Losses and Gains

R.I.P. Sonny

With a sad and heavy heart, I am here to report that Sonny, our favorite rooster, died tragically a couple of weeks ago. He never really recovered from losing his voice and eventually suffocated to death. We never were able to discover the nature of his throat issues. When we saw that his wattle and comb suddenly turned purple (which is caused by lack of oxygen), I frantically tried calling every vet in two counties and no one would treat a chicken. I googled potential issues, and spent about $50 in chicken antobiotics, electrolytes, and de-wormer from Tractor Supply Company. I had only given him a small syringe of chicken gatorade when it became clear that it didn't make it to his stomach, but seemed to go right into his lungs. He started gasping and coughing up the liquid. It was heart wrenching to see him suffer so much. Within about 15 minutes, he died in my arms. Sometimes, being a farmer is just hard.

So what do you do when your beloved rooster gives up the ghost? You go out and buy yourself.....a new horse? Yesterday we stopped in at the Fredericksburg Auction House for the monthly horse, tack, and hay auction. I had only intended to see if we could pick up some cheap tack and supplies, but ended up coming home with a 3 year paint mare, whom we named Lily, after the Consider the Lilies song and scripture. Actually, Lily is her barn name. Her official horse name will be "Mom's Foolishness" which is appropriate!

The story behind our new mare is simple. She was the best looking horse they had to auction yesterday, but we noticed that her back leg was hurt and swollen. I guess a bunch of people complained and were going to call the police. So I started asking around to some more experienced horsemen and spoke with the owner. Turns out, Lily, had gotten her leg caught on the trailer when they were unloading the horses yesterday. It skinned her back leg from knee to hoof. There was not much blood, but it was definitely swollen. After much discussion with my new friends, I decided to talk to the owner about taking her out for a ride to see how bad the limp was, and if the leg was broken. Because of the fuss people were making, they actually just put her back on the trailer and were not going to auction her. The owner said if I was interested, I could just buy her directly from him for $500, which is like getting a ferrari for the price of a chevy. After some deliberation and weighing of the odds, we decided to take a chance on this dream horse.

She has been so gentle today, allowing us to clean her wounds and apply some peroxide and balm (SWAT ointment today, but we will be getting bag balm, which was recommended by our horse friends at the auction). She is out grazing in the pasture today and while she favors the back leg a bit, is not limping to badly.

I will keep the blog updated on her progress.

In other news, we have been working so hard on fattening up Sarge. He is actually looking pretty healthy now and I have been brushing and brushing to get all the winter coat out. Once I am done, he will have a sleek black coat underneath that will gleam! I need to take some new photos and post them out here for all to see. No more concentration camp victim!