The Post-Standard News |
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Post-Standard,
The (Syracuse, NY) January 16, 2004
COLD CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL Scott Rapp Staff writer Glenn and Sharon Botsford have
a new baby in their Scipio Center home.
He's a 6-day-old lamb that the Botsfords rescued from certain death
in subzero temperatures last Saturday. The lamb was half frozen and had
been abandoned by his mother when they found him a few hours after he was
born in their Route 34 barn, about eight miles south of Auburn. "He sure tells me when he's hungry," Sharon said, chuckling.
The Botsfords, a couple with four adult children and two
grandchildren, raise sheep and dairy cows on their 240-acre farm. This is
not the first time they have tried to save a half-frozen, baby lamb, but
it could turn out to be the first time they're successful, Sharon said.
"This is kind of unusual. Normally, they don't make it," she said.
Like the Botsfords, many farmers across Central New York are taking
extra measures to keep their livestock alive and healthy during the bitter
cold streak that has locked onto the area like a pair of vise grips since
last week.
Besides freezing the water pipes and manure disposal systems in
their barns, their animal feed and the diesel fuel in their tractors, the
Arctic air delivers potential life-threatening conditions for many large
animals like cattle, pigs and sheep.
On her dairy farm on Route 41 in Spafford, Chris Fesko said
she and her husband, Rick, take extra precaution to make sure they
thoroughly dry their cows' teats after spraying them with a disinfectant
before milking.
Their teats, if left wet, could become frost-bitten if the cows are
put back in their free-standing barn after being milked in the heated
parlor. That could lead to a potentially fatal infection of the udder
known as mastitis, she said.
"Frostbite is a terrible thing for a cow," she said.
The Feskos are also feeding more corn to their 340 cows to help
them stay warm. Corn is rich in carbohydrates and she said it helps the
cattle burn more energy to stave off the cold.
Despite those efforts, the cold spell is costing the Feskos money.
She said milk production has dropped about 7 percent in the past week.
Like the Feskos, Kathleen and Pete Walrod of Many Maples Farm in
Georgetown put insulated coats on their calves during extremely cold
weather.
The Walrods also kept their 55 milking cows inside the barn
Thursday to protect them from the gusting frigid air.
"That north wind is too bitter," Pete said.
Fesko said it is also a challenge to get the cows in her
free-standing barn to drink water in the bitter cold.
"A lot of it is psychological. They're mammals and they have
brains, too," she said. "They like their warm bed and they don't want to
have to get up and go across the cold barn floor to get a drink."
At C-Acres Hog Farm in the Oswego County town of Parish, Chuck
Billings said he burned about 100 pounds of propane to heat his barn full
of 50 sows and 100 baby and feeder pigs overnight Wednesday.
Using a propane-fired heater, Billings said he tries to maintain 70
degrees inside the insulated metal barn because the young pigs are
susceptible to respiratory illnesses like pneumonia, which can be fatal.
"If you don't keep them warm, they'll burn up all their energy," he
said.
Billings also doubled the amount of feed to his 15 to 20 gilts -
young female pigs about to be bred for the first time - and to his handful
of boars. Those pigs are kept in an unheated barn and are free to go
outside. Billings said he recently started giving them 700 pounds of feed
daily because they are burning more energy to stay warm.
At his horse farm in Aurelius, Cayuga County, Gary Cunningham said
he spends the entire day feeding and watering his 38 horses and cleaning
up after them.
The cold weather doesn't usually affect horses, Cunningham said,
and he tries to put each horse outside for three to four hours of exercise
daily. If it's extremely windy, he lets the horses frolic in his indoor
riding arena.
"We try to get them out for as long as we can....(Most of) the
horses have a good, solid winter coat and (the cold) won't hurt them a
bit," she said.
Back in Scipio Center, Sharon Botsford said she thinks Red-eye is
almost ready to return to the barn, where the couple raise sheep mostly
for showing and breeding stock. He's already started lifting his front
feet over the side of his cardboard box and enjoys having his tan coat
rubbed.
"He's cute, but he has to go back. He's going to outgrow this
pretty soon," she said.
U.S. cold spot:
Saranac Lake
Extreme cold knifed through upstate New York on Thursday, shutting
down schools from Niagara Falls to Watertown.
The temperatures dropped to minus 18 in northern New York. The
nation's lowest temperature was recorded in Saranac Lake, 37 degrees below
zero. | ||