Auchenstroan Wool

Last Friday morning, Nicole noticed that Ymogen, one of last years lambs, had a problem with her jaw. The lower palette seemed to be all askew. We called out the vet and she confirmed it was a bad break. When an animal is in mortal peril, vets kind of have this look on their face, and our vet had that look. The prognosis was not good.

We are not sure how it happened, but we suspect she had put her head into a gap in the hurdles and then been hit from behind by another sheep. We had been doing routine vaccinations the day before and sometimes had been using sheep nuts to lure them into a pen. She may have been trying to reach the sheep nuts through the hurdles. Sheep nuts are both a blessing and a curse. You can use them to train sheep (like dogs and dog treats). But the possibility of getting sheep nuts can cause a little but too excitement. And for some of the sheep, their way of saying “give us a bit of space” is to jump onto the rear end of the poor sheep that’s in the way.

Anyway, the vet gave her a painkiller and some antibiotics and we retired to ponder what to do.

Inspiration came via one of our neighbours. She keeps guinea pigs and offered us some chopped hay. Well, we have a shed full of the stuff and plenty pairs of scissors, so we got to work. I say “we”, but in reality, Nicole created a masterpiece of a meal for injured lambs, a mix of chopped hay, grass, brussel sprouts, a bit of liquid life aid and the key ingredient, shredded turnip (swedes to non Scots). Luckily for us, we have grown loads more turnips than we can eat.

For the first couple of days, Ymogen licked some of it up. However, she kept trying to eat grass or hay from the feeders and when she couldn’t, she would just go and stand somewhere with her head down. It’s kind of heartbreaking to watch.

Anyway, come Monday, Nicole was off to work. Mid morning, I set off with a few handfuls of “magic mix”. Ymogen was still a bit wary of coming into a pen, so it was not that easy. She needed to be in a pen to keep the other sheep out more than anything. In order to tempt her to eat the mix, we sprinkle some ground sheep nuts on the top. The smell attracts a lot of unwanted attention from the others.

I couldn’t quite get her into the pen, so I started feeding her with her standing half in, half out. I was able to keep the others at bay and they soon lost interest. Amazingly, she scoffed the lot and then looked at me, like Dickens’ Oliver, and asked for more.

So I sent an update to Nicole (with freezing fingers) and trotted back to the house to make a second helping. She scoffed all of that too.

It has now been just under a week. Ymogen is not out of the woods by any means. The injury is to bone and cartilage so could take weeks to heal. At least Ymogen has the advantage of being young (about 10 months old). She is on 5 feeds a day now. She is often waiting by the pen and now trots happily in. She happily eats from a bucket (making a it easier on us). She is cudding which is a great sign.

She is still on her medication, antibiotics and painkiller jags (jabs to non Scots), every 2-3 days.

So, it’s fingers crossed.

With winter upon us, we need to provide winter feed for our sheep.  We buy in organic hay in large bales.  This means it needs to be transported over to the feeders and the easiest way is in large bags.  Fill one of those, pop it onto the trailer and whizz it across with the quad bike.

The fun starts when we come to transfer the hay from the bag into the feeders.  In essence, it means dragging the bag to the feeder and then moving the hay across in clumps.  The sheep are quite partial to standing on the slabs we laid and so it can get a bit crowded.  It can be tricky moving them out of the way to get to the feeders.  .

For the lambs, this just takes too long.  So, a few of them have decided it’s much quicker, and much more fun just to eat the hay straight from the bag.  Sounds easy, but the bag is taller than they are, so it needs a little spring up on the back legs to get the front legs over the edge and firmly planted into the hay.

Sometimes, when it’s just too exciting, a whole jump takes the lamb right into the bag.  Thus, “Who’s that in my bag” has become Nicole’s new mantra.

All part of the fun.

We are sad to tell you that Sarka passed away yesterday. It was peaceful and gentle, she lay happily between Nicole and myself as the vet gently helped her on her way.

Sarka came to us in 2015. She was the most flighty and fearful of the 11 sheep we had then. A change in the weather was enough to have her in a mild panic and changing fields was always fraught with a little danger. But, over time, she became something of a cuddle sheep, seeking out pats and scratches from us whenever we we were over in the fields. Whenever we went over, she would come trotting over and bury her head in close as she enjoyed neck scratches.

Sarka loved it here in Scotland with acres of pasture to roam and graze. She had a very strong bond with Nicole who considered themselves to be like two peas in a pod.

Last year, Sarka was diagnosed with a heart condition and given only a short time to live. However, under Nicole’s care she blossomed and seemed as healthy as she had ever been. Previously prone to runny poos, over the last year she has been totally fine in that department. Runny poos in sheep are bad news – the smell attracts the blowfly and can lead to flystrike. Indeed, Sarka was the first of our sheep to be hit with flystrike, back in 2015. We caught that early, thankfully.

As the summer was drawing to a close, Sarka seemed to be developing problems in one of her front legs. It was diagnosed as arthritis, even though she was only 6. The vet hinted there was nothing could be done, but Nicole found willow to be very helpful and indeed, after a couple of weeks on a daily intake of willow leaves, Sarka was almost walking normally.

Two weeks ago, she went totally lame in one of her back legs. We had to carry her to a shelter as heavy rain was forecast. She was pretty heavy I can tell you. Painkillers were prescribed and after a week’s treatment, she seemed to be improving insofar as she was walking almost normally again. However, there was the merest hint of a neurological issue – she seemed to be having trouble finding the hand proffering sheep nuts (her favourite).
Despite seeming to eat well and being given extra sheep nuts, Sarka remained painfully thin.

On Thursday, she looked poorly again, head down and just standing in a corner. She was given a vitamin and condition booster by the vet and another shot of painkillers by us. She seemed to perk up, but yesterday morning she seemed to have gone further downhill Later, Nicole witnessed her back legs just giving way.

We had tried everything. There was nothing else we could do.

It was important to us that Sarka did not suffer and so we made the painful decision to say goodbye.

Sarka was a lovely sheep, friendly, cuddly and loving. We shall miss her.