Sokka is eating hearty and full of energy

I am not going to make any predictions, I’ve learnt at least that much with sheep the last few years, but he is going in the right direction and we’re going to let him spend the day hanging out with his flock tomorrow and see how that goes.

He’s got enough energy that he’s no longer easy to grab for checking his healing progress.  Which is good news.

The rest of the flock is doing ok, but we’ll try to check them later this week to see if they have anything going on.  Nobody looks to have the telltale matted wet wool when I’m giving hay though, which is good.  Apparently this time of year even in this climate is when flystrike is likeliest to occur, not high summer.  We should be out of risk season by the next of September though.  It’s getting cooler, the 50 degree nights are definitely speeding his recovery even if the 85 degree days are not exactly helping it.

Sokka got flystrike

No pictures, went ahead and called the vet.  Husband and I had to shear/trim the infected areas where, well, flies had gotten in.  DO NOT IMAGE SEARCH FOR FLY STRIKE OR FLYSTRIKE.  Unless you have a strong stomach.

Apparently it happens to lambs even in cooler climates like ours.  Hopefully the little guy will pull through.

The Adventures of Sokka, the latest flock fence fool

Sokka, in the eternal quest for that leaf on the other side of the fence, got his horns stuck overnight and couldn’t move for hours.  Ironically, if he’d had scurs, there is a good chance they would have just snapped off.  But he has true horns. I was not certain until this incident, but I sure found out right away.  Anyway because it was just his horns, his only problem was dehydration and fatigue.

I found him because I always make sure there are 14 sheep in the field when I give hay or pellets and go looking if they aren’t all there.  And there were only 13.  So I go up the mountain and find him stuck and breathing hard.  I got him some water and massaged his legs, which had gone to sleep when the rest of him hadn’t.  He had a lot of trouble standing upright, but still had an appetite and took the water, so we were optimistic.  He was scared, but willing to try standing once he had some water in him.

I stayed with him for a while, letting him try to stand and keeping him from rolling onto his back.  By the time my husband could be home to help, he was limp-walking on his own for a few feet.  We got some Nutri-Drench in him and he rallied after that, walking all the way down the mountain to join the flock.  They were solicitous and welcomed him back.

So far he is eating and drinking pretty normally, and spending a lot of time sitting around.  If he makes it through today, he is probably fine.  And as is always the case with the sheep, once he was walking normally, he moved away from the two-legs who saved his life as fast as his little lamb legs could take him.

 

Postmortem pictures (WARNING DEAD LAMB PICTURES)

Just skip this post if seeing a dead lamb is upsetting.  These pictures are for our records.  The lamb was a ram lamb, black moorit, about 8lbs, so a hefty little guy.  Alas.

first dead lamb of the season

Grey just lambed, and I was leaving her to do her thing, but after two hours, I went up the hill where she was hiding out and there was a dead black ram lamb, still in the sac.  The other black (ram, probably, couldn’t get close enough to check for sure) lamb was up, a little wobbly, but able to nurse.  She has only one teat, so that’s not the worst thing.  She hasn’t passed the placenta yet.  I took some pictures, will post them later today.  This is depressing, but she is the most skittish when lambing and I had to choose between hovering over her and risking more labor complication vs. leaving her to it and taking this chance of a dead lamb.  We may have to try in the future what we did last year, moving her to a small pen until the lamb(s) are established.  This year we let her lamb on the main pasture and she ran off into the woods where it was full of twigs and moss and fallen logs and branches.  Not easy to observe her or for her to move around, but definitely isolated the way she likes it.

SIGH.

A second set of twins, boy/girl this time

Our black and tan ewe (we didn’t get around to naming everyone just yet, haha) just finished birthing a pair of evening lambs.  We are monitoring right now, the ewe looked a little weak, but a small poke on my part and she got up and wobbled over to the udder, so it looks like both probably got some colostrum.  We’ll be back out around 8pm to see if they still look good.  We may delay dipping the cords until tomorrow, the first set of twins did ok with the wait.

For this ewe, it’s the first lambing and the mothering instincts are a little nervous.  The other ewes have left plenty of room and Bucky, the father is pacing away in the ram pen, which is still kind of cute and charming.

This is going to be a restless night, but both the ram and the ewe lamb look pretty sturdy.  Here’s hoping.

 

Finally sexed the lambs

We had to dip the cords in iodine, so that meant actually catching both lambs.  We have two little mostly-white rams, they look quite a bit like their sire.

Found out having two sexually mature rams in with the ewes equals one hassled new mother.  So we will separate the rams when the flock returns to the barn once it gets dark.  Live and learn.  The other ewes figured out what we wanted to do and have been separating the almost-adult rams themselves most of the evening, but we’ll make it official before bed.

It’s been a challenging day.  And another ewe looks like she might lamb tomorrow.  We’ll see.  And we’ll see how the newest little ram lambs do overnight.  Hopefully very well, they can run like the wind already.

 

Another day, another bramble rescue

Little Shaft, against all sheep sense, got tangled up this morning in a blackberry bush.  I had morning treat out and he wasn’t there with all the others, he was up the hill quietly getting rained on and struggling with the stupid bush.  I had to cut yet more branches out of his fleece, and I thought he was knotted up, but he was actually just stuck to the root of the bush.  I was able to cut that out with the trimming shears pretty easily and then he ran away, shaking himself out and joining the rest of the flock.

I am going back out in an hour or two to see how he is doing, if he can run on both back legs, he was blessedly not stuck very long, maybe an hour or so.  He is so silly, this weekend we have to make yet another pass at his fleece to get the little bits out.  Shearing is not an option because he needs the length to keep the bramble from cutting him.  The crazy part is that there isn’t much bramble!  He just gets tangled in the very few bits that are in that pasture.  We may need to take the brush mower out anyway, though.  We’ll see after we catch up on hoof trimming and fleece trimming.  Again, this very stupid little lamb has an excellent, soft, water-resistant fleece.  I marvel endlessly as I cut little bits out because they’re attached to blackberry branches.  Better the bramble’s in the fleece than his skin, of course.

Sheep!