Guineas Gone Goofy
I don’t know what other people’s guineas act like, but ours are downright goofy sometimes.
For instance, sometimes when they’re sitting around, for no reason at all, they just lose their heads.
What’s more, they don’t even have enough sense to come in out of the rain…
Never mind that they were sitting on top of shelter!
Then there’s the chase. I’ve seen them chase each other for 45 minutes or more, non-stop.
I haven’t decided if this is a race to decide pecking order, or a courtship ritual. I used to think it was pure meanness on the chasing guinea’s part, but lately I’ve been noticing that when the chaser stops, sometimes the chasee comes back to stir things up again.
Whatever the reason for this and other things they do, ALL our guineas have gone goofy.
Bird’s Eye View
Sometimes things get pretty fowl around here.
For instance, you can’t be here very long before you’d notice there is always some kind of fowl racket. There are chickens clucking, bird song, peafowl screeching, and always, always, always, guineas making noise of some sort.
The Odd Couple
In-between some of the not-so-fun things that happened this past week, there was still room for smiles over new chicks and other critter antics. As it so happens, I happened to capture one of the funnier moments this week on a short video.
Remember me mentioning we no longer have any buck goats on the farm? But here it’s spring, and our poor little tubby pygmy/cashmere-cross doe goat is feeling, well, amorous. So what’s she going to do, but make a pass at the only intact 4-legged male on the place?
I present to you, “The Odd Couple” – – –
Poor little girl, her chosen beau just isn’t paying any attention to her no matter how much she flirts and flits her little tail! I’m afraid he only has eyes for our lovely lady llama, and can’t be bothered with this little shrimp making a play for him!
Oh, and did you notice the cute little chicks with the Mama Hen? They were newly out of the nest and running around.
Romance and cute chicks – this could be a box office success!
Sad Of Spirit
There’s a new S.O.S. for you – Sad Of Spirit. I’m sending out that S.O.S. right now, cause that’s how I feel.
I know there are bigger griefs out there. Losing a friend, a family member – any people we’re attached to.
But we get attached to our animals too. My Lady Llama lost her mother while still quite young, and I became her surrogate mama. I was so looking forward to seeing her being a mama.
Instead, I spent the day digging a grave for her baby.
Most of the time we compost animals. That sounds terrible to some people, but it’s really not much different than the system they have in New Orleans, where bodies are usually placed inside the walls of the above ground tombs. Because of the hot, subtropical climate, the tomb then effectively becomes an oven, and the high heat causes the body to decompose rapidly in a process that has been compared to a slow cremation. Within about a year, only bones are left.
Proper composting works pretty much the same way. No smell, just an above ground burial with quick decomposition to bones.
Even though that’s the usual procedure here, and I have done it before with animals I love, somehow I just couldn’t do it this time. I wanted a little grave site where I could plant a rosebush or some other flowering plant on top.
But roses need sunshine. We have a lot of trees, and most of the sunny spaces are garden or pasture. Tree roots are another problem. Springs and a high water table are yet another. I tried 3 or 4 different places before I finally found a suitable place and kept digging.
Appropriately enough, it was raining when I started. That fit my mood pretty well, but it makes it really hard digging a hole in wet clay. It took a mighty long time to dig a hole a couple feet deep and long, and maybe a foot wide.
A very long time.
I stopped, rested, and started again. With a shovel and a post-hole digger, I slowly made the hole bigger and bigger. Digging is the kind of physical activity that really aggravates my chronic pain. I’ll pay for it the next couple of days, but for today, digging a grave was my project. I didn’t get much else done but essential critter chores.
When The Farmer got home from work, he helped me put the little llama baby in the grave, and covered her up for me. Later, after the dirt has settled some, I’ll find a nice plant to put there.
That little cria was 25 pounds of black haired cuteness that never drew breath. Long neck, sweet little head, long eyelashes, long legs. A doll baby that never lived.
Yep, definitely S.O.S.
My Dream Died Tonight
It’s a dark, dark day here.
And yeah, I know these things happen, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Okay, so in years past spring meant LOTS of births around here. We’ve had years with maybe 30 lambs and a dozen or so goat kids. But with my chronic pain problems and fibromyalgia, I just couldn’t keep up. As much as I loved all the little babies, it got to be too much for me to handle.
We sold the breeding stock and my dream of a first class flock of Shetland sheep and herd of cashmere goats, and instead became a retirement home for just a handful of old ewes and doe goats that didn’t need to be bred any more. All the rams and buck goats gone. No more babies.
Except I still had a dream.
You see, we have the sweetest little llama. She’s on the petite side, and I always thought she’d have the cutest crias. So even though we phased out raising other 4-legged babies, I really, REALLY wanted to have at least one little cria. So we bought a male llama.
Now, according to gestation charts, and using the time I saw our llamas breed, we should have had a cria about April 1st.
Obviously, it’s long past April 1st. I’d about decided our llama was just fat. I’d been feeding her for two, and it just made her fat sort of deal.
Well, I was wrong.
When we went out to do chores this evening, she was laying down and didn’t move when The Farmer got close. Most unusual. So I thought, “Could it be?”
Yep, she was in labor. Just a bit of the amniotic sac sticking out, with a little dark something in there. I figured a foot.
I figured wrong.
Upon closer inspection, I thought it was either a tail or an ear. I got a pair of gloves and felt it, and pushed my fingers inside to see what I could feel.
NO feet. Pretty sure that’s an ear, and I’m feeling the side of the head.
NOT good.
But the amniotic sac hadn’t broken, so I figured the cria should still be getting oxygen through the umbilical cord. We’ve waited a long time for this baby though, and the presentation was way off. I mean, there wasn’t even a picture in the books of such a presentation!
So I called the vet. He was sewing up a horse and said he’d be here as soon as he could. I set to work making sure there were lights and nice hay-strewn shed floors and anything else I could think of we might need. Including two cameras to be sure I could record this joyous occasion. Our first cria!
The books I have talk about how easy llamas birth. In fact, one went so far as to say, “Llama births are easier and more trouble-free than births of any other livestock species.”
Not this time.
The vet pushed the head back, and rotated things around and got the front feet out. He tried to pull the baby out. It wasn’t working.
He ended up putting chains on both legs and pulling the baby out. It took several tries and a lot of hard work. Finally he got the little one out and I asked if it was okay. He informed me it had been dead for some time.
There went my dream. It literally died.
One very cute, black little girl cria. Stillborn.
My poor little llama lady was so tired, she barely moved through all this. She got oxytocin and antibiotic shots. The vet thinks she’ll be fine. I sure hope so.
But right now… I’m feeling pretty sorry for both of us.
Tomorrow I have to bury my dream. I know I’ll water that little grave with a whole lot of tears.
It’s not easy when a dream dies.