One of our elderly sheep, Sky, has had us a little concerned lately. Being fourteen she’s one of the original members of the ‘green bucket club‘. (Our older sheep get a daily ration of soaked grass and alfa-beet pellets to give them a boost). Despite her advanced age, Sky is a feisty little sheep and full of beans. However, in recent weeks we’ve noticed she’s not been quite herself. We put it down to it being a long wet winter and the general decline that comes with old age. But what’s been getting us worried is that she’s been losing weight despite the extra rations. So we’ve been keeping an eye on her and hoping that when the grass comes through in April she might gain condition and perk up.
In the meanwhile I gave her a dose of wormer just to be on the safe side. With old age, sheep’s natural immunity to intestinal worms can decline. Now that we’re into February we’ve had the odd warm day and the sudden rise in temperature can bring on a hatching of dormant worm larvae ready to cause mischief.
I also checked her teeth, she has no front teeth but fortunately she doesn’t seem to have a problem grazing or pulling hay from the feeders. Sheep are amazingly resilient and as long as their back teeth aren’t worn down, they can manage fine.
This week however, after weeks of rain we had a sudden cold snap with snow and sub-zero temperatures. With the snow settling on the pasture the gang very sensibly set up camp in the orchard near the feeders and their favourite place; the shed.
With the cold weather I noticed Sky was starting to lose interest in her bucket. This was strange as normally she loves her bucket. We wondered what could be going on.
I decided to try her on some haylage. Haylage is partially fermented hay and is very nutritious and tasty. Sheep go mad for it, we’d be tempted to buy it in every winter if it weren’t for the cost of it and the fact that the sheep would never touch normal hay again. In the past we’ve mixed it in with hay but they carefully picked their way through the hay to find the haylage. The hay was left untouched and went to waste.
The only way to get some haylage into Sky without causing a stampede would be to pen her up away from the others. But I wondered how sensible this would be. Once you start running around after elderly sheep you have to wonder whether perhaps it’s time to say goodbye. After a cup of tea and a ponder I decided to go with the hayalge plan and see if I could pull her through to spring. It wouldn’t be long until the grass came through and the little darlings would be off grazing again at which point even the most scrummy haylage would become a distant memory.
So, I whizzed off to our local agricultural store and came back with a couple of bags of lovely smelling haylage.
I thought I’d help Sky get started on her new rations by chopping up a handful and giving it to her in a bucket along with some chopped up apple and carrot for good measure. She liked this and finished the lot. Feeling optimistic I sprinkled some loose haylage on the ground and she ate that too.
Great I thought, things were looking up!
However, as is often the way in life, where there’s an up there’s a down. The next day calamity struck, I went out first thing to walk the dogs and give the sheep their morning nuts. Sky who is normally first in the queue was nowhere to be seen. With a sinking feeling I ran into the shed and heard a small bleat. There was Sky, lying on the ground, cast. I noticed she was in a bit of a dip and had rolled onto her side and got stuck. Sheep are prone to getting stuck and need help getting up. But with the cold weather my worry was that she’d been there a while and got hypothermia as well as all the other problems that come about with being cast; build up of gas in the rumen and circulatory problems.
I gently slid my arms under her and got her half upright. She was too weak to stand so I lay her semi propped up on my coat and built a little hurdle pen around her to keep the other sheep at bay. I stayed with her for a while, gently rubbing her legs to get her circulation going. Then I ran back to the house to get Adrian who was in the kitchen making breakfast. While he fed the dogs I scooted around grabbing blankets and coats, a fan heater, extension lead and a dog bed. Once back in the shed with all the blankets etc we shifted Sky onto the dog bed. Then we made a little tent around her with the blankets and jackets and set up the fan heater to blow warm air into the little tent. Poor Sky was very lethargic, she almost certainly had hypothermia. Once we had the improvised heating system set up and Sky was looking settled, Adrian went back to the house to get me a bowl of porridge and a cup of tea as I was starting to feel cold too.
After a while there was movement under the tent, Sky was getting to her feet, yippee!!! She managed it first time and didn’t topple over which was a miracle. She even had a little shake. Phew I thought, she’s going to make it. But it was a bitterly cold day and I started to ponder whether I could whizz her up a woolly jacket on my sewing machine to keep her warm during her convalescence.
While I was designing woolly jackets in my head Adrian came out and helped me build a larger pen for Sky. We thought it would be wise to keep her separated from the other sheep for a couple of days to make she wasn’t jostled or biffed in her fragile state. Sheep aren’t very patient with weaker flock members. With the pen built, Adrian went to work and I scooted around the house in search of blankets to repurpose.
An hour or so later I emerged with a made to measure sheep jacket. I’d found a felted fleece rug in the cupboard and decided to use that instead of a blanket because it would be warmer and would look cute too.
With Sky warmed up and snug as a bug in her new jacket, her appetite returned and she ate some haylage and soaked grass pellets. Great we thought, she’s turning a corner.
However, the situation wasn’t ideal. Sheep can get very distressed left on their own so I put my life on hold and set up a vigil spending the rest of the day in the shed. To be honest I didn’t mind at all, I love spending time with the sheep and I had a lovely afternoon mooching between the shed and the orchard watching the teddy bears going about their business, listening to the melodic sound of cudding.
The following day there was a bit of a thaw and the sheep trundled up into the fields leaving Sky looking a bit forlorn in her pen. Without the other sheep in the nearby she didn’t feel like eating, even with me there for company. So I decided to take her on a little adventure. I took her for a walk around the garden. The lawn has never been grazed so while there’s not much grass with it being winter, there are a few juicy patches to be found. As soon as we got into the garden Sky didn’t need any encouragement, she perked up and spent a good hour trundling around the garden enjoying the lawn grass.
The next day, the sun came out and more snow melted so I decided to give Sky some more exercise. I led her up the hill where the other sheep were. She had a little stumble en route and needed help getting to her feet but she made it. I reunited her with the flock but she peeled off and didn’t seem that interested in eating or mooching about. I sat on a grassy knoll for a while with Elliot the dog by my side watching her. We stayed on the hill for an hour but with Sky not seeming that interested I took her back down again. I didn’t want to leave her on the hill on her own in case she got biffed or took a tumble.
We will continue to look after Sky for the next few days, we are hoping she’ll regain her strength and we’ll be able to reunite her with the flock again but only time will tell.
