Our Second Vet Visit

Our second vet visit this afternoon was another round of sheep wrestling. I do think it went better than the first time though. Ram1's abscess was looking a whole lot better. The swelling and redness have gone done tremendously and there is just a little scab.

 Beyla's abscess had begun to open and drain this morning. The vet lanced it and drained a lot of pus and blood, cleaned it up and gave her a shot of antibiotics. She still looks pretty pathetic! I had the vet take a sample for a culture just to make sure it's not Caseous Lymphadenitis, but she doesn't think it is. She thinks their immune systems are still down from their former home and everything should run its course. I hope she's right!

Moose and Chloe had their hooves trimmed. Moose's hooves were horrible, like elf shoes! Chloe was very good about having her hooves trimmed and the vet said they were much better than the others. Everyone got another shot of Ivermectin because we still have some itching/scratching going on.  Leda looks like she is due in about a week or two so she did not get treated. The vet left me with a dose to give her after she lambs. She thinks their intermittent runny noses are a virus that also needs to run its course and agrees that the occasional bloody noses are from irritation.  We are hoping Spring and grazing sets everything right.
Earlier this evening when I went to feed the goats Brigid was not eating and didn't look right. She was standing in the corner looking uncomfortable. She was very distended with her left side more so. I thought she might have bloat and sure enough all of her symptoms and physical findings agreed. Of course getting her to agree to the treatment was not so easy. I think I got enough olive oil into her and walked her around but she hasn't started passing gas yet. She didn't want me any where near her now so I figure if she's too good at getting away from me she must be improving. While I was giving Brigid her oil our other sheep, Mama Sadie, kept trying to get me to pay attention to her. She let me scratch her all over and asked for more. She has NEVER done that! Maybe she's finally getting tame.

Garage Attic Storage

Alan is just about finished with the storage area in the attic of the tractor/garage bay.

A couple of strips of lath to close up all the gaps on the common wall and to go around the vent hole are all that is needed up here. Well, maybe a light would be nice. Guess I'll have to bring that up. The storage area is a touch smaller than the old space but much nicer!

Abscesses

I noticed this abscess on Ram1 last week.

Then a day or two later, I noticed this lump on the side of his mother's nose.

The abscess above Ram1's eye opened up soon after I took these pictures. It was all pus and blood. I saved a sample of the pus for in case the vet wants to run a culture but it will have been in the fridge for 3 days so I'm not sure they will be able to culture it. Of course I am worried about caseous lymphadenitis but the location of these abscesses seems all wrong for CL from everything I've read. The vet is coming on Wednesday and we'll see what they think. We are due for hoof trimming anyway.

Poor Ram2

We were gone all day yesterday and the sheep were fine in the morning. When I went out to check on everyone when we got home I found Ram2 with blood on his ear. Apparently, he pulled ripped his ear tag out sometime during the day. He now has a two inch long slit in his left ear. It had stopped bleeding by the time we got home. I cleaned his ear and applied Blu-kote. Today his ear seems to be healing nicely and not bothering him at all.

Snow Off the Barn Roof

A dark metal roof facing mostly south east loses its snow pretty quickly. And all that snow ends up down on the ground, blocking the stall doors and the main door into the barn.

The snow we had on Sunday night was followed by rain then single digit temperatures the next night. Consequently, all the snow is now hard as a rock. Thankfully Maddy was able to clean up enough of the snow yesterday while I was at work so we could get into the barn and get one of the stall doors to the yard open.  Today it took quite a while to get everything open, and the use of a nice ice chopper too.

The sheep were happy to get outside today. And the boys love to check out anything you are working on anywhere near them.

We've been thinking about making a shed roof coming off the barn roof for a number of reasons, but the snow has added another reason.  It sure would be nice not to have to shovel snow away from all the doors. The shed roof would also allow us to keep the stall doors open in inclement weather and it would keep an area in the pen dry. Outside of the pen, the hill going up to the door gets very slippery in the snow and rain. If the shed roof goes along the entire length of the barn it would also protect the area outside the main door.  We will probably get an estimate from the contractor who built the barn. It would be great to have the roof in place before next winter.

Another Day Spent Working on the Garage/Tractor Bay

Alan spent Sunday working on his tractor bay again. It's coming along.  He got the plywood on the common garage wall.

He put down the flooring for the attic space and put the studs up for the back knee wall. My storage area got a little smaller and will now be 8x12 feet. But structurally it is a much stronger space. The little triangle at the top of the eave needs plywood and the ventilation hole gets screening. Lots of little odds and ends to finish up.

And once again we were expecting snow that night so Alan had to spend time battening down the hatches.

Lamb Update

All the lambs are doing well. They are eating, growing and not seeming to mind the cold much.  Our first rams, "Big Boy" and "Little Boy", continue to grow and are now 71 days old.  We'll have to start thinking about weaning them soon.

The lamb in the foreground is Big Boy and the lamb in the background is Little Boy. The lamb in the middle is ram3 and he is nearly the size of Little Boy and he is only 11 days old.  He loves to run around with the older rams and has perfected the four-legged hop. He continues to nurse well and his mom is very attentive.
The new lambs also don't seem to be minding the cold temps. I still have their lamb jackets on though. 

The ram lamb's tail is much longer than his sister's and he can really get that tail moving! Ram3's tail is much shorter than the rest of the lambs' tails.  I am not quite certain yet on a name for the ewe lamb, but we've been calling her Cora and that may end up sticking.  She loves attention!