We've always noticed the little things about our animals. For example, our house cats get a little wild and weird around the full moon. Our 15 year old girl likes to "sing" the day and night before the full moon while our 7 year old tabbies rocket around the house like their tails are on fire. It is generally entertaining.
As the lead up to the Summer Solstice tomorrow, we've noticed the sheep in general are more vocal and more assertive for love and cuddles, but this morning, all hell broke loose on the farm, one thing right after another.
It started with the morning feed on the ewes and the lambs. Everyone was determined to nudge each other out of the way for attention and bash each other around to get to their breakfast hay. The lambs are now seven weeks old and are quite solid with a determination to rival the adults. Those sweet little lambs were bouncing around and getting underfoot and being extra cute. Once we opened the door to their pasture they took off as if they had never seen us before. Silly sheepies!
We continued with morning routine - feeding chickens and turkeys, collecting eggs, letting the rams out to their temporary pasture they are sharing with the chicks. Rams go out in the mornings, chicks in the afternoons. We are in the process of building a new ram pasture, so sharing is a necessity.
I turned my attention to fleeces while Jeremy began his day with his market vegetable garden. I put up my two screens near the rams and laid out two fleeces for airing, skirting and washing. I had just finished skirting the undesirable bits off of them when I heard a funny sounding "baa" from the ram pen. I looked up to see Kerny, with his head hanging and his belly swollen to three times the size it should be. Muttering four-letter words under my breath, I hollered for Jeremy and took off for the gate.
The rams are always curious when we enter their pen and they came over to me with chins up and tails wagging. Yes, our rams are very sweet tempered, but we don't let that fool us; they are still rams. I got my hands on Kerny and tapped his belly just as Jeremy made it over to the fence. He made a hollow, drum-like sound. Our little ram had bloat. Again.
This was the third time in two weeks the little guy had done this. Bloat is a build-up of stomach gas and just like in people, it needs to pass. With sheep, it passes through the day in a series of burps and everything remains fine. When it gets to the point of bloat, the gas is obstructed and cannot escape which causes the belly to swell up. Very uncomfortable and fatal if left untreated.
I began to rub Kerny's stomach and throat in hopes of moving air while Jeremy penned the other two boys. If we leave them out with us while we treat Kerny, they get a little competitive for attention and put their heads down to butt us. Jeremy jumped in his car and headed to town to the veterinary office to get the anti-gas med we had just run out of. I kept rubbing Kerry's belly and throat and was managing to get little burps out of him. Every so often he would wander away for a few minutes and glare at me, but then he would come back and lean on me, wagging his tail while I massaged his belly and sides.
When Jeremy returned, Kerny was the half the size he was, but hadn't fully deflated. He just kept swelling up. So Jeremy loaded a syringe with 60 ml of anti-gas med. It is green, chalky and smells strongly of mint. I call it Pepto-Mint. Jeremy straddled Kerny, held his horns so he couldn't struggle and I tipped his head back and slowly pumped the Pepto-Mint into him. Once we got it into him, we we went back to belly and throat massage. That's when the burps started coming rapidly, and they aren't pleasant. They stink, to be honest. They smell like soured, fermented grass. Yuck!
Within a few minutes Kerny was fully deflated and back to normal again, even if he had a mint green smile.
Ok, back to fleeces. Managed to get four fleeces sorted out and under control when I decided it was time for second breakfast. Jeremy was thinking the same thing so we came inside and turned on the stove for fried-egg sandwiches. I was looking out the kitchen window while washing my hands when I noticed the rams all bouncing around small white balls. Grabbed a hand towel, more four-letter words issued from my mouth and I told Jeremy that his chicks had busted out into the pen with the rams! (More four-letter words from Jeremy.)
Stove off, boots back on, running out to the ram pen. Three-week old chicks flapping and squawking, Renegade our huge wether trotting after a few of them, Kerny and Lugh in the chick house looking quite interested in these feather sheep. I grabbed Kerny and Lugh each by a horn and dragged them out of the chick house, Jeremy ushered Renegade into the barn behind me and the twins, and we proceeded to round up the chicks. In the process I had forgotten to lock the three boys in the barn and only pulled their door shut. Do I really need to mention here that my crafty little Shetland sheep sprung the door and came out to play with us and the chicks?
Unfortunately, Renegade thought this was a great big game and trotted up behind Jeremy and butted him hard in the thigh. Jeremy quickly ended that matter by taking hold of Renegade's horns and forcing him to his knees on the ground and holding him there for a moment or two until Renegade got the message that he isn't king. It didn't hurt Renegade, and it is completely an alpha male show of dominance. Renegade may be king of the sheep, but Jeremy is king over the sheep, and Renegade knows it. He stood up and lowered his head submissively and sidled up to Jeremy sideways and offered a tail wag. They are still friends.
After that, the boys stood back while we rounded up chicks. Jeremy admitted that he forgot to latch the chick door this morning during feeding. Oops!
We made it back into the house, started breakfast. I looked at the clock. It said 10:00 exactly. That was the most adventurous three and half hours we've had in a long time. We definitely earned our breakfasts today! I just hope that as the next two days pass from spring into summer, so do the adventures!
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