Frosty Meadow Husky Farm, Fletcher, Ohio

It’s been several weeks since we’ve had a Husky Report. Much has happened since!  Here are the latest happenings:

• Aleu’s puppies recently went to their new homes.  Thanks to all the new puppy owners!  This was Aleu’s 4^th litter, and we anticipate 1-2 more litters and then it will be time for retirement. 

• The November litters have arrived.  After much anticipation, the 4 litters we’ve been talking about for some time now finally arrived:

• Lula had 5 puppies on November 13^th.  She actually had 7, but two were very small with difficult labor.  Despite our efforts, the two small ones passed.  One of the two hung on for a few days, and we thought she might make it, but it wasn’t in the cards. 

•  Josie’s litter arrived on 11/21.  She had 5, all varying degrees of gray and white.  They range from a light gray/silver to a darker charcoal gray. She had 4 females, and 1 male.

• Later that same day, Iris gave birth to 4.  She had a very complicated delivery, one that required the help of our vet.  She had 2 black and white pups, (1F, 1M) and 2 all white pups (1F, 1M)

• On Monday the 23^rd, Phoenix followed up with her litter of 6.  She had 3 all white females, 2 black and white females, and 1 gray and white male.

• As of this writing, 19 of the 20 of the pups are sold.  Only a white female from Phoenix’s litter remains.  We apologize to those on the waiting list that didn’t get one from this go around.  The odd gender and color combination (only 5 males!) was unable to fulfill everyone’s desires.  Please be patient as shortly after these litters, we figure Ember, Nadia, and Miya to have litters.  Depending on heat cycles, they will likely arrive in late winter, and be ready to go in the Spring.

Other happenings on the farm:

• The final batch of chickens were finally sent off to processing, and are now back in our freezer.  It’s been a busy year poultry-wise with 30 turkeys raised and 55 chickens.  For the entire fall, we’ve had little or no rain.  Then, 2 days before the chickens were taken in, the monsoon known as Hurricane Patricia rolled through.  Their pen became a mud pit!  So of course loading them up for the trip to processing was no fun. 

• Thanksgiving has come and gone, and while it has been very mild recently, Winter is right around the corner.  The barn windows are now covered in the plexi-glass, and electric buckets will soon follow.  The plexi-glass was a nice addition.  The dogs can still have their windows without all of the wind and rain/snow blowing in.  With 4 litters of puppies arriving, we will have to set up multiple birthing stalls.  The heat lamps are necessary for puppies this time of the year, and we had to prepare the stalls with them.

• Just as with Nadia, Lula had her pups in the house.   Although Iris is a barn dog, she is also in the house for the first couple weeks after her pups’ arrival.  This is simply precautionary, due to the complications.  We feel the need to keep an eye on her.  Once her pups are 2-3 weeks old, they would go back out into the barn, but would still need a heat lamp.   Josie and Phoenix will remain in the barn.  They are being very good mamas, but are obviously still supervised.

• We were a little upset that our hay was not cut one more time this year.  We have had very little rainfall during September and October, and there was ample opportunity for the farmer that cuts our hay to harvest all of his crops and also cut the hayfields one more time.  He cuts several fields, and we noticed that some of them got cut and others didn’t.  It may not matter much to him, but we rely on that hay to feed the horse through the winter!  We have roughly 100 bales left from the first two cuts, but typically need 150 or more bales to get through winter.  (depending on the weather)  Luckily, a couple down the road sold us a couple large round bales very cheap.  This will help, but there is still a chance we will have to buy some to get us through.  Perhaps it’s time to investigate other farmers.

• We wanted to also take this opportunity to thank everyone for a great 2015!  We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and a wonderful new year! 

• Soon, I will post some goals we are going to shoot for in 2016.  We have a lot in mind, and hopefully we will get to them all!