Busy as a bee, that's me. And speaking of bees, I really, really need to take all the boxes apart and pull the empty ones off and put new brood chambers on one hive and add another one on the other and... and... and... But I need a day that is warmer. Yes, we've had a few warmer days but still pretty cool. And that warm day needs to come when I've not four little kids in need of Grandma time. Yes, our daughter re-married and instead of three, I have four children to watch, ages 2, 4, 6, and 8. The last being a boy. Another babysitter is watching the kids one day a week, two hours another, and half a day another but I'm still the school bus, the cook for breakfast, the lunch maker, and Grandma.
See the yellow pollen on the bees legs? We have a few dandelions along the house's foundation and a prairie flower, that I've forgotten the name of, blooming. Slim pickings but I hope the queen is laying lots of eggs. I need to see but how does one get it all done?
I did make it to the hoof clinic last weekend and didn't learn so much about hoof trimming as I did conformation but I took pictures so you could see just what a well trimmed hoof looks like. Notice the rectangular appearance and that the heel is level with the toe.
It is a temptation to take more off the heel than the toes. Though if you aren't consistent with trimming, you may have to leave the heel long as you work a little at a time on the toe. This being over a course of weeks. The blood flow keeps up with the growth in the toes and you'll cause your doe or buck to go lame if you trim to much too quick. Not to mention cause the hoof to bleed opening it to infection.
The moral being - keep up with the hoof trimming. I'm as guilty as the next on this.
You can see just why the letting the feet down to check to see that each side of the hoof is level is so important when you have a goat like Chicory. I didn't trim her feet the latter part of her pregnancy because she was rather large if you recall. If I'd of picked up a foot, she'd of fallen over, needing all four to bear the weight.
And as I trim, I have to try and make the inside half of the hoof shorter than the outside. That is where I need to do some major catching up as you can see. Perfection isn't going to happen. That is why we were able to buy this sweetheart because she had bad feet and weak pasterns. The weak pasterns I've solved, the feet - not even close. Hopefully this week I'll get her done again and can start getting her feet in better shape.
For now, I'm going to go outside again and begin working on this big heap of manure that needs to go into the garden.
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