Just another Day on the Farm

Don’t worry, at this point in time the new set of lambs are still doing well but I got to thinking about this subject after someone express upset that I had the one lamb loss from the very first set of twins born..

I had said, lamb was dry, lamb was bonded, lamb was nursing, checks were done and was nursing the first night, went out in the morning and lamb was gone..  She said, there must have been something you could have done.. at the time, I did the farmer nod and said, well you always think of things afterwards..

But the truth is.. no I would not have done anything different, the lamb was born normal, its mother did its job, she has lots of milk, the lamb was warm, it was dry, it was in a jug with no wind access, it was up on its feet, it was seeking milk and it was nursing..  I don’t know why it passed in the night..

Its part of the numbers called Neonatal Loss.. Over the years I have had a number of litters of kittens, puppies, rabbit kits, chicks, lambs, kids and the list goes on..  I do a lot of studying and learning and reading of books and I remember reading something that at the time seemed so wrong..

On average over a ten year regular breeding program you will suffer 25% neonatal loss in your livestock,  Neonatal loss includes early miscarry, stillborn, and any young livestock loss under the age of 16 weeks.

I remember thinking, someone is not doing something right, they are talking about someone who has a large farm or building, someone that can’t or won’t bring that chick in the house, or someone who won’t call the vet when the cost to just be seen is worth more then baby is worth, someone who is doing “SOMETHING” wrong in their breeding programs, their feeding programs, their care programs..

Yes, I admit it, back in the day, I really truly believed that. I believe with all my heart that I could and would never had to say over a ten year period that “I” could have upward of a 25 percent neonatal loss.

And lets face it, the homestead friendly books, the blogs most of the time we don’t help, I know a few brave souls that will talk about it, at least own up that things didn’t go perfectly, that things happen and my hats off to each and everyone of you that is honest about what happens so that our readers can understand that its not all rosy.

I have at times beaten the odds at least for a short time, lets talk rabbits for a min, I can have a year worth of litters, lets say ten litters, on average in my nest box’s one out each four will have a stillborn kit in it, often the mother eats most of it or sometimes I catch just a bit of proof, or rarely, I find a whole passed kit, so this number could be higher.

But most of the time, my litters are strong and healthy and I am rockin that average at around a 1 to 3 percent loss, with the second big worry time being when they start eating, if there is a problem in them internally, it shows up when solid food starts..

And this can go for a year or two or even three and then wham, a whole litter born on the wire outside on a cold morning and all gone, suddenly you need to add in eight or ten loss’s to those numbers and now you are climbing upward of 10 to 12 percent over the full amount of years..

But wait, you found a awesome breeder and you brought in a breed doe and you are so excited and she has her kits and she kills them all on day one, now you need to add in all those numbers and up that percent climbs.

Then there are the flukes, the what happened, you were fine this morning and dead on the next check, the hold them in your hand, and you turn them over and look and try to hold back a mix of tears and anger while you try and figure out what the heck happened..

Chicks that only hatch half way, ducklings that end up drowning themselves in four inches of water, one year I had half grown chickens that decided that they wanted to go in a rain barrel, instead of use the water pans, I still don’t know why but I lost a couple in a very short time span before I got a screen cover over the dang thing, I just couldn’t understand why they would do it!

Lambs can be miscarried, and its not uncommon to have a stillborn but I find most of my loss’s with lambs happen in the first 24 to 72 hours same with kids from the goats, it would be so hard to find a kid born not in a warm dry bedded stall but out in the snow bank, frozen..

I had a proven farm mother cat one time drop kittens around the farm yard. only one was still barely there when I found it, the rest had passed, and I still don’t know why she didn’t find a box and settle down, it passed with a few hours, a full litter loss of eight..

It does happen the other way sometimes, two years ago, we finished lambing and we looked at each other and just where amazed, everything single lamb born alive, every single lamb born healthy and all of them did well, not a single lamb loss that year.

Last year, we had both a neonatal loss and we had a mother reject the lamb (goon) and ended up with a bottle baby to boot..

Its like the little keets, first clutchs, everyone lived, everyone made it to adulthood, second clutch, they all made it a couple weeks and then we had a half clutch loss do to something, we are still not sure but the smaller /weaker ones over a couple days just passed away and the strong all did fine.. why the difference?

Same feed, same pen set up, different mothers, same father, something viral, something genetic, or ??

I know this, if you breed every year and keep track of all the stats over a ten year period and you find out that you are between 8 to 12 percent neonatal loss, you pat yourself on the back, because you are doing very very well! if you find yourself between 12 and 25 percent, yes, by all means look at the breeding program, look at the set ups and make tweeks but please, Don’t beat yourself up on it..

If you are over 25% neonatal loss’s over a ten year program, then I would say you might need to look at the stock at that point, if you know in your heart that you are feeding, watering, caring and meeting the critters needs and you have a higher then that average over a ten year program, the odds are its the something within your breeding lines.

So for all your new farmers, homesteaders and folks that dream of homesteading.. I want you to put it in the back of your mind, the babies will not all be born perfect, some will not be born on time, some will not be born alive, some will be born wrong, death does not just come at the end of the life cycle, it can and does come at the beginning.

Having this knowledge is powerful, it does not mean you are off the hook, example, poor hatch rate survival on my ducklings was fixed when I found out that in their next box’s, I add a shovel full or two of good dirt and then put the bedding out for momma duck, my bedding was drying out to much.

Adding in a extra three inch lip to the area that goes from where the kit box is inside the outside rabbit pens, saves any smaller attached kits to a nipple from being dragged out onto the wire.

Trying ideally to be at the lamb births makes a big difference, because sometimes that big stillborn lamb found in the pen, if you were there could have been given a little helping pull and made it just fine.

The learning and the tweeking never ends, but the ideal that all will be well at that special time is just that folks.. an ideal, its sure not a picture of truth..

The truth for me, each and every single birth is scary, special and nerve racking but worth it..