Homesteader News

 Tanya Kelley is a freelance writer from Ashmore, Illinois.  She and her husband own the Coles County poor farm property, Ashmore Estates (www.ashmoreestates.net).  Tanya and her family live on the property and raise the majority of their own produce, meat and dairy to support their own family.  Tanya has has a wide variety of livestock animals all of her life, starting with her first pony at age six.  Right now her farm has 3 spoiled horses, a Jersey steer, a hog, chickens, Shetland sheep, Nubian goats, an Australian shepherd and lots of barn cats.  She also enjoys homeschooling her 11. year old son William, canning, spinning wool, quilting and many other homestead activities.  When not working on the farm or writing, Tanya and her husband operate an October entertainment haunted house and year round paranormal events in the old poor farm building.  It's an unusual occupation, but beats working at a 9 to 5 job and lets her be home with her family and all the animals!

How NOT to Get Another Horse for Your Homestead

The day of the horse is, for the most part, come and gone. I know there are homesteaders out there that are using horses for plowing – but they are few and far between, unless you are Amish. Despite that, there are a lot of homesteader that keep one or two horses. Why?

There's an old saying - “The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.” Personally, I can vouch for that. Horses are the best therapists around, even when they are merely standing there chewing hay. Having owned as many as 16 at one time, I would say I've had a lot of therapists!

If you have a homestead, chances are, you've got the space and animal experience so that adding a horse isn't going to make much drama in your lifestyle. Unless you decide you want to BREED your horse. That's when the drama begins.

I know most homesteaders like the idea of “make or grow it yourself”. In most cases, you get a better product and you save money. Breeding your own horse isn't is not one of those cases.

First, forget all about breeding to save money. That is not going to happen. You might as well build a fire out of dollar bills as expect to get a return on horses – you'll probably even lose less with the fire. And foaling and raising that foal isn't the same as raising goats or bunnies. It's like a whole 'nother dimension.

I knew the downsides before I even bred my thoroughbred mare, Sugar. But, being stubborn, I wanted to learn that for myself. After all, Sug was a top notch mare but she was getting older. How could I possibly ignore the opportunity for a baby that would, of course, be as good as she was?

Getting Sug in foal was the easy part. Ten months later, the real lessons began. My husband and I had just finished building a new, huge foaling stall. I moved Sugar to the new box and watched her, expecting her to investigate the stall. Instead, she curled her lip and turned and looked at her side. Labor already? No. Colic. I called the vet. After an exam, she talked about options, if Sugar didn't improve.

Colic surgery, C-sections (can you imagine a C-section on a 1100 pound animal?) and other choices were loomed. And so did a big, big hole in our checking account. Fortunately, Sug made a speedy and relatively inexpensive recovery. Well, inexpensive when compared to the alternative options. I still remember my husband stomping into the house following the vet's visit. He said, “You know, by the time this is all said and done, this foal is going to cost a thousand dollars!”

I kept my mouth shut. He had no clue that we had passed that mark months before.

Sug kept plugging along to her due date, without any additional problems. I started sleeping in the barn. Two days after Sug's due date, I woke up to find Sug looking at her side. This time she was sweating too. It didn't take long before it was obvious this was the real thing.

Sug kept laying down, rolling and getting up. Over and over. I checked the foal. The feet were upside down. The foal was turned. Visions of a for-sure dead foal invaded my mind. In my far too limited experience, I'd never heard of an upside down foal being delivered successfully. I called the vet. She was an hour away. By the time she got there it would be too late. She said I had to turn the foal.

If you've ever tried to turn a foal (and hopefully you haven't), you'll know that finding something to grab onto is not exactly easy. It's kind of like trying to flip a pile of warm jello with two butter knives – all while working in a tight, unseen space. It was going to take a more competent person than me to get that foal turned. I called the vet again.

Plan B - pull the foal. Only pull down, toward the mare's feet, the vet said. Pulling down meant the foal's front legs stretched way above its head (or where it seemed like the head would be if it was out enough to see it). I was even more sure that, if the foal wasn't already dead, that would kill it. I pulled. Nothing happened. I called my friend, Michele. She was the only one I could think of that would be around that early in the morning.

Poor Michele. Extremely allergic to horses and hay, she always avoided the barn. To top that off, Michele had made me promise that I would NOT call her when Sug was foaling. She knew there would be more gross-ness than she wanted to deal with. Michele was a trooper – she came, even though she had just gotten off from working third shift. Everybody should have a friend like that. Michele was no dummy though - she picked up my 15 year old daughter, Manda from school.

Manda and I pulled. The foal didn't move and I was pretty sure it was dead. We pulled some more and finally saw some progress. Several pulls and the head was out. I broke the sac and cleared it, just in case the foal was alive. Right away, the eyes popped open and blinked. We cheered.

A few minutes later, the foal was about half way out but progress had stopped. I called the vet. Oh, yeah. You'll have to turn it now, to get the hips past the mare's pelvis. Great. That would have been good information to know sooner.

Foals don't come with handles, unfortunately. And everything about a foal feels soft and very breakable. I felt around, trying to find something that seemed like I could hold onto. Meanwhile, the mare was contracting. Did I mention how much it hurts to have your arm squished next to a foal by a contraction? Ow.

I finally grabbed under the rib cage and decided to exert whatever force needed to turn the foal. To my surprise, the foal spun around easily and slid out into my lap.

Fortunately, the post foaling routine was just that – routine. Michele drove home, steering with one hand and holding an allergy swollen eye open with the other. The foal, a plain black colt that we named Armani, was just fine. In fact, he's nearly 11 year old now – huge and burning through my hay as fast as he can.

I'd like to say Sug was the only mare that I had trouble foaling out. However, broodmares are sneaky creatures and every one of them is bound to have trouble sooner or later.

A few years after Armani was born, I had four mares bred. For two months, I slept in the barn. During the day, I kept the mares in a lot, right in front of the house so I could watch them all day. One rainy and very muddy evening, I was running about fifteen minutes behind in my barn routine.

I went to the lot to bring the mares into the barn for the night. There, standing in four inches of mud, was a foal. Smokey, his mom, alternated between licking the mud off the foal and lunging at the other mares with her ears pinned and teeth bared. It took three people to get the other jealous mares to the barn and then an hour to clean the mud off the foal.

Then there was Jade, a tall, elegant thoroughbred, bred to Armani. She had fantastic babies but she was very fragile after foaling. As she went into labor, I watched for any signs of trouble. Nothing seemed amiss, but the mare was not laying down, despite the fact that the foal's legs were out up to the knees. I went in the stall. The foal kept coming and the mare didn't go down.

I had heard that mares can drop the foal and the foal will be fine. Even so, the thought of that delicate baby thudding onto the ground was more than I could bear. Unfortunately, Jade usually had gargantuan babies. I had visions of me trying to catch the foal – it would shoot out, land on my chest. My husband would find me in the morning, trapped in the straw with a dried foal sprawled across my middle. Luckily, I was able to ease the baby to the ground and all was well.

Two foals later, it wasn't such a happy ending. For some reason, one week after every foaling, Jade would colic on and off for about a week. The last time, she collicked bad enough that it required surgery. She was recovering well and coming out of the anesthesia when, for no apparent reason, she had a fatal heart attack.

Those were the dramatic foalings. Less dramatic but still problematic, was my friend's mare Genny. Genny, a cute but very pudgy quarter horse, loved feed. I slept, in front of her stall door, watching. I woke to check Genny. She was not in her stall. I heard something rummaging around in the grain room. I swear, the mare had magic. She had unhooked the rope across her stall door, FLOWN over me and my bed, and silently gotten into the feed room. Okay, maybe she didn't fly. But I don't know how else she could have gotten over me. At any rate, I had no idea how long she'd been in the grain, nor how much she had eaten. When she started showing signs of founder a few hours later, I was sure my negligence had ruined my friend's mare. Six hours after than, she popped out a darling little filly and never showed another symptom of founder.

My favorite foaling trick was performed by Chequers. Chequers was THE broodmare. Queen of the herd, she was determined to do things the way she wanted. Once she laid down, she pushed violently three times, shot the baby out and leaped to her feet. She didn't foal, she ejected. She was a good mom and had no problem letting me handle her foals, as long as I kept it mind that it was hers, completely hers. Since the foal was hers, she also was determined that the foaling time would be hers, and hers alone.

I had managed to defeat her intentions with previous foals, but I was getting tired of sleeping in the barn. I bought a foaling test indicator kit. One evening, during my final mare check, I thought Chequers had “the look”. I pulled out my handy-dandy test kit. I wasn't going to sleep in the barn if I didn't need to.

I collected a sample from Chequer's udder. Then I went in the house to run the test. Ten minutes later, the results said there was an 80 percent chance Chequers would foal during the next 12 hours. I debated whether I should sleep in the barn. I went out to check again.

As I walked in the barn door, I saw Chequers leap to her feet. I had seen that leap before. I went to the stall. A large, wet colt was nestled in the straw. So much for relying on the test kit.

If there's one thing I've learned about mares, it's that they will do exactly what you don't expect them to do. You just have to be ready for anything, and then it's all good.

I've sold the mares and life is more predictable now. My herd consists of three horses now – a good number. I've got Armani and two of his kids from Chequers, a gelding and a mare, Stella.

Call me a fool, but I think I'm going to add some more drama into the homestead next spring. I've already got a nice stallion picked out for Stella. How can I possibly ignore the opportunity to produce a baby that would, of course, be as good as she is?

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Remember the November article buying animals at the auction? Like I said then, auctions are unpredictable and don't always turn out the way you plan, no matter how well you plan. I should remember my own advice more often.

During the far-too-recent January Arctic freeze, I was SUPPOSED to be a casual observer on a goat shopping expedition with my friend, Myra. I didn't even bring any cash with me – because I wasn't there to buy. Well, I wasn't there to buy until I saw a truckload of calves coming off the truck. It was 6 degrees and there weren't many buyers. I figured the competition would be scarce and prices would be low. Besides, the seller was right there and I could ask him questions.

There were two Jersey bull calves, our family's preferred choice for steers. Jerseys make great meat and a Jersey is just the right size for one year's worth of beef for our family. They also tend to be very affordable. The down side is that they are usually quite young when they are sold – sometime only a week or less old.

These two calves looked to be older than a week – their umbilical cords had already fallen off. Even better, I thought. The seller assured me the calves had had colostrum. The calves looked healthy and playful. I decided to bid.

I didn't win the bid on the first, larger calf. I did win the bid for the second. Minutes after the bidding closed, Myra and I stood in the pen looking checking out the calf. He was the typical Jersey pumpkin pie orange so I named him Pumpkin.

Calves are fragile and, even though Pumpkin had had colostrum, I wanted the auction vet to give him a quick once-over. She suggested giving Pumpkin a pneumonia vaccine and poly serum. We put the calf in the back of Myra's mini van and headed for home.

The first two days, everything was going along great, despite the brutal temperatures mother nature dished out. Then, on the morning of the third day, I walked into the barn and was greeted with the sickening smell of calf diarrhea. Scours. Pumpkin stood, his back hunched and shivering. A puddle of yellow diarrhea dribbled across the straw behind Pumpkin. I called Dr. Stone.

I was about to learn more about scours than I ever wanted to know. Scours can develop from viral causes such as Coronavirus and Rotavirus. There are also bacterial causes such as E. coli (Escherichia coli), salmonella and enterotoxemia (Clostridium perfringens). E. coli, the most common cause of scours in calves, is found in manure of even healthy animals so it's easy for a calf to get exposed to it. Salmonella bacteria can be transmitted by other cattle, birds, cats, rodents, the water supply or even humans. Enterotoxemia is usually associated with changing weather, feed changes, overcrowding or any condition that might cause a calf to be stressed so it doesn't nurse for it's usual amount. At the next feeding, the overly hungry calf will then overeat, creating an environment in the gut that is a clostridial incubator.

Did it really matter what caused Pumpkin's scours? Yes, and no. Determining the cause wouldn't likely change the treatment. The only value I saw in determining the cause was in knowing what steps I should take for future prevention.

Pumpkin needed a four-fold treatment. First, an antibiotic. Dr. Stone gave Baytril, a fast acting, long lasting drug. The Baytril would knock out the bad bugs, whatever they were. Next, to combat the downhill spiral that usually kills most scouring calves, Pumpkin needed treatment for the effects of the diarrhea. To treat dehydration, the lost of electrolytes and acidosis (too much acid in the gut), Dr. Stone prescribed Lactated Ringer's, often abbreviated as LR, twice a day, inserted subcutaneously (under the skin).

Don't let the name “Lactated Ringer's” throw you off. The first time I heard it, the image of a plastic circle with milk in it came to mind. The name is odd, but really, it looks just like a standard hospital IV bag. It was developed by Sydney Ringer and contains lactate.

By the time we began treatment, poor little Pumkin looked pretty rough. Diarrhea was all over the stall and Pumpkin was getting weaker, shivering and not getting up. I cleaned the stall. My husband suggested putting a heat lamp on him. Over the last few months, three barns near us had burned down from heat lamps. I squashed the heat lamp idea. I put a quilted, flannel people jacket over Pumpkin. Then, I used a very stiff and heavy horse blanket to make a tent over that. It would hold in the heat without weighing too much.

In thirty minutes, Pumpkin seemed more comfortable and toasty warm in his nest. I felt better too. I put the lactated Ringer's bag in a pitcher of hot water to warm it up. No sense in warming the calf, only to freeze him out again with a giant, cold injection. I started the fluid and waited. At first, the solution went in fast. Then, no matter how hard I squeezed, nothing moved. It took me a few minutes to realize the IV line had frozen. Duh. It was ONLY 6 degrees outside – of course if froze! I thawed the line and the solution flowed again.

By the time I came back for the night feed, Pumpkin seemed perky but he drank his bottle without getting up. I felt positive and congratulated myself on catching the problem early. I gave another dose of lactated ringers, just in case.

The next morning, Pumpkin was mooing for his breakfast when I walked into the barn. A good sign! He wanted to get up but wasn't strong enough to push the horse blanket off. It was -1 outside with 25 mile an hour winds and our barn isn't exactly draft free. I figured it was a good thing he couldn't get up – he would stay warmer where he was.

Pumpkin downed his bottle. The diarrhea seemed to be clearing up and he didn't seem dehydrated. He did sound a little wheezy though. Time for another trip to the vets. I came home with Draxxin (antibiotic), Nuflor (another antibiotic), both used to treat pnuemonia, just in case.

By the time I got home, Pumpkin was on his feet with the horse blanket pushed to one side of the stall. A thick puddle of almost-not-diarrhea was glopped into the middle of it. Apparently Pumpkin didn't think much of the horse blanket. He wasn't bouncing around but he did butt me, trying to speed up the breakfast delivery.

I was certain he was out of the woods. I called the vet to report the progress. It was cold outside but He seemed no worse for it. I waited until he laid down for the night and covered him with the tent again.

The next morning, I warmed his bottle and headed for the barn. I was greeted with several moos. He was up and he ate enthusiastically. And then, right after he finished eating, the diarrhea came again. Not good. I called the vet. She was running out of ideas. “Maybe worms? Let's give him some vitamins? It's not looking promising for him, though.”

I headed for the clinic. By the time I came home, armed with wormer, injectable vitamins and more antibiotic, Pumpkin was down again. I could see that he was giving up. Still, I dosed him with everything and gave another dose of lactated Ringer's. The weather warmed up again, all the way to 10 degrees. Still not warm enough though. I covered Pumpkin with his plaid flannel shirt and the scraped-clean horse blanket.

By feeding time that night, Pumpkin was warm but hungry. He ate well and that gave me a little hope. But an hour later, during my barn check, it was clear that Pumpkin was too far gone. Within minutes, he was dead.

Whether bought at an auction or bought from a private sale, there aren't any guarantees with young calves. With Pumpkin, I'm pretty certain I came home from the auction with a healthy calf. I think the combination of the cold, the wind and change in feed and environment were conditions that stressed Pumpkin to the point that he scoured. Those same conditions hindered his recovery.

Once again, I am reminded that raising livestock is not without risk – financial, sometimes physical and emotional. Despite all that, I far prefer this life to the alternative. And, when the weather warms up a bit, I'll be back at the auction shopping for another calf.

Surround water tank with old pallets screwed or nailed together.

Stuff straw into pallets and around tank for insulation and cover top and sides with two layers of clear plastic. Flap door is open in daytime for animals to drink.

 Close flap at night to hold in heat. Tank will hold in heat collected and should not freeze solid but you may still have to break ice sheet on top or let the sun melt it off.

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