and other times what you learn can shake you up a little..

So lets see, a number of things going on that should and will get their own posts on it.. but going to touch on them here and now and then expand into their own full posts

First up, healing a sheeps foot, after the whole toenail got pulled off, what a mess and its a ongoing issue, She appears to have damaged it during the attack that took one of her lambs, I am assuming by striking it trying to defend her wee one.. it stayed on damaged for a couple days and then pull totally off..

What a mess, I have never had a whole nail pull off before, I am going to do a whole series of photos and care advice on it after I do it all.. but the goal right now is to keep it clean, stop any infections on it and keep her and her lamb, calm, well fed and bedded in their own jug..  We are doing healing foot soaks, meds and so forth, they say I can heal it, and it will grow back, but it will require a long slow recovery..

Its been a rough one in the lambing season, we had a ewe give birth to a huge stillborn, she is being turned into my milking sheep for this season, more on a post on turning a wild momma raised ewe into a calm willing milking partner, and let me tell ya right now, its a lot more work then taking a bottle baby and turning her into a milking sheep, plus the downside on this is that I have no lamb to put on her, which means back to twice a day milking despite the very cold temps indeed.

Last night another ewe had her lamb, much to my surprise another big single but it has a swollen front knee  and a turn on the joint before its hoof, so far its not having a issue with it, its standing, nursing and overall being a good baby, but its very unimpressed that I am heading down every so many hours and doing stretches and movements on it, I am unsure just how much I can fix and how much is just going to be the way it is, but you have to try..

Miss Piggy is getting wider and she is starting to show in a mothering way.. Now I love my big pigs and I will admit that I do find them very smart indeed but I still like to eat my pork and bacon, so I know that by raising them myself,  I have control from start to finish, and that can indeed be a very good thing.

But what I saw today, made me both shake my head and at the same time, made me feel even worse for those millions of pigs and piglets that never see daylight, feel real ground under their feet, never get to dig in the mud and wallow in the pond..

We had gotten in 1600 to 1700 hundreds pounds of straw in yesterday and we had hauled extra down for the pigs and they were fluffing and remaking their sleeping hollows and Miss Piggy had put herself back to bed, she was covered up to her sides and her head and most of her neck was covered but her back was wide open and she was softly grunting..

Kermit surprised me, and I tried to snap photos of it for you.  not the best photos to be sure but they still show what he did, he would take huge mouthfuls of bedding and then carefully lay them down over her back, he and her were softly talking back and forth, and he covered her up to help her be warm..

Part of me was in awe of this care shown between mates, and part of me, cringed just a little inside, sometimes, just a bit, I wonder about eating pigs.. I never have these moments in fowl or rabbit or sheep or cows.. but every now and again, pigs.. well pigs give me pause..