Pre-Lambing Sheep Care

Sunday – CD/T day. 

With a little worming on the side. 

A little trickery with the grain bucket

and an unmarked ewe is caught up.

Then each one in turn is given a sub-q injection (just under the skin usually at the flap of skin near the arm pit) of the CD/T vaccine, guarding the ewe and her offspring against overeaters disease and tetanus.

They are also given a wormer at this time as well, for one, who wants to have to catch sheep every day to do something else to them and for the other this is one of the most beneficial times to worm.  Intestinal worms are dormant at this time of the year so any surviving expelled worms are less likely to recontaminate the flock.

Kai was in charge of making sure each ewe was marked with marking paint on her rear before Bet or I released the patient.  He did a great job!  After years of trying various ways of dealing with keeping track of who is done and who isn’t, we prefer this method. 

You’d be surprised Clever Reader how high ewes can jump and when faced with a needle, how good they are at squeezing out the pen when you only meant to release the one you just finished up on.  We try to keep ear tags on the girls but like their owner’s wife they often loose their ear ornaments.  And reading numbers on tags to see who you should catch and who has already been done is rather tedious.  The marking paint eventually wears off and doesn’t harm the animal or the wool.

Everybody was part of the crew, Aksel was in charge of holding stuff for Dirt and I grabbed a few ewes myself when I wasn’t taking pictures.

All the girls look great, some are showing their age.  And there are signs that lambing is indeed three to four weeks away.  I’m excited, and thinking it might be a great time to get lots of house work and cooking done, not to mention do a little winter style resting up while we can.

Soap Box

Vaccine and worming days would be among those reasons we are not certified organic nor intend to be.  When I get pneumonia I like going to the doctor and getting anti-biotics and getting well.  Yep, when I’ve got the sniffles, I get out all my hippy tea and my netty pot and go for a natural cure (or relief) but when I can’t seem to manage to walk to the house in the middle of an asthma attack I appreciate having my inhaler in my pocket.   

For the most part, we as a family try to eat well and take natural supplements to ward off disease, and we attend to the same for our animals.  We try our best to not have to use chemical remedies,  but not only do we not care to needlessly lose animals with death or sub-production  we don’t care to see them suffer along in a unhealthy manner. 

Are there folks who can manage to do just that and be completely organic?  I’m sure there are, and more power to them.  It just isn’t our thing, we are not overly worried about the chemicals that we use because we know that they are completely out of the animal’s system prior to slaughter and are of no consequence to the consumer.  We eat what we produce and feel good about doing so.  We don’t have our animals on prophylactic anti-biotics, or growth stimulating hormones, and our sheep don’t carry salmon genes, nor does our corn.   We wouldn’t eat that ourselves, and we would ask other folks to do that either.

The Week Ahead

Monday is a seeding day, I’ll be in the Hippy Hot Hut a good part of the day and in the kitchen as well.  I caught some squash trying to go bad so there was a large quantity that went to the slammer.  Well into the oven at least, and now are cooling in the brig, I mean frig.  I do believe I heard Auntie Bet promising that cookie baking in on the agenda as well as a bit of house cleaning.  

Tuesday won’t be a shopping day, no need to and more things to do here, like bake cookies and slurp on root beer floats.

This post has me up later than I ought to be so good night Dear Reader, I hope all is as well with you as it is here at our wonderful little farm.

A Bit of Farm Wisdom To Go

Keep your girls counted and your rams tethered.