Fun at Karla's House

Had a fun night at Karla's house last week. I went for a run and ended at her place and was bombarded by the dogs. They loved me, but their hair was all over me as it was so hot outside and in the house and not to mention I was covered in sweat. Karla, Jenise and I were going birthday shopping for Cassie's birthday and then were going to have a movie night.

Me and Maddie

Maddie

While shopping I bought cookie dough for myself, but apparently everyone wanted a little bit, including Joey. We watched God's Not Dead and Monster's University. It was a lot of fun chilling with Jenise, Karla and Karla's two housemates Alli and Kari.

Joey

It has been a long day and they're a little tuckered out.

Barn Duty/Feeding

After all the animals have been fed at barn duty, we then get to do other barn chores that need to be done that day. Sometimes those can be fun chores or the not so fun chores that still have to be done.

The other night we got to process one of the lambs that was born earlier that afternoon. Since in animal handling class we give injections to the lambs and dock their tails, we don't do that during barn duty, because that is for the handling classes. So instead we get to weigh the lambs, treat the mothers and feed the lambs. To treat the mothers we inject them with oxytocin intra-muscularly near the vulva. We inject intra-muscularly because then the medication, or hormone in this case, will start to take effect quickly. Oxytocin is injected into the mothers to encourage milk let down and smooth contractions so that the placenta can be passed.

Colostrum is essential to all animals in our barn within the first 24 hours of life, because the digestive system is not fully developed yet so then the colostrum and the antibodies it contains can be absorbed into the body. With that in mind, we feed each lamb colostrum via a feeding tube so that we are certain they got enough colostrum. I got to pass the feeding tube of one of the lambs the other night and then feed it the colostrum!

The lamb below has a splint on its front right leg, because it was born with some complications.Its legs and muscles are all messed up. The front right is hyper extended and the front left is rotated inwards like a club foot. When the lamb was born it couldn't walk or move at all, but with the split it is starting to make progress and we are hoping that the legs will fix themselves. We are not sure if this little guy will make it but we have hope.

Birthday Date

This past Tuesday was Alyssa's birthday and since I couldn't go out to dinner with her and everyone else later that day, I took her out to lunch. We went to steak n' shake; she picked. Alyssa was on my floor last year and lives in an on-campus house this year with a bunch of lacrosse girls and most of the girls from my floor last year. So I spend some time over at their house.

Labor Day Fun

On Labor Day weekend everyone cleared off campus, it was a lot more empty than I remember last year. But we still managed to have fun and not be so productive. 

On Monday ResLife got together and played some sand volleyball which led to a race in between games to see who could sprint the fastest/enjoy the run in the sand. John Kidd won both times and his and Brayden's face were hilarious.

After that we all went to dinner at Hendo together and one of the RAs residents was showing us this trick of getting a cup into another cup by blowing on it. We all started trying. Everyone in the cafeteria started doing it and watching. It was so much fun, yet I some how managed to not be able to move the cup at all. 

Feeding

For Animal Nutrition class we have to sign up for a feeding time at the barn, either 7:00 am or 6:00 pm. Sarah and I signed up for an evening shift. 

We feed all the animals that are in the barn which include; the cattle, sows, piglets, feeder calves, goats, sheep and the llama and alpacas.

You Cannot "Affort" Not To

As one of our first get to know you programs on my floor we had a fort building competition against the green pod, our neighbors. We had a great time building our fort with only 10 blankets, a few clothes pins and some tape and all the lobby furniture in 20 minutes. We ended up losing, but our fort by far looked the best and used the most creativity!

After building our fort we made personal flags. You received a piece of paper and crayons and then had to draw different things that represented you on them. It was a lot of fun and we all got to learn a lot about each other.

County Fair

Last week on Friday the offices in Old Main had an ice cream sundae bar going. You would stop in one office to get the ice cream and then follow the pictures of ice cream cones to the next office where you would find the sauces and then you would end at the last office where the candy toppings were. You could put the candy on your ice cream or they had little bags that you could put the candy in and save for later. 

Later that afternoon I went to the Hancock County Fair with Alyssa and Emma to watch our school's English Equestrian Juniors show some of the University's horses.

This is Billy, who the school just got from England I believe. He is a million dollar horse and was an Olympic show jumper I believe. Billy was jumping jumps that were 5'6" without too much training over the summer. Billy was amazing!