Belle Has Hypothyrodism

I noticed Taco Belle, my little donkey, wasn't acting as perky as usual last spring.  She seemed downright lethargic.  A visit from the vet who drew a blood sample confirmed she was anemic. Further test pointed to hypothyroidism.  I purchased a jar of medicine from my vet - it is called Thyro-L and is a thyroid medicine for horses and other equines. It is a gray powder you sprinkle on grain or other food.

Taco Belle last spring. I call her the dog in a donkey suit. She wants to be petted all the time.

Belle is a small donkey. I don't imagine she weighs much more than 250 lbs.  I figured the most I should give her was about 1/4 of a teaspoon a day. Yesterday the vet came to visit for a follow up and Belle is still showing low thyroid levels. We've upped her dose to 1/2 a teaspoon which I blend with three peppermint pillows that I crush with a meat mallet each evening.  Belle loves peppermint candy and licks the bowl clean. Hopefully this larger dose will do the trick.

ISA Brown Hens Lay Eggs

Brown eggs are not any better than white eggs but for some reason I just like them best.  Often the shells have different intensities of brown.  I like the darkest ones the best.

ISA Brown eggs. 

I've been very pleased with the ISA Brown hens so far.  They are prolific egg layers and seem to be very smart little chickens. Their eggs are not as big as the Aracanas, the New Hampshires or the Black Jersey Giant hen's eggs but they are big enough to qualify as large eggs.

Goldie the Buff Orpington with some of the ISA Brown hens.

Heifer Calf Bought at the Fair

Heifer calf Sally Jo with her 4H member Shelby.

I hadn't been to the county fair's junior livestock sale for several years, but this year I decided I'd attend to see how the sale might go - given the high cattle prices in the market right now.

The Warren County Fair Junior Livestock Show is like any other county fair show - the kids work hard to bring a good animal to the fair and also work hard to drum up support for their animal the day of the sale.

I was expecting big prices since the "truck" was paying $2.33 a pound on the hoof.  the "truck" means the sale barn where cattle are sold at auction to the highest bidder and truck loads of these calves are collected to send to feed lots out west. Businesses who buy cattle at the sale for advertising purposes, rarely keep the animal but send it on the "truck" to be resold at a sale barn.

Most of the calves sold pretty well - above $3.00 a pound and some even in the $4.00 range. Anyone buying and putting the animal on the "truck" would only really have to pay the difference between $2.33 and their final bid - which is a deal.

This was Shelby's first time showing cattle.  She was not well known so didn't have a lot of potential buyers.  I purchased Sally Jo for $2.75 a pound or $1171.62 - a real bargain for this nice heifer calf. Shelby is delivering her tomorrow.