As a Summer lover, I should be happy about this. I much prefer the heat to the cold. But I'm not happy. This has caused me issues and worries me about the next month or so.
Many plants that I like to grow need a good freeze every year.
The volumes of parasites and vermin are usually lowered when we've had a proper cold Winter.
Last week, half my sheep went down scouring. I had to physically pick them up off the ground where they'd become cast, my old ram took four or five attempts before he could take more than one step and collapse again. Several had become quite skinny, with spines and hips showing through their thick Winter fleece.
My Wonderful Neighbour recommended opening up the gully for them, as there was plenty of good grass in there and if they've got good grass in the open, they should be less likely to get stuck in the blackberry. Give them some hay right now, it will bind them up a bit. He also recommended drenching with a double dose for the scouring ones.
I went out with a bale of hay and split it between my two flocks. That's when I found Lenny. I thought he was dead. He was down, scouring and the magpies had been pecking at his eye. I got him at least on his belly, instead of his side and surrounded him with hay.
I went to our farm supplies store and had a lovely long chat with the lady there. She recommended pouring pineapple juice into Lenny. They love the taste and it's filled with sugar. That should give him some energy to be getting up and about. Give them sheep nuts too. And this drench is good, it also contains a dose of minerals, don't double dose any of them. Leave Lenny until tomorrow.
The general consensus is parasite numbers have gotten very bad as a result of our third mild Winter in a row. Usually a few decent frosts will kill off 95% of the worm eggs and larvae in the grass. The lady at the farm supplies store also said there seems to be a new worm around. Bigger farms than mine with far more experienced farmers have been having issues with their sheep suddenly going down. Enough for them to call vets in.
I also got Cider Vinegar to go in their water troughs. I have used it for years without any problems, mostly because until a year ago, I didn't have yards to contain and drench my animals. The vinegar kills most parasites and the parasites don't become resistant to it. I hadn't dosed the water troughs in months though, partly because I'd run out and forgotten that I'd run out and partly because I'd just spent six weeks not allowed to lift a finger for myself (recovering from surgery) and so most of the little things I would normally see and do had started to slip. Hubby did a wonderful job milking the cow and feeding the chickens, but he doesn't have the habit of looking out into the paddocks as he's doing the chores and he doesn't stop and do a head count of the sheep when he can see them.
I poured pineapple juice down Lenny, I gave him sheep nuts. I went back to check on him frequently and eventually got him up and moving. It was slow and painful, but I was able to get him under cover on a bed of hay and with a handful of sheep nuts to munch on.
The next day I went out to drench them. I found one of my wethers down and scouring. I drenched him while I was picking him up. He bounced back rather quickly. I worked my way through the rest of my animals, although I couldn't get one of my ewes into the yards. She wouldn't follow the rest of her flock, she ran into the old turkey shed in the next paddock (we were running them through this one to get to the yards) instead. Since the shed has a narrow doorway, Hubby went into the shed to try to catch her and I blocked the doorway. She ran full force, grumpy, stroppy force, into my kneecap. I still have a nasty bruise. I managed to pin her against the side and drench her there though. I had to pick a couple of the hoggets up, but they kept going once they were up.
Lenny was up and about. He seemed to spend the day going from the water trough to the bin of sheep nuts and back again.
I spent a couple of hours reading up on parasites and learning about their life cycles, which animals are more prone to them and under what conditions. There's a wonderful resource available as a pdf that you can find here. It gives you more information than you probably ever wanted to know, but much of it is very useful to someone like me.
The next morning, Lenny was down again and not able to get up. I tried picking him up, but he couldn't quite get his feet under him. The wounded eye was weeping. He'd stopped scouring and seemed a little bloated. I poured more pineapple juice down him. He seemed quite keen for it, although his tummy was making some alarming noises after he'd finished.
After I'd finished the pineapple juice, I went back every few hours to give him some electrolytes. I thought they'd give him the nutrition he needed while allowing whatever was bothering his stomachs to pass. The last time I went out, late in the day, he'd gone.
I've become pretty good at not taking livestock deaths personally, but I cried. I'd just fought for three days to keep him alive and I failed. I'd only had Lenny for a few months, he came to us as a fat pet hogget and we lost him.
I've had a few conversations with people who know more about sheep than I do (nearly everyone who has sheep) and there have been a few suggestions floated. One is that my sheep are mostly immune to whatever bugs we have here and he wasn't. It affected him the most because he'd come in from elsewhere. Another is that he brought the new bug with him. Another is shit happens, if you have live stock, you have dead stock and you can't win them all.
Sigh. I just hope that we have his offspring brewing in the girls he'd been running with.
Now. I'm going to take you back in time by a week. Yes, I know this is out of order, but bear with me.
The week before, I was out trying my hand at doing my animal chores with help and supervision (mostly in the form of "don't lift that") from Hubby. I glanced out over our paddocks as is my habit and asked, "Is that a dead sheep?"
We went for a walk and found Molly, one of my older ewes. She was alive, but on her side and the hawks had been attacking her face. She showed no signs of scouring. I tried to get her on her feet. I failed. I turned her around at least so her head was uphill. Her gums were white which isn't a good sign. She was skinny but not scouring. I tried to tempt her with handfuls of fresh grass and electrolytes, but we lost her. It's been suggested that she might have had a heart condition or something - the lack of scouring removes many diseases from the probable cause of death list.
I moved the other sheep from her paddock, and in doing so found an abandoned lamb. Two of my ewes showed signs of having lambed, Nibbles had a healthy fat white lamb running around her and Peg had blood down her back legs and tail. Nibbles' lamb looked to be a couple of days old and this one was brand new, bright fresh navel string and all. I picked it up and took it over to the sheep, it bounced around crying and tried to feed off most of them. They all either ran away or beat him up.
I took him up to the house and made up a bottle. I thought maybe give him a good feed and then take him back and see if Mum will take him then. I was fairly sure he was Peg's, but she had hardly any udder and was looking a little rough too. Each time I took him near the sheep, they'd run away or knock him over. And then he'd follow me around head-butting my legs and tripping me up. I gained a pet lamb.
My darling granddaughter Miss Two named him Coco and he's still doing fine. He outgrew the box in the lounge rather quickly and had to move out to the pen in the milking shed - hastily cleaned up to remove the last of the pig poo and a bed of hay laid down. So to cheer up a hard post to make, here are some pictures of Coco. This is why he came at the end.
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| Two days old, exploring the lawn and garden. |
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| At about a week old, in the shed. |