Post by Dog Moved On on Jun 12, 2010 11:24:03 GMT -5
Sophie asked for updates on this and I don't want it to get buried in the cbox.
Augusta is doing better this morning. =D I didn't want to force her to stand up so I could check out her limping (she probably is still limping, these things take time), but she wasn't depressed and she was chewing her cud, meaning she's been out to pasture within the past few hours. I gave her some aspirin anyway since she's probably still in some pain - Florence, however, expressed some displeasure that Gussie got corn (you hide the pills in it) and she didn't.
Back story for everyone else: Two days ago I found my favorite ewe, Augusta, limping very badly on a hind leg. Got her tipped to take a look at her hooves (I suspected foot scald initially, we've had very wet weather and that causes scald), didn't even know wtf to make of her hoof. The top looked normal, but the bottom was grown out all kinds of weird. Seriously, I've seen some bad hooves (rescued some neglected backyard sheep once, I honestly don't know how the things were walking, they're all fine now though), but I've never seen a sheep hoof like that. Had a vet come out to check for nutritional issues/infection (nothing) and any arthritis/bone/upper leg issues that might compound it (nothing). The general conclusion was that she has bad hoof conformation and needs more regular trimming than our other sheep. We trimmed it back and poured some coppertox on it to strengthen the newly exposed tissue, vet told me to giver her pain meds and to watch for weight loss.
I wasn't too terribly worried. I mean I had a lamb dislocate a hip once and recover just fine. (There's no real surgery for that for sheep and you risk nerve damage by trying to force it back in. We were told to either slaughter him immediately out of mercy, or give him pain meds and see if he'd show signs of recovery within a week or so. We did the latter and he was prancing with the other lambs within a month and a half. Sheep are BAMFs.) Unless the whole thing's rotted off or some nonsense, sheep recovery pretty quick from hoof trouble, in my experience. Felt bad, never feels good to have a hurting animal, especially if it's your favorite ewe; but I wasn't like "Oh shit she's going to dieeeee."
But yesterday when I went to check on her, she was very depressed and sulking in the pen, which is bad. Sheep don't really do the depression thing usually, even grievously injured ones, it's almost always seriously bad news. Couldn't find any signs of infection or other injury though, so I didn't know what else to do but try to make her comfortable. Gave her some more pain meds, rebedded the pen (not easy work when you're a noodle like me and have as stupid of barn organization as we do -_- ), gave her a fly spray so she wouldn't have to get eaten up, put a fan on her since it was pretty hot out. Worriedworriedworried.
Aaaand then we go up to the first paragraph up there. I'm not sure what to make of the recovery (not that I'm not appreciative) or why she got so depressed in the first place. But in retrospect, her son was injured badly last year (cut up real real bad by a piece of metal that blew off the silo in a storm), and had the same depressive reaction - and he recovered just fine. Maybe they're just pessimistic sheep by nature? It might have something to do with how docile she is - that's why I like her, she's a teddy bear - maybe she just doesn't have that wild fighting spirit that most sheep have. (People who use terms like "sheeple" and "gentle as a lamb" make me lol, because they've obviously never met a self respecting ovine. They have very individual personalities, most of them are very wild and it's time consuming as hell [sometimes flatass impossible] to tame them unless they're a bottle baby or something. They just don't like being alone is all.)
rambleramble, ramblescramble.
Augusta is doing better this morning. =D I didn't want to force her to stand up so I could check out her limping (she probably is still limping, these things take time), but she wasn't depressed and she was chewing her cud, meaning she's been out to pasture within the past few hours. I gave her some aspirin anyway since she's probably still in some pain - Florence, however, expressed some displeasure that Gussie got corn (you hide the pills in it) and she didn't.
Back story for everyone else: Two days ago I found my favorite ewe, Augusta, limping very badly on a hind leg. Got her tipped to take a look at her hooves (I suspected foot scald initially, we've had very wet weather and that causes scald), didn't even know wtf to make of her hoof. The top looked normal, but the bottom was grown out all kinds of weird. Seriously, I've seen some bad hooves (rescued some neglected backyard sheep once, I honestly don't know how the things were walking, they're all fine now though), but I've never seen a sheep hoof like that. Had a vet come out to check for nutritional issues/infection (nothing) and any arthritis/bone/upper leg issues that might compound it (nothing). The general conclusion was that she has bad hoof conformation and needs more regular trimming than our other sheep. We trimmed it back and poured some coppertox on it to strengthen the newly exposed tissue, vet told me to giver her pain meds and to watch for weight loss.
I wasn't too terribly worried. I mean I had a lamb dislocate a hip once and recover just fine. (There's no real surgery for that for sheep and you risk nerve damage by trying to force it back in. We were told to either slaughter him immediately out of mercy, or give him pain meds and see if he'd show signs of recovery within a week or so. We did the latter and he was prancing with the other lambs within a month and a half. Sheep are BAMFs.) Unless the whole thing's rotted off or some nonsense, sheep recovery pretty quick from hoof trouble, in my experience. Felt bad, never feels good to have a hurting animal, especially if it's your favorite ewe; but I wasn't like "Oh shit she's going to dieeeee."
But yesterday when I went to check on her, she was very depressed and sulking in the pen, which is bad. Sheep don't really do the depression thing usually, even grievously injured ones, it's almost always seriously bad news. Couldn't find any signs of infection or other injury though, so I didn't know what else to do but try to make her comfortable. Gave her some more pain meds, rebedded the pen (not easy work when you're a noodle like me and have as stupid of barn organization as we do -_- ), gave her a fly spray so she wouldn't have to get eaten up, put a fan on her since it was pretty hot out. Worriedworriedworried.
Aaaand then we go up to the first paragraph up there. I'm not sure what to make of the recovery (not that I'm not appreciative) or why she got so depressed in the first place. But in retrospect, her son was injured badly last year (cut up real real bad by a piece of metal that blew off the silo in a storm), and had the same depressive reaction - and he recovered just fine. Maybe they're just pessimistic sheep by nature? It might have something to do with how docile she is - that's why I like her, she's a teddy bear - maybe she just doesn't have that wild fighting spirit that most sheep have. (People who use terms like "sheeple" and "gentle as a lamb" make me lol, because they've obviously never met a self respecting ovine. They have very individual personalities, most of them are very wild and it's time consuming as hell [sometimes flatass impossible] to tame them unless they're a bottle baby or something. They just don't like being alone is all.)
rambleramble, ramblescramble.
Thanks so much for the update!
I love sheep. So precious.