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Disaster on the farm

3/14/2022

 
Last Wednesday I came down to the barn to feed lambs and do chores. I found wounded adults, dead lambs and blood everywhere. We had a coyote attack. I lost 5 adult sheep (3 of which had to be put down) and 7 lambs(3 of them were dead near the barn and out in the field).  It was  terrible day...but I am lucky to have good friends  &  a wonderfully kind vet . The breach in the fence has been blocked and new fencing is due this week.  My friend Joe came with his backhoe to dig a hole to bury the 6 animals and my friend Heidi came with her practical suggestions and logical mind, they made this terrible day bearable. Carnage like this makes you feel powerless, the donkey had blood on her, but wasn't injured. I suspect most of the sheep hid behind her, but so many of the sheep and lambs scattered, she wouldn't have been able to protect them. Although my neighbor said he saw a badly limping coyote cross his property, so maybe Sparkle gave one of the coyotes something to remember. 
I haven't had an attack like this in 16 years when the coyotes crawled under the electric fence when we had a very wet summer and the water was eroding areas under the fencing. That is when we still had meat goats along with the sheep. 

The fencing I had put up in 2019 was a professional job, but one piece of fence was not replaced and that is where the breach was last week. This piece of fencing runs along the stream bed and needs to be moved back as the bank is slowly eroding and I hadn't included this part of the fence in the 2019 fencing job.....I probably thought I could replace it myself....

I am thankful there haven't been any more attacks and I have 8 lambs  (4 boys and 4 girls) who were not injured and are doing just fine. The adults are still a bit wary and react to Zorra more than before. Otherwise we are back to the day in and day out farm stuff. 

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Picture
The farthest lamb is Verse, and next is Briar and the closest lamb is Bramble (who I lost in the coyote attack).

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    Mary Will Sussman

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