The Old Folks Home

[sourland]

Good morning, OF. Is this the spring thaw?

 

[Cynthia12]

Good morning. I'm taking it easy after a busy day yesterday. Just glad I felt up to it yesterday.
Had my little helpers while finishing up wrapping.
Have a good day all.

 

[Cynthia12]

Good morning, OF. Is this the spring thaw?

You might think!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Wow good morning up north of us Seattle way there is flooding.
That is why I said we are flatland folks.
We did loose the apple tree it was like 100 years old.
Fell partly on the coop.

 

[swampfox440]

Hi fellow flatlanders! And all folks in-between. Had a close encounter with a mink today. Fortunately the rooster told on him, wow he was a big one and beautiful fur. I put the dogs out by the coop, I speculate he will be back. He may end up a pair of gloves if he comes back!

 

[microchick]

Heel low:

Very glad that Dingo was friendly...not all ACD's are like that. My spouse says there was a reason you biked by a farm as fast as able, ready to put your feet up when the farm dogs figured out you were going by...

"DOG!!!!!!!!!"

Ah man...sorry about Sid...Makins got whipworm which like the Pythiosis (never heard of that one--always learning something new--and it's a zoonotic disease so a very dangerous one!) we don't even do a deworm for...but I try to do fecals on one dog IF they are looking thin or off after a right proper deworm. What I think happened is before we got Pear-A-Dice, we would walk the country roads and I think the local rodeo had people show up from all over North America...not unlikely a dog got pottied on this road and left the whipworm larva for Makins to pick up.

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The order of "pecking" in your pack is mind boggling...reminds me of chickens...one chicken can pick on this one and on it goes until the last one in the loop can pick on the top chicken and the circle of poo continues. LOL

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Fixins caught the neighbour's cat over here hunting rodents and she got bit real good in the ear (cats are dumb that way...they figure dogs and cougars can't actually catch them...guess again!). Course it blistered up and I called my fav vet (now retired) and asked him what to do. Got told to leave it but it would likely blow when it needed to. I asked him when and he said, "Oh you'll know!" and of course, dressed for work, one last five minute hug and BOOM! I swear she was smiling the whole time, "Shared it with you MUM!" Had to hurry and get re-dressed...ugh...dang c@tz & dawgs, eh.

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Vet bills or the cone of shame...by the time any ACD is too long in a cone, all of us are like "Make it stop already"...the bruising in the back of the human legs or better yet, the flip of a cone with some sorta fluids or fud bits. And I totally swear they do that solely to hear the uproar it causes...comic relief to overcome the horrors of the coning.

Varna...now that's a costume!

I made these ones for our 1st ACD Makins so she could go undercover to gather herding info-intelligence.

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Ben, Diesel, Varna & Rocki are all that awesome auburn red ACD...Fixins was that but HyBlade and Lacy are more a mottled/speckled red. I had a canine judge comment upon seeing Fixins what a lovely coloured red that is and not commonly seen. It is a gorgeous red in the ACD's. All your reds look amazing with the rich red and black noses. Nice.

Fixins inherited the greyed muzzle from her mother Makins; looks sorta outta place on a red but not the blues.

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Both HB and Lace are homozygous extension which is what makes a golden Lab "golden." Without the e/e, they are Blue, Black & Tan ACDs that cannot express black pigment in their hair coat so the red in their undercoat shines thru...an ACD in their PJ's basically!

Sometimes the little "e's" don't fire off right away and the hair tip is black and gives the overall e/e red ACD a shadow cast to their fur coat.

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HyBlade & his brown summer nose...his nose went pink in winter. Huskies get this and they are called "snow noses."

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Lacy being shown my by son.

HyBlade & Lacy are strangely similar in looks...uncanny. Both even have red eye lashes on the same side of their heads.

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If you visit my website...

wolven.ca/higgins/ratranch

Tales from Ratworld, you can read some of the ACD Profile articles (#9 - ACD Ideal Home & Owner is a good one--you will laugh!!) and read the article #12 - "Red from Blues" about HyBlade, the world's 1st DNA profile (means we know who both his parent are) and DNA e and b colour genetic tested ACD. Problem everyone has is two blues (blue, black & tans) which are the bottom recessives, should never be able to have red pups (more common reds are dominant red)...but HyBlade and his brother Dusty were reds outta a litter of seven, the others were the expected blue/black&tans.

Great time to be alive is now...we have all these wonderful technological tests we can perform.

https://iqbirdtesting.com/chickenbreeders

Like now we can detect lavender in chooks, blue eggs, recessive white, fibromelanosis, and gendering.

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I gendered our Oz Black Swans, twenty bucks and they even got a certificate. Sure, they did not like that I "touched" them and cut one toe nail close to get a few drops of blood for the card they send, but I was eventually forgiven. LOL

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No worries on the confusion over gender of the ACD's...I recall getting some sheep a few decades ago. Was told all the girls had undocked tails...so fine, I chose my ewes and brought them home. You'd laugh when I was out the next day and the "girl" sheep was peeing outta her belly. I literally believe people WAY too much and immediately thought something horrific like the worst case possible EVER of waterbelly (urolithiasis/urinary calculi). Agh, never did I think the correct thing, someone did not get adequate rest during lambing and never docked a boy lamb. Egads...gotta stop being so trusting.

OK to trust our critters; humans, not so much. LOL

Lovely chatting Heelers with you...we both have some of the very best shadows--never alone, not even in the bathroom, eh!! Fixins use to jump in the tub and demand you turn the COLD faucet on. She even did that to guests and the smart "dog" ones knew exactly what she was wanting.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Heelers are hoots that is for sure. Dingo our first, we lost him to Degenerative Myelopathy when he was just 10 years old. Started showing symptoms at 8. Just an amazing boy. Our first January here on our farm, the Amish guy we had bought it from asked if he could winter over his cattle in our pasture so they could come up to the barn to drink and we said sure. One night when it was down to 12 Dingo disappeared. Called and called. No dog so we started to get worried and I went out to with a strong light to hunt for him. Found him behind the house at the edge of a draw patiently guarding 'his' cows. He was about 2 at the time, had never been around cattle but those genes kicked in. I had to drag him back to the house overnight, first thing in the morning he disappeared again. We knew where he was.Sure enough, one of the steers came up to the barn to drink with Dingo shadowing every step. He lay by patiently till he thought the poor thing had drank enough then nip nip and back to the herd he sent it. We hate not having cattle for the four stooges. It'd be interesting to see if the genes kicked in with them.

Speaking of stooges. Diesel. Super smart, thinks he's all that and a bag of chips even though Ben is Alpha and occasionally rips one of his brothers ears to prove the fact and keep them in line. Anyway, Diesel as I said, has more brains than good sense. He knows how to close doors and will occasionally lock one of his sibs outside (they have an in door doggy door in the storm door) so I wasn't surprised when I took a load of laundry out to the utility room and he blew by me and straight out the doggy door. I was surprised when he came right back in with something in his mouth. First thought it was one of their stuffed toys then it dawned on me...uuuuhhhhh....they don't have a stuffed squirrel. Big sucker too. Stiff as a board. Don't know how they caught it or when but it died quick. Never had dogs that could catch squirrels before but these guys can. DH bet it was Rocki (who looks amazingly like your girl. Vet said she was an outstanding female red heeler) I said, no, my money was on Diesel.

Neither of us was too thrilled when he put it on the futon in the family room though. Look mommy, Look daddy, I brought home meat! Can we keep it? Uhhhh......no. Told DH. I handle the poo and pee and the occasional barf but I refuse to handle dead carcasses. Glove up.

The genetics are interesting. Ben has an asymmetrical colored face. The left side is black with some gray at the muzzle and around his eye. The rest is red. His body has some dapple white mixed with his red. Really a strikingly colored dog and the vets always say 'wow' when he comes in. I'll have to find a better pic of him. Varna has some blue on his back along with the deep auburn red. I am noticing that as they get older they are getting darker auburn in color. I would love to know 'where' they came from but when we found them we were just determined to get them out of the conditions they were living in as pups that we just grabbed them, paid and ran. They had stopped feeding them dog food and were feeding them road kill and dead goat kids. Really sad. No socialization, no nothing. Just little wild Indian pups who were destined to meet Mr. .22 and be tossed in a ditch.

Love the Halloween costumes. Somehow a cow costume on a cattle dog seems a bit of cruel and inhuman punishment. Here...go herd yourself.

I'm definitely going to look at your website and study more on the genetics. If you don't mind, I'll PM you to continue this conversation. Have tons of questions for you.

 

[CapricornFarm]

We're moving to Danville from our country place. Just too much work to do out here. Plus, we don't like to drive so far to go see Doctors or go to the studio. We picked out a new place, and started moving stuff today.

I packed about 3/4 of these boxes. Hubby was packing stuff from the garden shed, garage, and workshop.
We mostly filled a 26 foot truck, and then hubby and helper drove to town to unload. Will be glad when it's all over!

 

[Sally PB]

Moving is stressful!

 

[Alaskan]

Moving is stressful!

Yes!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Well went did the food Forage for food spent most of yesterday grooming Mocha we both took a couple breaks.
Ended up doing a hand scissor on most of him.
Hands are not as nimble anymore.