these hooves were made for walkin

it's cool and windy today.  the chickens are huddled under bushes, against fences or wherever there's a block.  the sheep are wandering in the front, where there's less of a gust.  i just soaked jacob's foot in a bowl of warm water and betadyne.  i noticed something wasn't right yesterday when he laid under the grapefruit tree as the other sheep ran for the fallen fruit.  when he finally stood, he was balancing on the tip of his left front hoof.  upon closer examination, i found a tack nail stuck straight into the bottom of his hoof.  james pulled it out with some pliers.  dr. martin just happened to be in the area, came by to check it out, and left us with bottles of penicillin and baytril.  jacob will receive 2 shots, twice a day for a week (plus a daily soak), to prevent infection and tetanus.  he's limping a bit, but is getting around okay.  

it's about time for some hoof trimming, which is not my favorite task.  i bought some trimmers from a sheep supply, but they're not as easy to use (or as sharp) as i had hoped.  dr. martin recommended buying some dykes instead.  i need to sharpen my scissors for some wool clipping, too.  little becky is getting very wooly around the eyes.  i usually have to trim the sheeps' faces a couple of times during the winter.  left untrimmed, they can become "wool blind" when fleece grows too long on their faces.

i cut the bantams' nails around dusk.  since they're penned, they don't run around enough to wear them down naturally.  some of the chicks acted like i was murdering them, while others were nonplussed and remained calm.  we had a rooster fight yesterday, so one of the bantam roos is separated from the rest.  poor little guy's spur was torn off while he was in the hutch.  no idea if he got it stuck in some wire, or if the other roo kicked it off.  we cleaned him up and sprayed the wound with alushield, which stopped the bleeding immediately.  we've had spur incidents with a couple of the standard roos.  roosters fight with their feet, and spurs can be broken, but they eventually grow back.  some people remove the spurs from their roosters to prevent them from wounding each other or the hens.  we're lucky that our roosters are tame.  we can pick them up and carry them around without a problem, which is not the case with many.  they say the way to tame a rooster is to turn it upside down in front of its hens.  apparently it's quite embarrasing for the rooster, so it takes him down a notch.

the orange and tangerine trees are ripening.  i think we're close to losing our navel tree.  it's showing signs of old age and isn't producing as much as it did.  looks like we'll have a bumper crop of tangerines, though.