Category Archives: Animal Husbandry

Posts related to animal caretaking

December 21, 2018 · 7:00 am

Oh Boy! More Boys!

I haven’t been able to share many animal antics lately because not much has been going on the Flores Ranchito. That all changed towards the end of November with the arrival of Zombie’s first offsprings, the Borrego Boys, white, fuzzy twins, who are healthy and fit with the exception of some sort of weird second set of eyes (but what can you expect from a zombie/sheep hybrid).

With their birth, my husband went a little crazy and started buying up pregnant goats hither and yon. Before we knew it, we had another set of white twins, the Chivo boys.

Then La Gritona (Miss Shouter so named because of all her carrying on) gave birth very vocally one Sunday in the middle of one of my online classes. (Noise? What noise? Now, back to the difference between in, at and on.) Her little chivito is called Payaso (clown), since he’s often up to no good, knocking off the lamp, climbing the woodpile and so on.

The next set of twins were born before my husband could seal the deal of the borrega/chiva exchange with the owner. So mama and twin boys, Salt and Pepper came to live with us in December.

Fuzzy the sheep gave birth the next day to Zombeta, the first female offspring of the bunch. Fuzzy, a first-time mom, is quite the nervous Nellie. She doesn’t want to leave the corral without Zombeta, who really is too small to keep up with the herd/flock just yet, leading my husband on fun-filled romps around La Yacata in her efforts to get back to her little one. She also hollers throughout the day when Zombeta is out of sight, curled up with one of the other kids or lambs or just jumping about on the other side of the food trough.

Zombeta’s birth brought our baby population up to 8 running, frisky little fellas in under 2 weeks. But the population explosion wasn’t done yet!

The following week another little kid was born, Chiveta. Of course, this was the only goat that my husband wanted a boy birth since the mama was a Boer goat, but alas, a girl.

One sheep is still preggers but it will be a few months until she’s ready to give birth. I’d say we have our hands full as it is though, don’t you think?

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Do you want to read more about our animal adventures?

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Filed under Animal Husbandry, Homesteading

Tagged as Animal Husbandry, homesteading, homesteading in Mexico, raising animals, raising goats, raising sheep

September 21, 2018 · 7:00 am

Lil’ Pup no more

Lil’ Pup made himself quite at home since he found us. Although his size, or rather the length of his legs, kept him from joining Puppy and me on our morning walks for a few weeks, he took up his role as companion puppy as soon as he was able. From then on, he and Puppy waited at the door for me to go on my rounds. Lil’ Pup took flank position and Puppy did reconnaissance, or what he imagined was reconnaissance while chasing butterflies, rabbits, and birds.

Everything Puppy did, Lil’ Pup copied, down to ear twitching. Although Puppy seemed to get exasperated with his new little buddy at times, he was mostly good-natured about his little yellow shadow.

Since my husband and father-in-law started work on my sister-in-law’s house across the street, they allowed Lil’ Pup, Puppy and my father-in-law’s 3 dogs (a mama dog and her two pups) to hang out at the construction site. It’s just across the street, so you’d think that they’d be safe enough. Unfortunately, the neighbors up the road started up on their own construction project again about the same time. Puppy really, really doesn’t like them. Seriously. He goes completely ballistic when they drive past on their motorcycle. And with good reason. They make it their aim to hit Puppy with a big stick when he barks at them. Instead of discouraging Puppy from barking and chasing them, it infuriates him. In fact, they even slow down in front of our house looking for Puppy to come out and bark at them so they can hit him some more.

Puppy’s chasing and barking days finally caught up with him when they ran him over with their motorcycle. Puppy is much subdued and his injuries are healing.

Then, the neighbor who has backed up the sewage line with pig poop made another appearance. He’d been MIA for about a year and we’d gotten comfortable with him not being there. In fact, Kitty has taken to spending the afternoons in the shaded pig area.

We think it was he who poisoned our Lil’ Pup and my father-in-law’s puppy perhaps in an effort to get rid of Kitty. She’s fine, but both puppies died the same day. And boy, do we miss them. My father-in-law even declared that we were officially “en luto” (in mourning).

Puppy greeting the yappy dogs.

Black Alpha dog on alert

Puppy still walks with me in the mornings, despite his injuries. However, two black as night male dogs have taken up with the 3 yappy dogs at the corner, so our walk is sometimes fraught with danger. The Alpha black dog doesn’t want Puppy to walk down HIS street. Puppy has never been an alpha dog, he’s barely a beta dog and isn’t looking to fight, but to defend me he would. So we’ve tried skirting around the dogs even if that means trudging through the mud. Sometimes that works and we pass unmolested. Other times, Alpha dog becomes more aggressive. Fortunately, he considers me more Alpha than Puppy, so some stern shouting (sometimes in Spanish, other times in English) usually keep him from following us for long.

So what’s to be done about these infringements to our lives, liberties, and happiness by the neighbors in La Yacata? Nothing.

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Filed under Animal Husbandry

Tagged as pet, puppies, puppy

June 19, 2018 · 12:00 pm

Lady’s Arrival

My husband got it in his head that he wasn’t complete without a horse. Our last horse, Buttercup, had been traded for some of the sheep we currently have. Instead of making this purchase on his own, like he did with Alto, he decided to talk to my son and me about this possibility. The next day, he drove me to Jacales to see the horse he was thinking of buying. She was lovely but too thin for her height, which was considerable. The owner couldn’t say exactly how old she was, but she still had her baby beard, so we are estimating that she is under a year old.We took Zombie girl and a new sheep my husband had traded one of the black boy twins for to the market in Purandaro to sell. We also took Mary but she didn’t weigh enough for her to be worth selling, so we brought her home again.My husband asked two different guys with trucks that have high rails how much they would charge to go and get this horse in Jacales. One said $300 and the other said $400. Both were overpriced for the distance. Our own truck, which would get there and back on $200 pesos of gas, doesn’t have high sides and there was a risk the horse might jump out on the way and get injured.

My husband decided to investigate a road that runs from La Ordena to El Moral as a possible way to bring the horse to our house without being on such a large road since he was considering bringing it home with my son leading her on the motorcycle.

I’m always up for an adventure, so we were off to La Ordena. We asked an elderly lady with her umbrella if we were on the right road. Her eyebrows went sky-high. Yes, this was the road, but she wouldn’t say if it were passable even by moto. On we went. Just as we came to a fork in the road, we encountered a small herd of bulls. We pulled to the left crossroad and got out of their way. We had red shirts on and all. Well, my husband had on a red shirt, mine was sorta purple but I’m not sure what sort of color spectrum bulls have and wasn’t taking any chances.After they passed, we headed down this road that although rough, was still drivable until suddenly it wasn’t. Going just a little further was a mistake and we headed back the way we came in the blistering heat and no floppy hat for me. Halfway back, we ran into another cattle herd, a bit larger this time. My husband turned the moto around and we backtracked until we found some bushes we could hide in. You may laugh, but my husband has a healthy fear of bulls, having grown up in rural areas. While he felt confident that if he were charged, he could climb a mesquite tree, he wasn’t so sure about my mesquite climbing abilities.We hid there for about 10 minutes until we were sure the coast was clear. My husband decided that he would not be bringing his new horse this way after all.

While we were waiting for my check to be deposited since the sheep sale was short of the $8000 asking price, I asked my husband what name he thought he’d give her. We’ve had Black Beauty, Spirit, Shadow, Joey, Alto and Buttercup to date. I suggested Lady. His response was “Black Lady, like Michone” (from the Walking Dead.) Umm, no. That’s not what I had in mind at ALL! I offered a few other suggestions, but Black Lady stuck.

Early Friday morning, he headed to get the guia (permit) to move the horse. Every year, my husband, who has a registered brand, adds an imaginary horse to his patente (registration). This new horse could, therefore, be registered as one of those horses without a problem since she came without papers or brand.

In the end, he decided to pay someone with a properly railed truck to bring Lady home. He cleared out Joey’s old stall and escorted his new pride and joy in. She seems to really like it with us but gets nervy when we out of sight while she is tied outside. Since the rainy season is fast approaching, we hope she’ll be able to fill out some on all the lush greenery found in La Yacata for those few months. I’m not sure exactly how my husband plans on feeding her in the dry season, so we’ll see how it goes. For now, he picks up an armful of freshly cut alfalfa every two days from a truck that cruises around town for $120 pesos per week. He also gets a full back of corn leaves in exchange for a costal (feed bag) and 5 pesos from the guy who sells elotes (corn on the cob) from the back of his truck in town. Then we still have some dried alfalfa bales and a few dried corn bales which should keep Lady and the sheep happy until the heavens open up.