It’s time for the weekly windup! It’s been another busy week at The Barefoot Ranch. Nothing much happened Monday that I can remember, but Tuesday was sheep sheering. It feels like that was a million years ago. It was so cool to watch Stacey sheer them, it took less than three minutes a sheep and that was the first time I’ve ever seen it. Tuesday was also 4H and it was our second last class. The girls are learning a lot and doing really well with their brushes and knots.
Wednesday was Diego’s birthday and he celebrated with his bestie Twister, they enjoyed some extra treats and mash in the yard for a bit in the afternoon. We also brought in a new border. Blue is a big beautiful grey boy who is hanging out in the corral with Titan and Amber for now. He is doing great and loves attention and treats.
Thursday we did a bit of traveling and picked up two ponies near Marquette, Manitoba and one a little closer to home. Stanley, Ruby and Charlie are settling in nicely, a little bit of pecking order battles, but other than that they are doing great. Adding some well-needed colour to our primarily black herd of minis.
Friday was our Loop day, we go to the city and pick up the expiring foods from the Superstore in the city and bring it home to feed to the animals. It’s always a great day for them, they love the extra treats.
Saturday was a very busy day, we had our equine basic first aid course. We also had a couple of real-life scenarios we got to try out on some of the animals who seemed to be rather accident-prone, just for first aid class. We also had two separate pickups, one of Spirit and Herra and the other of Astrid and Diesel. We are so excited for all of them to have found their forever homes. We really enjoyed having Cari Ann here this weekend, she is an awesome instructor. While we were in class the geese started to hatch their babies, they had three beautiful little babies, so sweet! It’s so adorable, they take them for several walks a day, very cute!
Sunday was day two of our equine first aid course, this one was the advanced course. We got to try out more real-world examples. Gramps decided he wasn’t feeling very well so we got to take his temperature, respiration and heartbeat to see what was going on with him. Then one of our goats decided to take a wrong step and twist his ankle so we got to assess him. Then, the real scary one, Twister decided to choke on some of his mash. We did another assessment on him and called the vet. We had to put him in a pen with no feed or water until he was able to rid himself of whatever was stuck. Twister likes to eat his mash very quickly and he must have aspirated some of it. Thankfully he was able to clear it on his own, it took him about four hours to get out all the mash and clear fluid.
Monday, since it’s a long weekend, we went out to Grunthal and picked up another little one in need of a home. Thankfully her owners thought enough of her to let us help her and not send her to auction. Her name was Athena, but because we already had one, we changed her name to Rayna. She is such a little beauty and actually settled right in nicely.