It is now almost 9pm and I have been going full speed since 6:30 this morning! I got over to the farm around 7:30 and fed the new babies.
Ellen had an appointment this morning to get disbudded, so Jason and I took her to the large animal vet, Dr. Michael Dzimianski. I was very hesitant about how I would feel about this getting done (the disbudding), but I have had to help Ellie free from the fence many times because of her horns getting caught, and this just seems like the right thing to do. The process actually seems to not bother Ellen except for the short 10-15 seconds that she is confined for the disbudding. I hold her in my arms on the ride home and she is showing no signs of being in pain and that makes me happy.
As soon as we get home, Ellie is calling for Ellen and it seems to be feeding time....
After dealing with the babies, I went down to the "acre" and bottle fed Eli (he is suffering from an illness called 'soremouth' and isn't really eating or drinking much due to the swollen mouth and throat) and fed him some baby food again as well as electrolytes.
After cleaning up all the leftover building materials from the new coop for the chickens and put up hooks for their new feeders, I picked up all the trash that had been strewn by the cows in the field after I had accidentally left a bag full of garbage out there (oops). On the way back to my car, a lone cow was eying me and my loaves of day old bread I bought from the Flowers store for my poor little sick Eli..... These cows are usually very skittish and hesitant to come near anyone, but this one cow obviously wanted bread...bad. She kept hanging around and following me...for a couple of hours while I was working down at the acre. The other cows that were out there with her had already taken off - this girl was persistent....and it worked. After I was done with my work, I walked over to her and she didn't dart off like the others normally do. She was like, "Hey - I noticed you have quite a few loaves of bread left that Eli didn't eat....do ya mind?" Ha! - OK, she didn't say anything, but I could tell that was what she was thinking.....I had my camera in the car and figured if I was actually going to do this, I needed proof to show Jason...OR if I never made it back out of here, it could possibly be because I was mauled and eaten by a hungry cow. Either way, I was documenting this event! Here's the proof:
After feeding this big girl, I headed home to shower and change clothes before heading back out to feed the babies again - until Eli is healed these are protective measures to ensure the babies don't get sick. I head back out to feed the new About An Acre babies - Milly and Misty. After feeding them, I head out to get Eli some more baby food and electrolytes then go home to eat some lunch. The rest of the day is somewhat of a repeat of events from earlier...feeding the babies, feeding Eli, etc. At the end of the day though, Eli was eating solid sweet feed which made me so happy, I almost cried! This was a tremendous improvement and I was glad to have him eating solid foods. I gathered the eggs from the awesome brand new nesting boxes in my new coop and head home for the day. My dream is hopefully one day I will be able to do this full time. It is so therapeutic and gratifying!! I just love these animals!
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