Sat, 31 Oct 2009

Halloween Sheep

We certainly didn't intend this, but our barn is the perfect horror venue for sheep on this All Hallows Eve...

We have three sheep currently in our medical stall - one belongs to my friend Tim: we're keeping 16 of his sheep for a month to give his pasture a break.

She ripped off most of the skin on her snout, right down to the skull. This happened about four weeks ago, so the wound itself is healed, but her skull bone is still visible, and probably always will be. We nicknamed her "Scarface".

About a week ago we brought Jihad in - at first we thought it was mastitis, but finally came to the conclusion that Neo the mini-horse had trampled her. Neo has a new home now - we couldn't tolerate that kind of behavior no matter how cute he was. She's pretty beat up and sore, and when sheep get that way they tend not to eat. We've practically had to force feed her - we think she'll recover but right now she's positively skeletal.

And finally, what did we find this morning but Stubby, our oldest ewe and a Horned Dorset, literally covered with blood. She had removed one of her horns! Probably either got it caught in the fence or (more likely) by butting heads with another ewe or wether. She'll be fine, but horns have a lot of blood vessels, and she looks like an extra in one of the chainsaw massacre movies.

The rest of the flock keeps coming over to the gates and gawking at the three wounded girls, then moving on out to the paddocks, just like people do when they visit a seasonal "haunted house". I wonder if they know it's Halloween?

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