has warmed up and they're back in their paddock, Monty is protesting.

(photo by Laura Kelsey)

Moonlight Interlude

The night's silence was broken by the sharp, explosive WWHHOOOF! of air through horse nostrils, waking me.  For a few seconds, I lay still, listening.  When I heard the horses' alarm signal again, then once more,  I jumped out of bed, threw the window open, and scanned the barnyard for trouble while yelling, "What's going on over there?!"

I could see the horses staring intently toward the bottom of the field.  Everything else seemed normal, but Monty blew again.  I went downstairs and let the dogs out to start investigating while I slipped into a snowsuit and boots.  Floyd's big, booming bark rang out, but it was the sound of his "Guard Dog is Now on Duty" announcement, not the more excited bark he gives when he spots an intruder.  Charlie, who only barks when he's alarmed or playing, wasn't saying anything.

It seemed that there was no problem out there, but I was dressed, so I went out anyway to look around.  The full moon lit the field brightly.  Monty was putting on a show, prancing out into the field with his tail up, like a war charger going to meet the enemy, but the dogs beside him were just sniffing around calmly.  Bree had stopped paying attention altogether.

Probably, a predator had passed by and the horses hadn't liked it.  We've had lots of wolves in the area lately and seen their tracks after they've hunted their way down the creek.  There have also been lynx tracks everywhere in the past few days.  However, there are also more rabbit and vole tracks than I've ever seen, so the predators should be well fed.

Echoing Floyd, I made my own announcement, calling out, "Whoever you are, just keep on moving!  There's a human on guard duty here, too!"  Then I stood for a few minutes enjoying the moonlight and the sharpness of the -15 degree air on my face, before calling the dogs in and going back to bed for the final hour of the night.

Goose Who Runs with Dogs

Guest post/photos by Laura Kelsey

http://wordsmore.wordpress.com/

The geese are training

Wings wide amid falling leaves

Tobias is there

The swans encircle

A lone feathered friend

Tobias is there

When the sun returns

A 'V' on the horizon

Tobias is here

Axes

We usually buy our axe-heads at garage sales or junk stores and buy or make new handles for them.  Well, I say "we" but it's really always Charles who does this.  I never really paid attention.  While he was away recently, the handle broke on the axe I use for splitting wood.  I had had several things go wrong as soon as Charles left--all things that I didn't know how to do and that would have taken him two minutes to fix but were major problems for me.  When the handle shattered, it was the last straw.  In frustration, I went and bought a new axe.

I've learned lots about axes since I moved here.  The first thing I learned was that the taper on the head is critical.  A fine, sharp taper doesn't chop the wood better; it just causes the axe to sink deeply into the wood and stick there.  A nice, wide, V-shaped taper forces the two halves of a block of wood away from each other as soon as the axe bites into it.

The next thing I learned is that a heavy axe makes the job easier.  To make a light axe hit the wood hard enough to split it, you have to put a lot more force into your swing.  A heavy axe does half the work for you.

I thought I could choose a good spitting maul for myself.  It turned out, however, that the one I bought was too blunt.  When I got home and started chopping, the axe kept bouncing off the wood, which hurt my hands and arms and made the job 'way harder and longer.  I wore myself out for two days before a helpful friend got out his grinder and sharpened it for me. 

In praise of hot flashes

I've spent most of my life being cold.  Now, I've reached the age when I have hot flashes, and I just love them, especially in winter.  I'll often wait inside until a hot flash hits, then run outside to do some chores.  The feel of the icy air on my skin is exquisite--something I never thought I'd say.

Today, I saw Monty waiting near the well, which is his way of asking for a drink, so I went out to give him some water.  This is a job that Floyd always does with me.  He likes me to throw the last bit of water in the bucket for him so he can chase and bite it.

I carried a drink to Monty...

but it seems he really only wanted a kiss!

Wild Mountain Woman

Charles is doing a new music video for Laura Kelsey.  The song is called "Wild Mountain Woman", and Laura wrote it after moving here from the city and being inspired by the women of the Cariboo.

You have to be pretty tough to live out here. Even the most pampered women still need to deal with long nights, frigid temperatures, icy roads, and power outages.  There are women in my neighbourhood who run traplines, hunt with bows, operate excavators or fix their own tractors, and tend livestock at -40, on top of having the more traditional "womanly" skills of gardening, preserving food, or knitting.

About 30 of our local wild mountain women met for the filming. All of them are tough, resourceful, and enthusiastic.  We met at a local lake, where we had a great time shooting the video and then had a bit of a party, eating chili by a bonfire.  The whole afternoon, we were joined by a family of otters who popped up through a hole in the lake ice to eat fish and watch us.

View the video here: http://youtu.be/j3BnOz4gH4U

The joys of shovelling

My routine changed suddenly with the first serious snowfall (6") yesterday.  With a sigh of relief, I abandoned all pretense of finishing yard and garden projects and retreated into my warm, cozy house.  Of course, I do have to go out occasionally to feed the animals, and to shovel snow.

Some day, maybe, I'll set up my life so that I don't need to go anywhere all winter and I won't need to keep the driveway clear.  I could also make enough money to hire someone to do it for me.  Or maybe not: if I didn't have all that shovelling out in the crisp, fresh air and sunshine, I might get out of shape and depressed from the lack of light.

I started my day by clearing around all the gates and making paths to the barn and the hay bales.  After a leisurely breakfast, I did the driveway and paths to the well, woodshed, and outhouse.  (Charles did help.)  By that time, the sun was blazing and I was in shirtsleeves.  I had to take lots of breaks to play with the dogs and eat snacks. What a nice day; I love snow.

Burn Piles

Driving home today through a half-inch of snow, I noticed four different places where burn piles had been set on fire.  Each one had a satisfied man tending it.  I got the feeling they'd had a hard time waiting until the first snow fell to light the fires. 

Burn piles are common around here.  They are built by hand or machine when trees are cut down for safety, for firewood, or in logging.  Everyone loves a good bonfire, but burn piles are mostly a guy thing, and you can tell something about a guy by looking at how he builds them.

An old pile in our field

Our friend John, for example, was a careful man who would never have lit a pile with only the first half-inch of snow on the ground.  He would have insisted on at least six inches before it was safe enough for him.  His burn piles were tall and narrow, constructed with only the unusable bits of tree left over after he had chopped the branches into kindling.  He covered them with squares of tarp to keep them dry as the snow piled up around them, and only lit them on a calm day.  John died over a year ago, and I'd give a lot to be able to see  one of his burn piles again.

Our own burn piles are very different.  They are tossed together carelessly and quite often never burned at all.  I like to think of little birds and animals taking refuge there, maybe building dens and raising families.  After a few years, the decaying leaves form enough compost for plants to take root and tangles of roses and wild raspberries grow up.  The goats eat on and around them, and they eventually disappear without any more effort from us.

November pasture

The pasture is still looking pretty good, for November.  There are green shoots for the animals to find, so we're not feeding them their full hay ration yet.  We give them hay at night but let them go hungry in the morning for a while so they'll search out the good bits that they've missed before.

Monty is doing a good job of foraging.

Is your goat fat enough?

Dairy goats are odd-looking animals. They have huge stomachs to hold the huge amounts of roughage they need to eat.  Then, they convert all that roughage to milk and stay skinny.  It can be hard for someone who isn't really familiar with them to tell whether or not they are in good shape.  You can easily be fooled into thinking a goat is fat when it really isn't.

To tell how fat they are, you check two places. 

The first is the loin area, where you press with fingertips to see how much meat is on the bones on either side of the backbone.  A skinny goat will have very little, with the backbone sticking up.  An obese goat will have so much fat that you can hardly feel the bones and the backbone is in a depression.

The other place is at the breastbone, where she should have some fat covering the bone, but not so much that it forms rolls.

I feed my goats their grain ration on the milking stand, even if I'm not milking them, and take a second every day to check what shape they're in.  If they're losing weight, I increase their ration; if they're gaining too much weight, I decrease it, gradually.  By checking every goat every day and tailoring their grain ration to their needs, I make sure everyone in the herd is healthy no matter whether they are young or old, pregnant or not.  It only takes a second.

pictures of hay

Hay for the Winter

Our winter's supply of hay was delivered last night.  we bought 12 round bales, each about 6' in diameter and weighing over 1200 lb.  It's from the same farm that supplied us last year, at a cost of $120/bale, delivered.

In past years, we've had to pull each bale off the truck using our pickup and a long cable.  This time, it was much easier.  The hay arrived on a trailer that was equipped with a tilting deck and it was simply rolled off.  There was one frightening moment when one of the bales bounced off another and headed straight toward the spot where I stood with Floyd.  Actually, it didn't come that close, but we didn't wait around to make sure; we ran.

We're letting the goats and sheep free-feed on the bales.  Some years, this works, and some, it doesn't.  It depends on how tightly the bales are wrapped and how many animals we have.  So far, they're not making a big mess and I'm raking up just enough spilled hay to feed the horses (who are jealous and want to free-feed, too).  If the bales get too badly torn apart, we'll lock the herd out of the area where the hay is, and deliver a measured amount to them every day.  It's easier when they help themselves, though.

North American Jungle Fowl

I've been busy getting ready for winter.  September and October have been beautiful with lots of blue skies.  The past week, though, the temperatures have been lower and it's really feeling like fall.

Our chick count has reached 58 with the appearance just last week of a hen with ten golden balls of fluff.  I don't know how we're going to cope with such huge numbers of birds as they grow.  The eldest are ready to lay.  In fact, they're probably laying already--but where?   The areas adjacent to my garden grow wild and there are uncountable hiding places for a young hen to stash her eggs.

My vegetable plants were big enough by the time of the hen and chick invasion that I didn't lose much to them, other than strawberries.  However, it may be chaos next spring if we don't take some drastic action.  Every time I go out to the garden, I see North American Jungle Fowl everywhere.  They're scratching through the manure I've spread, darting into the tall grass, playing hide-and-seek under bushes.  It shouldn't be any trouble keeping them in the barn when the ground is covered with three feet of snow, but come spring, I foresee all 58 will be back raiding the garden and raising hundreds of new babies.

I might have to give up gardening altogether and trade chicks for produce from my neighbours.

Dulsa

Two years ago, one of our finest milk goats died giving birth.  She left behind a beautiful doe kid that we named Dulcinea (latin for soft or sweet), a name that we usually shorten to Dulsa.  We wanted little Dulsa to have her emotional needs met, so we moved her into the house and spent 24 hours a day with her.

Dulsa proved to be easy to house train.  Within a week, she had learned not to pee in the house (we trained her the way you would a puppy) and not to jump on the furniture.  She also learned to ride in the truck and to be well-behaved in other people's houses.

After a couple of months, we gradually moved her out to the barn.  These days, she's almost always with the other goats, though she'll still come and visit on the porch sometimes.

The thought of breeding Dulsa scares me.  I'd hate to lose her the way we lost her mother.  It looks as though I can delay the decision to breed her now.  A couple of months ago, I noticed her udder looking fuller than a virgin doe's udder should be.  I put her on the milking stand and tried milking her.  Sure enough, I got a few squirts of milk.  I discarded the milk, but tried that evening and got slightly more.  The next morning, she gave a bit more again.  I started increasing her grain ration then.  After a few days, I tried the milk and it was delicious.

Now I'm getting about 3 quarts a day from her.  I've read about this (she's called a "precocious milker") but I've never come across one of these before.  It will be interesting to see how long this lactation lasts.  Both her mother and her grandmother were wonderful milkers with extended lactations.

 

Wild blueberries

It's wild blueberry season.  These are the last of the berries, after the raspberries, saskatoons, huckleberries, and blackcurrants.  The blueberries have a lovely intense flavour and I love them best.

Here in the Cariboo, two kinds of wild blueberries grow.  One is a foot or so tall and has upward-facing fruit which are nice but a bit bland.  The best ones are on the tiny low-bush plants.  These grow only a few inches high and hide their tiny berries beneath their leaves, so they aren't easy to pick, but they're worth the trouble.

All my goatwalking these days is in places where the wild blueberries grow.  The goats eat some and trample some, but there are so many that I manage to fill my container every day anyway.  I pick for two or three days, then can a batch.  If I keep this up all month, I'll end up with a really good supply of canned berries to last the winter.

• Fill small canning jars with blueberries.
• Pour boiling hot light syrup over the berries to 1/2" from the top of the jars.  I use a syrup made from 1 cup sugar to 8 cups water.
• Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Getting lost goatwalking

I got lost today while out goatwalking.  It was a frightening feeling, and a good reminder for me.

I started off planning to go to a meadow just across the road, where the wild blueberries are thick on the ground.  After an hour of picking these, I decided to cross the adjacent swamp and check on the wild blackcurrants.  Then, once across the swamp, I got distracted by a clump of huckleberries I'd never noticed before.  Still distracted, looking for more huckleberries, I took a different way back, through the forest.

I'd gone quite a way when I realized that nothing looked familiar.  The landscape here is all hills and hollows, with lots of swampy ground between the hills, and it's very easy to wander off-track.  I kept going; still, nothing was familiar.  It suddenly became clear to me that I was out in the forest with no compass, no matches, no rain gear, no whistle, and no-one knowing which direction I'd gone.  How stupid I had been!

I stood still and looked for the sun through the trees.  It wasn't where I thought it would be; in fact, I'd been completely turned around.  I watched the sun until I could tell which way it was moving.  The time was around noon, so now I know roughly which direction was northwest and I headed that way, knowing that if I kept going that direction, I would eventually reach the road.

In just a few minutes, with a feeling of great relief, I found the meadow where I'd started out.

It's quite likely that the goats knew exactly which way to go and would have led me home at milking time.  However, it was a scary feeling knowing that I was lost without supplies.  As I said, it was a reminder to me not to be so complacent and to pay more attention to what I'm doing when I'm in the forest.

Laundry

We've been having a very busy summer.  We spent the long weekend at the Clinton War, which is a mediaeval war that is held near here every year.  This was the 32nd war.  Charles is a heavy fighter (sword and shield) and it's one of the highlights of our summer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQRNuImRdHk

When we got home, there was a huge pile of laundry to be done, so I put my laundry service to work.