Taking Pictures of Donkeys

If you own a donkey you know the same thing that every other donkey owner knows... they are nearly impossible to photograph unless you have help!

Donkeys are very curious and if raised well they are also very personable.  If you are trying to photograph a donkey that does not know you it will try to get to know you, getting impossibly close to your camera.  Even if the donkey knows you it will get up close and personal, looking for snacks, pats, or just saying "hello".

She would be even closer if she was not behind the fence!

I have deleted more pictures of donkey noses than anything as my donkey, Aggie, always wants to sniff the camera just to see if it is edible. She is cute though!

In all seriousness if you want to take a picture of your donkey one of the best solutions is to have a friend help you.  The friend can either hold the donkey on a halter and lead and keep it a reasonable distance from the camera, or they can use themselves as "donkey bait" standing just off camera but having the donkey focus on them so you can get your camera in a better position for picture taking.

Ram in Altered States

One of our first rams was a beautiful Barbado hair sheep ram.  There really was nothing much to fault him on, he has a great hair coat and shed fully in the spring, fantastic horns, he was not aggressive at all so we never felt afraid of him.  The only problem with him was that he was totally sterile.

We had purchased him at an auction and after keeping him for a year without getting any lambs it was pretty clear that perhaps he was past his prime.  We never did have a vet check him, we just sold him at auction with the suggestion he be used as a pet.

As he was handsome I one day did a painting of him using acrylic paints. I really liked the way his horns looked in the painting, I have painted horses and dogs before, but never painted anything with horns.  I love how the horns turned out although I am not particularly happy with the mouth, but never mind...

So today as I was a bit bored and looking through some of my older photographs I came upon a picture of the painting of this Barbado hair sheep ram and thought I might mess about with it in Corel Paint.  I am not really familiar with the program all that much, I just sort of play with it, doing this or that, seeing if I like it and if not I do something different.

I sort of like the image I created today, so wanted to share it with you.  Digital art can be very interesting.

Four New Lambs in Two Days

Yesterday, March 5, 2013, I was home and expecting that one of our sheep would have her lambs soon.  I was on the computer helping a worried girl whose dog was showing signs of going into labor.  At one point I told her I knew what she was going through because I was waiting for a ewe to lamb.

Two Lambs

Not long after that, around my lunch time, I went out to check and sure enough there she was in the shed with two new lambs.  I went out to get her and bring her into the barn.  The weather was just around freezing and there was a breeze, no place for wet lambs to be outside.  I got them in and dried them off.

The mom is a Katahdin sheep, her sister was the ewe that gave birth only two days earlier.  I moved the sister and her lambs into a larger stall and put this new mom into the small stall.  Of course I got some new lamb pictures too!

Sadly she did have a third lamb, I found it dead in the stall later that afternoon even though I had been checking regularly.

New Lambs!

Then today, March 6, I went into the barn in the morning to find another ewe had lambed.  I was a bit surprised, we knew she was pregnant, but I still thought she had a few more days to go.  I moved the other mom into the large stall with her sister to open up the small stall for the new mother, Dark Brown Barbado, and her two lambs, one girl, one boy.

This is the ewe lamb. As you can see, she is still a bit wet, I dried them off more.

This is the sleepy ram lamb.

Well now we have just one ewe left to lamb, that being Patsy the part Jacob ewe with 4 horns.  I think she will be another few days, but she might surprise us too.  Today is a bit chilly so I do hope it warms up for all the ewes and their new baby lambs.





Join WebAnswers and get paid using Google Adsense, to ask and answer questions, as I was doing the day I found the first lambs.  Click here.

Surprise Triplets Born on Canadian Thanksgiving

In my last blog post I mentioned we just got a ram for the fall breeding season and had suspected some of our ewes were already pregnant... well as it turns out we were right!

Canadian Thanksgiving was October 8, 2012. Thankfully I had the day off work. Just days before we had got our new ram as normally sheep come into heat in the fall and mate to produce lambs in the spring. In the last month though I have been observing that three of our ewes appeared pregnant. I suspected they had been bred in the spring before our last ram was sold, while they still had their lambs with them.

Sure enough on Thanksgiving day one of the ewes gave birth, not just to one or two lambs, she had triplets. Earlier in the day I had seen the sheep and was just about to go looking for her as it appeared she was not with them, but she was there, just a bit behind everyone else, so I gave it no more thought. Then later that day I went out to check the sheep and noted her missing. I saw all the others, so went to the barn to look for the missing ewe (her name is Girlie). I found Girlie in the old barn with two lambs (one black, one white) standing at her side and a third one (black) laying down. 

 Even though it is fall and the weather is okay (breezy but not as cold as winter) I did not want to leave them in that barn overnight. Small lambs are an easy target for coyotes and some have been coming around to get our crab apples (and possibly even killed a cat a week earlier). The old barn is small, leans to one side and does not have a door. Instead I picked them up and their momma followed me to the newer barn (which is still old, but at least it has a door, and proper stalls). I put them into a stall that as coincidence had it I had just prepared the day earlier in expectation of fall lambs.

My daughter came out to help dry the lambs off (in the top photo) and make sure all were doing well. We gave them water, hay, and then came back inside where my husband had our Thanksgiving dinner ready and waiting.

Further reading

Supplies needed for Lambing

How to Care for Newborn Lambs

One down.. two more to go.. and today it is snowing (lightly - but windy).

It is Fall, Time to Get a Ram

Normally rams are only put with ewes for breeding and as we do not have enough space to keep rams separate from the ewes we do not keep them and instead buy one in the fall and sell him in the spring (or sooner if we have a buyer).

We had a bit of a problem this year, first we bought a truck to pull the trailer but when we went to hook it up we found that the connector for the trailer lights was different. When we got to the auction we found it had been canceled (the owner of the auction market was in hospital). 

So we phoned the guy we have gotten rams from in the past, and he said he had a nice one for us, but did warn us the ram was young, and small. We prefer rams with a bit of color or unusual markings and he did say this ram was well marked, being black and white. He is a Katahdin – Dorper cross. For those of you not familiar with these breeds, they are hair sheep, and will not grow a proper coat of wool but they do get thicker coats for winter.  

At one time we quite enjoyed having rams with horns, the horns made good handles, but we found sometimes the lambs would get their heads stuck in the fences because of the horns so now we prefer the polled rams - those without horns.

He brought the ram over in the evening and it was already dark so I called the other sheep over so he wouldn't be alone roaming the pasture and calling for friends. It was a cloudy night so the animals did not even have the moon to see each other. With my flashlight I could make out the donkey, llama, and sheep, as they greeted each other. Assured that the new ram would not go crashing through fences in the dark, I went to bed.

The next morning I was happy to see they had all bonded well. Last years ram took a few days to fit in.

Already this guy has made a pal, as he was hanging close to one of the Katahdins. Later I noticed that Mrs Dark Brown Barbado was hanging around with those two and almost in a motherly way seemed to be watching over him. I assume the Katahdin ewe is in heat and that is why he is with her.

An interesting note is that it looks like 3 of our ewes are already pregnant, we figure this must have happened back in May or June, just before we sold the ram. Sheep are pregnant for 5 months, so I expect anytime soon we will have new lambs. 

So it looks like it might be a busy winter, with some lambs born soon, and some born in March. I will keep you posted!

Designing a Fractal Lamb

Hi Everyone.

Today is sunny out so what am I doing inside?  Well, I had this picture I took of one of the lambs a few days ago and really wanted to do something different with it.  This is one of Favorite Sheep's lambs, and the lamb looks great but the background is distracting.  I am no expert on improving a background the proper way, but I do know how to alter a photo a fun way. 

I am writing this without knowing what the final image will look like, as I will be doing it as I write, so I hope it turns out as good as I expect.

Here is the original photograph, cropped to remove even more clutter.  Cute lamb but she is almost lost because of the snow, so I will add some color, dark ones to make her pop out.

At this stage I know it does not look good, I colored her eyes black and added a twinkle which I hope will turn out okay in the final image.  Which will be produced by tweeking the picture using Corel Photo Paint Redfield effect called Fractalius.

I produced a couple of images I was happy with, one softer and one more arty.  I am going to share the more arty one with you.  You can see the softer one here.  Neither are what I was expecting.  I think I would have preferred a solid background for both - but I will leave that for another day because now I must go clean the barn.  Anyhow here is the image.

Note all pictures are copyright to me, not for reproduction.

Sheep Weight Loss Program?

All of my sheep have had their lambs for 2012, Mrs Dark Brown Barbado was the last.  She had triplets last year, and was huge, so I was expecting a set of three lambs.  Here she is only a few days ago, I thought for sure she was going to lamb that day, if not.. that hour!

Her udder was also huge, but sneaking up behind her to take a picture was a but more difficult.

As you can see in this picture, Mrs Dark Brown Barbado is huge.  She is also a hair sheep if you are puzzled by her unusual look.  Her breed is Barbado, or at least that is the name they have in my area, in other areas they are called American Blackbelly, the rams have large curled horns.  These sheep do not need shearing, and shed like dogs.

A few days after taking her photo she had lambs, twin boys.

The father of the lambs is a Katahdin Dorper, also a hair sheep.  He is mostly white wtih only a black head and black saddle, but amazingly a large number of his lambs have been mostly black, with white, like this cute pair.

Some people are not familiar with Barbado sheep and often say they are wild, and prone to be mean, but we have never found this.  Even when we did have Barbado rams (they have huge horns) they were never mean.  The ewes were never more nervous than any of our other ewes, and this ewe in particular is very friendly.  As such if you are interested in getting Barbado sheep and have heard that they are crazy, disregard it.  When handled with kindness they respond.  I can approach this ewe in the pasture and pat her as though she were a dog.

Diamond has Triplet Lambs

This morning I went out to the barn to find another set of triplets.  Diamond had given birth over night and was standing at the back of the barn when I entered.  I had hoped to put the other moms and their lambs outside today, but it had snowed over night, at least 20 cm (8 inches) and more falling - and blowing!  As such I put the sheep outside that did not have lambs and left everyone else in the barn.  Diamond did not even try to get out.

I spent most of the day shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling.

I have had to bottle feed one of the triplets born a few days earlier, but with Diamond I doubt this will be a concern, she is a great mom with a large udder and has had triplets in the past and always had plenty of milk for all.

My biggest concern is that one of the lambs (pictured in the lower left) seems to have curled fetlocks on the front legs.

I have been reading up on this and it is very likely related to being one of many lambs, kept tightly inside the ewe.  They should straighten out, but I will keep an eye on her. 

Tomorrow is expected to be cold again, hopefully warmer the next day. 

To keep track so far 5 ewes have had their lambs, only 3 more to go.  We have 2 sets of triplets and 3 sets of twins, for a total of 12 lambs.  Plus the ram of course!

Feathered Winter Vistors, Pine Grosbeaks

This winter has been pretty good, temperatures were actually well above normal, there was not much snow (I know, I know, bad for crops), but that all changed two days ago. A cruel cold wind blew in snow and drastically cold temperatures. We went from +5C to -20C in a matter of less than a day.

The wind also seemed to blow in some new guests, birds that we have not really seen here in the past, although they are not uncommon in the area.

We normally have black capped chickadees, waxwings, nuthatches, and blue jays, but over night we had a group of two new arrivals, redpolls (small birds), and some very attractive, robin sized birds.

At first we had only the female birds. I had a hard time identifying them because the bird book I have only pictures a male, and the females had what I would call an orange head, and the bird book said the females have an olive head (to me olive is greenish). So I thought I had a mystery bird at the feeder, eating sunflower seeds so fast I had to fill up the dish several times throughout the day.

It was not until the afternoon that male arrived (no surprise) and I was able to make an accurate identification; Pine Gosbeak, perhaps Alberta's equivalent for winter beauty to the cardinal, a bird that is rare to see here.

From what I read, Pine Grosbeaks are a forest dwelling bird most of the time but enjoy mountain ash trees (which I have always wanted but still have not gotten around to buying). They are slightly larger than finches and the defining feature is the white bars on their wings, which the females do have also.

The location, for anyone who is interested, is central Alberta, about 1 hour SW of Edmonton.

Other than the new birds, there is not much happening, the weather is frightfully cold so everyone is trying to stay warm.  I gave a whole bunch of chopped up apples to the sheep this afternoon, they liked that.  I suspect the birds might like some too, I shall put some out tomorrow.

Pictures are copyright © owned by me.

The Winter Flock and Guardian Donkey

The other day was warm, I thought it would be a good day to take pictures of the sheep, but they didn't seem t be doing anything too interesting, they were just standing in the sun, in the shed.  I still thought this would be a good time to take pictures since the pictures can be used to show people what a shed for livestock looks like.

At the time only the sheep, and donkey, were in the shed.  Crystal, the llama, must have been off somewhere doing her own thing.

The lambs are not due until March, which is much better than last year when they started delivering new years eve and continued through the cold months of January and February.  This year has at least been warmer, and lots less snow too.  I am sure the sheep are happy to have a better winter.
 

I took these pictures only a few days ago, everyone is on their best behavior, waiting to see what Santa might bring them for Christmas.

I had to take two pictures of my small sheep flock, and have no idea of how to splice them together to make one big picture.  In the first pictures we have, from left to right, Girlie sheep, Patsy sheep (laying down) and Aggie the donkey, as well as Mrs White Katahdin.

*Yes, some farmers do name their animals.

In the second picture we see, starting from the left, the as yet unnamed Dorper ram.  In front of him is Diamond sheep.  In front of Diamond is Blackie, and Blackie's mom, Favorite Sheep (the one that had the stroke a few years ago).  Back in the shed, behind Diamond we see Mrs Dark Brown Barbado (named Dark Brown because when we got her we first had two and she was the darker one), and to the far right, and still in the shed is Mrs Brown Katahdin.


I think for Christmas we will give them an extra snack of hay around noon and some cut up apples.  They really love those.  We buy the discounted apples at the grocery store as they make a nice treat for the sheep and Aggie.   We may even put a few out for the birds too.

On behalf of myself, husband, and daughter, and all our critters, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and happy holiday season, be sure to keep extra care of your pets over the holidays, so many times we get busy and forget about them out in the cold. 

Turning Patsy Sheep into Art

Patsy, as you may recall, is a Jacob x Barbado sheep ewe.  She has 5 horns, although in this picture you can only see 3 horns clearly.  Even though it is spring we still have a foot (or more) of snow here, and not much can be done outside, so I thought I would take a picture of Patsy and do some photo manipulation work to it using a program called Corel Photo-Paint 8. 

Here is the original photo of Patsy sheep.

This is not a great picture, she is at a funny angle, there are the legs of another sheep in the background, and the upper corners are bright and distracting.  As such it is a good photo to have fun with and turn into some art.

Photos, of course, are copyright owned by myself, not for reproduction!

I first had to add some color to the white parts in the background, and blur out the pair of legs.  I also had to make Patsy's eye darker so it would not be lost in the art rendition. 

I came up with several images, this is just one.  Here I used a program called Fractalius. 

If you would like to see the other images (including one where she looks more like a rug), and the steps used to get this image, you can see the full link called Art, Fun with Patsy.

Other Links of Interest

How to Take Better Photographs of a Pet

Painting Sheep -this blog

Patsy has Twins - this blog