Under the Weather

This has been the worst summer I can remember. We had a long, cold, wet spring (snow on April 30!) and are now having a long, cold, wet fall - and it is still August. I think there were about three nice weeks in late July, early August, and since then it's been one torrential downpour after another.

The barnyard is poo stew. The little pig is up to his ears in mud. If he didn't have his little raised doghouse, he might actually drown. The alpacas, who still won't come into the barn, look like wet cats. And the goats have lungworm. Lungworm is a parasite that infects the lungs and causes intense coughing. The animal vector is.... a slug. Since we practically live in a sea of slugs right now I don't see how it could be prevented. Luckily it is pretty easily treatable.

I had the vet out for the coughing, to remove Xanadu's scur which was growing right back into her head, and to look at Iris' foot. I accidentally cut her hoof too deeply while I was trimming it and she bled like a stuck pig. Oddly, it didn't seem to hurt her, she just stood there eating alfalfa pellets while the pool of blood around her got rapidly deeper. I stood her on a clean towel for a while to slow the bleeding, then cleaned the hole with betadine, slapped a cotton pad on it and wrapped the whole hoof in duct tape to keep it dry. Changing that bandage is a pain in the butt and I have to go do it right now.

Uggh.