Too Wet For The Sheep. The Vet Comes To The Farm

Liam and the rest of the flock

All this rain has been good for the farmers and our flowers, but not so good for the sheep.  I went out this afternoon to get Liam in the pole barn for the Vet, when I saw that Issachar was limping on his front left foot.

I’m not quite sure how I did it, but I ended up getting Liam, Issachar and Asher in the barn.  Sheep, of course, want to be all together so it’s not easy to separate them.  But it’s as if they all knew who I wanted to stay and who I wanted to go and they went along with it.

I told the Vet, Jack Kittell, that we had another sheep limping when he got to the farm. By this time, Liam looked healthy, hardly limping at all compared to Issachar.

Jack checked their hooves and said they were overall healthy.  He showed me a spot on Issachar’s hoof where there was a small space between the outer and inner hoof.  When it’s very wet out, moisture, manure and dirt gets in that space and can cause an infection.

Often, he said, it heals on its own.  He gave both sheep an antibiotic and a pain killer for Issachar.

There’s a good chance the same can happen to some of the other sheep, so we’ll get some penicillin from Tractor Supply just in case.

After Jack left, Ted came to brushhog the pastures.

There too the rain has had an effect.  The grass was so tall, it was becoming hard for the sheep and donkeys to keep up with it.  And along the edges all kinds of invasive plants were taking over.

Now there’s fresh clippings for the animals to munch on, and all those troublesome plants have been cut down for the season. It feels good to know the that Liam and Issachar will be okay and the pastures are well taken care too.

Bud barked at Ted’s big tractor brushhogging the pastrues, while Fate sat patiently watching.

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