This has been an eventful week that would definitely get mixed reviews.
On Sunday I found Robin laying out flat in the barnyard with one leg curled under her and the wing on the same side partially splayed out. She was very cold and snuggled into me when I picked her up. I brought her into the laundry room and put her in a milk crate lined with hay with some water and crumble at hand, and I put a floor lamp with lots of wattage next to her to warm her up. She ate and drank a bit and seemed pretty bright-eyed, although she didn't seem at all inclined to move.
On Monday Kim Newswanger arrived to pick up Tiggy, and of course we went out to let Kim say hi to Ebony since Kim was her first mama. You can imagine my shock when just as I was taking this photo, Kim said, "What's this?" Ebby had a lump on the underside of her jaw just about where Kim's hand is in the photo. Neither of us knew what it was, and it was very hard to see through the long hair under her jaw, but it was obviously painful. There was a small scab which I picked off, and it had a small amount of pus on the inside. A call to the vet was in order.
I had warned Kim that I have not been able to make friends with Tiggy. This is as far as we've gotten--and only while she's eating! As soon as the grain is gone she backs away from me. Her "safety zone" has gradually gone down from about 10 to 2 feet, but she is definitely wary of us.
We had to corner Tiggy to catch her and put Kim's halter on her. I've told Kim all along that she's a cow whisperer and that as soon as Tiggy meets her she'll melt in a big puddle of chocolate all over Kim. It wasn't quite that dramatic, but Tiggy warmed up to her pretty quickly!
With a lot of coaxing, Kim led Tiggy out to the trailer, and she hopped right in! One thing that made me feel a tiny bit better was that Tiggy was actually grinding her teeth as Kim led her--the process was apparently that agonizing! She recovered quickly--after just a few days at her new home, she comes right up to Kim for treats and scratches. I told Kim that my story (since Tiggy isn't telling a different one) is that this smart little cookie heard
in utero that she wasn't meant to be ours, that she was meant to go back to live with Kim. I think she's just been waiting all this time for her
real mama to come get her, so why waste any affection on me? :)
After Kim and Tiggy left, we switched animals to different pastures. Now that Tiggy is gone, we don't have to keep Royal two pastures away from her, so we moved the cattle up to Kara's pasture, their winter sacrifice pasture. Angel, Brandy and Julie had been in the back of Kara's pasture getting to know Romeo over the electric fence, but I wanted them to have a lot more room for their first official meeting so we put them all out where the cattle had been. Of course everyone took off galloping!
While Angel and Brandy found some green grass, Julie went over to meet Romeo.
"Hi."
BAM! I guess being the smallest and lowest on the totem pole, she wanted to put him in his place right off the bat.
Romeo realized Julie was not his Juliet, and he high-tailed it out of there.
Of course the harem followed right on his heels.
Don't we have a colorful bunch? (In more ways than one!)
We also have some very opinionated ladies, and Brandy's opinion is that SHE is the Alpha mare!
Finally the girls hared off on their own and left Romeo alone. He has always been a sweet, peaceful guy and pretty low on the totem pole as long as we've known him.
As the sun set, equine relations seemed to reach détente.
Meanwhile, I had called the vet about Ebby's lump, and he said he'd try to get here in a day or so. I was worried that she might have something called "l
umpy jaw," which I knew was serious, and I wanted to get her seen as soon as possible.
Finally I finally found a vet who could come on Wednesday. So that afternoon we got Ebby in the squeeze chute to
get her lump checked out and see what had caused it. The vet shaved the lump and gave her a thorough examination, including looking inside her mouth. Although he had never actually seen a case of lumpy jaw, he said that it is usually located farther back on the jaw, closer to the cheek. He said that Ebby's lump seemed to be an abscess, probably caused by inflammation from new teeth, and it appeared to have already drained. The lump, while still tender, felt thick and didn't have an open channel. As a precaution, he cleaned it well with an antiseptic and took a swab in the small bloody spot that was visible after cleaning. The culture would take a week to get results, and he told me to keep iodine on it in the meantime. I felt reassured, although I was still concerned.
Wednesday morning I had noticed that Robin seemed to be going downhill. Figuring it couldn't hurt and might encourage her to move, I fixed up a pen for her on the back porch in the sunshine and put her there with food and water. She simply lay there, uninterested in anything. When the sun moved, I shifted her to take advantage of the warm rays. Later that afternoon when I came back to check on her after treating Ebby, poor Robin had died. I was glad she'd had the sun on her back for her last morning.
Late Thursday afternoon I got a call from our main cattle vet. He had hoped to get out here but wasn't going to make it, so he was checking on Ebby. He said that he was pretty sure she had an abscess and that normally he would drain it and give her a shot of Excede, a long-acting antibiotic. Since it had already drained, if I wanted to meet him somewhere, he'd give me the Excede. So Friday morning I got Ebby into the squeeze chute and gave her the shot--although it wasn't quite as simple as it sounds. Cows HATE shots! Nevertheless, thanks to the squeeze chute, Ebony got her Excede. I was glad to see that the lump had shrunk some more and was definitely less tender.
By this morning the lump looked smaller, although I think Ebby may always have a lump of scar tissue. She let me scratch it, though, which I took as a good sign.
Herb had clued me in to something he had observed, and I could hardly believe what he told me. So I took the camera with me this morning so that I could write a fitting end to the story of this week.
It may not be too surprising to see Romeo pin his ears at Julie and tell her to leave his grain alone. After all, she was the first to try to kick his teeth in!
And it may not be surprising to see Angel, close to Romeo and warning Julie off, especially if you remember that Angel knew Romeo long ago before he went to Texas. What is really astonishing is what you DON'T see in this photo--Brandy! That's because Brandy was up eating hay . . . which she could finally do after Romeo left.
Meet Romeo, the new Alpha! Angel--the only one who didn't try to kick him--is his sidekick, and Brandy--the former Alpha--is neck and neck with Julie for last place. I think Romeo is saying that the moral to this story is: "He who laughs last, laughs best!"
In case you were wondering, there are apparently 980 million pigs in the world, 1.4 billion cows, and 19.6 billion chickens. To put that in perspective, there are 7 billion humans.
