Busy Weekends

I love busy weekends. I am still trying to find a reasonably priced rabies vaccine, if anyone has any ideas....I am open to suggestions. Lots going on at the farm. From my last blog, you know that I sold the Clydesdale Trailer and bought a smaller bumper pulled trailer that would be easier for doing animal rescue work. The old trailer was great for hauling a lot of animals at once but it was so big that it made it very difficult to get in and out of tight spots and driveways.

On friday, I was home from school with 2 (of 3) sick kids. While Colin and Buddy started taping and getting the apartment ready to paint I took a quick ride to the trailer place to get the "new" trailer. Wow, expensive to haul animals around. I sold my trailer for a lot less than I should have but I did what was practical for rescues. The only color that they had left in stock was fire engine red, I hated the color as I trudged home with it following the truck but it is starting to grow on me. I think that if we have New York Wildlife Rescue Center painted on the side of it that it will look very "offical" and less like a home for a family of gypsies.

I spent most of the weekend painting the apartment. I am a very driven person, when I make up my mind that something is going to be done....It is going to be done. It took 36 hours of my time but there were 4 of us painting at a couple of different times over the weekend, I hate to think of how long it would have taken me alone . Good job done. In an effort to finish the money pit, I have decided today that I am going to sell my youngest (and one of my favorite) Clydes to a great friend in Mass.. The ending of an era continues. I will be left with my 3 old guys and in a year or two, most of those guys will probably be gone. It upsets me to think about all of the carriages, horses, etc.. and how much I love all of it but if I am going to focus on animal rescue, I need to make sacrifices.

Yesterday was a very busy day for rescues and I never even left the farm. Due to a foreclosure, I had some really great folks bring me 2 potbelly pigs, 2 rabbits, 6 chickens and 4 geese. I chuckled as I watched their mini van pull in the driveway. Knowing that there van would be a lot worse with geese and pigs in it that my wifes was last weekend with two llamas in it. I think that there will be a lot more animals (and people) affected by foreclosures before we get out of the recession that we are stuck in.

I wasnt answering the phone as I was working around the farm but for some reason I did once. A woman that lives in Blenhiem, NY had a female Downy Woodpecker hit her garage door window. She really did everything right. She observed it for a couple of hours at a distance while making sure a cat didnt get it. She brought it in the house when she realized it was messed up pretty good. Quite often if left alone for a couple of hours, they will "get it back together" and fly off. This little thing has a head issue but it has an appetite for suet and has made it for 2 days and 2 nights. A good sign since most usually die of head trauma and stress within the first 12-24 hours.

I asked if she could run it down to me, which they did and I appreciate. I consulted a friend who specializes in birds. I think that it is going to be a time factor case. As long as we keep her eating suet, peanutbutter, and all sorts of treats she stands a 50/50 chance at the moment. Woodpeckers also require a rope, rough log or a vertical perch. I thought that the Barred Owl had a great chance (he died that night of head trama) while he was being held in observation at another rehabbers house that specializes in Birds of Prey. I wish that I could report back a happy ending on that case. I would like to see the woodpecker make it. I know that a good percentage of rescued wildlife dont make it but this one appears tough. I will definately keep everyone updated on its progress.

I have a feeling that it is going to be a long cold week. On a positive, I'll have a week off of school for mid-winter recess once we get through this week. Wes

Have mini van, will travel

Hi Folks, not much new here in the last couple of weeks. I know that it has been awhile since Ive blogged so I thought that I would catch everyone up on what Ive been doing the last couple of weeks. I had a great llama come in from a nice couple that Ive known for a long time. He needs to be gelded but he is halter broke and very adoptable (eventually). He has the coolest eyes that Ive ever seen on a llama. He has blue highlights on his brown eyes. Very cool llama and I thank his owners for bringing him up and for their continued support for what we do up here.

I got a call the beginning of the week from another woman that has adopted llamas from us in the past. She is getting a divorce and needed me to pick up a couple of llamas. This is where things get interesting. On sat. AM I sold the huge alumin. gooseneck trailer that Ive had for the last 5 years. As I cont. to downsize with my draft horses. I really dont need a 22 foot long trailer to do rescue work. My trailer is really too big to get into peoples driveways. I am going to get a smaller trailer that will be better for rescue work. By 9 am my trailer was going down the driveway and I was trying to figure out how we were going to get two llama back here. As I stood in the driveway looking at my wife's mini van I got the idea.....well you know where this is going....Before she realized what I was doing, I had the back seats removed and off I went to pick up the two llamas that needed to come back to the farm.

Hauling llamas in a car, minivan, truck with a cap, etc. is not a new idea. Ive done it for years but this mini van hadnt been "soiled" yet...I arrived at Julie's house and we caught the llamas, I was feeling confident that I was going to give a good show on Llama Transportation 101....As usual, nothing is ever easy and the llamas had other ideas and didnt hop in the back of the van like I thought that they would. Actually they parked their feet, put their ears back and looked at the mini van as if it were the entrance to hell. I rolled my eyes and said ok, lets do it the hard way.....upon which they started spitting all over the inside of my wifes mini van much to my displeasure. I eventually got them in, the spitting continued as we made our departure and I rolled down the windows to keep from gagging on the smell. Both llamas eventually laid down in a kush and (from all the spitting) drooled all over the van for the next half an hour until we got back to the farm.

Just when you think that you understand llamas, they do something that is completely unexplainable. The same mini van that was now redecorated with green blobs of spit wasnt so bad. When we got back to the farm they refused to get out for almost 20 minutes....Llamas, go figure....The funniest part of the whole trip was watching peoples expressions in cars following us....I really need to get a new trailer...and soon.

Today I went to a meeting of Dog Control Officers, Animal Control Officers, and Animal Rescue folks at the Bethlehem Town hall. It was a great meeting and I thought that they had some great ideas to network and organize ourselves so that it doesnt feel like we are working alone most of the time. We really are surrounded by wildlife and we dont know it most of the time. Friday night, I had a bobcat cross the road in our driveway....that was a first. I am not worried about it, I know that we can peacefully coexist. Till next time, Wes

LLama Trauma

Llama Trauma... That is catchy. I should know, it has been my motto lately. I received an interesting phone call from a guy with a poor llama with a broken leg. My experiences with llamas with broken legs has never been good or happy (for the llamas or myself).... We had a long talk, Im still surprised that his vet just vet wrapped it and left (I am not a vet nor do I second guess them). I suggested Cornell but they had to decide what was best for the llama since they were there with the animal.

The phone calls and emails have started to pick up lately. Lots of interested peoplein adoptions, lots of llamas looking for homes and lots of people with questions or problems with their animals. I love the education aspect of what I do. I would much rather "fix" a problem for someone than have them call me up and ask if I want their animals.

I am still very happy to have passed my USDA inspection. I am working on trying to come up with the funding to get my rabies shots to finish off my DEC requirements. I also would love to take the Chemical Capture course in Lake Placid but dont have the $700- to go.

I picked up a Barred Owl yesterday.... pretty exciting. See the Wildlife Blog for the story on New York Wildlife Rescue Center Blog. Ive lost my voice (my students probably love that). We have gotten a lot done around the farm over the weekend. Colin has been a great help along with my barn kids. We set up a new Bunny area, A new huge quarantine pen and set up a proper place for hay storage. I want to design a raptor/hawk pen next for rescues that come in as I do my apprenticeship.
I guess all I lack is time and money....Wes

St.Andrews

A lot has went on this week at the farm. The weather is great and the mid- winter blues are not a problem. It is hard to believe that a week ago my fuel lines froze solid and I woke up chilly and saw that outdoors it was - 6 degrees. I finally got the furnace going...what a nightmare. I cancelled Ski Club last week because it was too cold, I cancelled this week due to lack of snow. The winds were so bad here at the farm yesterday that it blew my kids trampoline halfway accross the farm and landed the thing on a white board fence...doomed...gone.

My week started out with the federal USDA vet inspection. We passed!!!!! We are now a Class C Exhibitor. We can show our animals in public (legally) and I am very proud. The vet (that inspects) is a great guy and said that we have a beautiful facility and likes what we do here up on the hill.

Tonight I did a program for the St. Andrews Society of Albany. They have a beautiful brownstone on Wash. Ave a block away from the Capital. I talked about my Scottish Livestock, the tours I take MCS students on throughout the world and what I do up here....It was a lot of fun and they presented me with a set of books on the History of St. Andrews Societies. As a Scottish organization, I enjoyed sharing what we do and I hope that I can count on them in the future for support.

One of the advantages of all of the public speaking events, kids groups and animal rescue groups that I deal with is that I get to meet a lot of people. The St. Andrews Society of Albany is a great group. It was really a pleasure to do a program for them. I was pleased that the MCS District Newsletter did an article on Darcy and I. I think that it is really important that the people in Schoharie County (esp. Middleburgh) know what I do. It was a great week, Wes

Happy New Year

2008....Did you know that the average person writes 2007 over 100 times before they get 2008? I hope I remembered that on all of the checks I wrote today for bills. It is nice to be settled in to the school routine again, I really like going to work every day and I like the routine. I am really glad that vacation/holidays are over.

Not much is new from the last time I blogged. I have gotten a new llama in. An intact male, I have to get him gelded by my vet. He is halter broke and should be very adoptable once he is gelded. He came with lots of support but no money to pay the vet bills..I hope that this one will eventually come back to reward my efforts..

The potbelly pig sow that had piglets (as a baby herself) didnt end in a perfect situation. She was a trooper and tried. Ive gotten so many emails in the last week that it is almost a fulltime job. Ive started getting a lot of emails for advice....I love the educational aspect of what I do...I love telling someone how to catch a llama on the loose. But it still is depressing to know that people are still selling animals that are "wild" and offer no support when a scared animal gets loose. Few "reputable" breeders do what is right and that makes the job of all of us rescue folks that much more difficult.

My day today is going better than yesterday. Yesterday morning, at about 430 am, I woke up feeling kinda cold. When I am teaching, I always wake up an hour before my alarm clock, but this was different....I was cold. I noticed that the Great Dane and my wife were hogging more blankets than normal. I also noticed that my 5 yr. old (Emma) had crawled into bed with us at some point. I looked at my thermometer by my bed and it said that it was negative 6 outside but it felt like it in the house. I got up and made coffee in the 50 degree cold (no one likes a wife without coffee). I went downstairs into the dungeon, a really grim place. Our house is built on a stone foundation, the basement is really someplace not worth visiting. I tried to bleed the lines to the furnace....when nothing came out...I knew I was in trouble. It was so darn cold that the fuel line from the furnace to the outside oil tank had froze. It just is another reason to hate winter...Im not even talking about frozen hoses, water tubs, and life in general.

The highlight of my day today. Gayle (our webmaster) and Cherryl (picking up my son for a sleepover) stopped by. Colin (farm manager) came by on a snowmobile and we had an informal BOD meeting. I really think that 2008 will be the year that people realize what we are doing. I look forward to my program at St. Andrews in Albany next week.

As we start 2008, I try to think about 2007....What we do is a tough thing here but I am really confident that with this group of people ,and with your, help we can continue to help both the domestic livestock that we pick up and the onslaught of wildlife this spring. Wes

Happy New Year

I really dont know if it is a happy new year....It isnt 2008 yet. My little potbelly pig has been a trooper. She really has. She is the best sow ever, even though she is a baby herself she has tried to raise her piglets. We've lost a few along the way....but my gut instinct to leave them with her has been right. I cant second guess everything I do, but Ive done it several times with her.
I got a great llama in yesterday, he is an intact male. This makes things complicated but I think that I will have him gelded the same time as the mini donkey "Boom-Boom"...just got to get the vet here. This new llama, which I call "Taboo" is a sweetheart. He has really funky eyes,,,they are half brown and half blue. The kids that volunteer up here were kind of freaked out by him. I feel kind of sorry for him, he so wants to be with the rest of the herd.....we just cant do that yet.
I gotta hit the hay, even though we havnt been invited to a New Years Party yet, I know we will. My wife always makes it a point of doing New Years with our children......and I am normally in the barn shortly thereafter...Wes

Happy Holidays

I dont know really where to begin....I know that I have been neglectful of my blog. I really had writers block between holiday parties, my kids Xmas concerts and lots of food and festivities. We still continue to operate a farm with lots of rescued animals even when the weather is bad or if we would prefer to be inside by the fireplace. My "volunteers" are really great, Colin even came Xmas morning because he knew I would be doing chores alone. Not that I couldnt handle it......it is just easier with some help.

The visitors to the farm this week have been as great as any of our peak weeks during the summmer. We adopted out the llama boys that I picked up about a month ago. These llamas found a perfect home. I walked them in the back of a mini=van.....They dont call me the "Llama Whisper" for nothing (sorry Alex). Very few other animal have been in or off of the farm. It is the holidays and people dont get or dispose of animals during the holidays.

The weather has been good, things have been uneventful...until this morning.
This morning I walked into the barn....did a quick look over, everything looked normal. The HS guys that help me out hadnt showed up yet (they have been great helping out all over break)and I started chores. I ran the hay up on the hill for the horses and let them out of their stalls. I got the dogs out into the kennel.

I took two bales of hay down into the new wing of the barn for the llamas, sheep and goats. As I was filling hay racks, I noticed something moving in the hay below my feet. I thought that it looked like a rabbit with some babies but upon investigation I quickly discovered that it was one of the potbelly pigs that I had rescued a few months back. This pig is literally the size of a large bunny. How this was happening I dont get, she must have been bred at 3 months old. I dont have any male intact pigs at the farm.



This little sow has never been friendly, she quickly took off down the barn, leaving her nest and piglets behind. I quickly built a temp. pen around her nest where other animals couldnt step on her babies and then tried to figure out how I was going to get her into it. Let me tell you one thing about Potbelly pigs, no one wants to adopt them. The second thing, they can run like hell when a large man is chasing them.

Which is what I preceded to do. As the pig (the size of a cocker spaniel) was running she was dropping piglets out. As she was leaving a living easter egg hunt I chased her. I was picking up the piglets, cleaning off their snouts and once I knew that they were fine as I stuffed them into my jacket pocets because they were squealing like....well pigs.

I normally have a small army at the farm of volunteers....where were they now? As I was chasing a pig the size of my cat around the barn.

I eventually caught the pig, got it into its nest with all of the piglets she had there and the ones that I had picked up while getting her back there. They were happy to be there, I checked on them all day long and all refused to move....Then I got thinking, yeah, dangerous. When I rescued that little piglet, she had a sister. I got to thinking that if her sister had babies at 8 months old (or younger), then she was probably going to be pregnant also.

The key here is to remember that I had survived the entire episode myself, alone, no help....Things were different by this point....As I stood haggard, gasping, covered with really gross ambriotic fluids....my HS kids arrived. I quickly built another pen and we (along with a great BOD member that happened to stop by)chased the potential sow down and put her in the pen next to her sister.

All are resting comfortably, along with the 2 new goats that arrived this afternoon. I felt comfortable enough to leave the farm (with my favorite farm daughter/babysitter Kayla holding down the fort) to go see some great friends Bryan and Katie that were visiting from Ca..

December and January are always 2 horrible months for me. December I reflect at all of the horrible (and good) things that Ive seen in the animal world in the last year. In Jan. I try to get psyched up for all of the mid-winter rescues I do. I really do look forward to 2008, new rescues, and new goals for this place.

Hopefully without any unexpected delieveries. ...Wes