Primrose , petite and pert, she's found a special niche in my heart these past few months. The sweetest, most forgiving personality, and so darn cute, too! Prim has adjusted to living with the sheep, and has even grown rather fond of them, I think. She's only gotten stuck in the fence 5 times, and made her escape about 10. When she does get out, she goes right back in when you open the gate. It's super cute. *smile* Even my dad likes her, and he's not a real animal lover so that's saying something.
On a slightly different topic, my ewes have gotten a bad case of worms. Or rather, their worm load has gotten large enough to start causing some serious respiratory problems. Ingrid, the ewe who lost her lambs this spring, is doing the most poorly. She's been coughing, and today she had a runny nose and wasn't interested in eating. When you've just turned them out onto a lush green pasture, that's not a good sign at all. So, I isolated her this morning, had a powwow on the phone with my sheep/goat advice friend, and then got to work. After estimating her weight with my weight tape (which is an awesome little device btw), I got out the big gun - Zimectrin Gold. It's an ivermectin based horse wormer, but it can be used for sheep, too. That should take care of tapeworms and lungworms, which the average rubbishy goat/sheep wormer doesn't. Why do they even sell that stuff? It doesn't do a thing! I also wormed the other ewes.
Then, after a bit of research, I concocted my own sheep drench. A drench is something you give orally. I mixed Apple Cider Vinegar and water at a 1:1 ratio, then added about 3 Tbs of blackstrap molasses to improve the taste and help with the anemia. I got about 18 mL down her throat. After about an hour, she began nibbling at her hay. I drenched her again and the rest of the ewes this evening (and gave some to Prim - she actually wanted to eat it, and kept getting in the way while I drenched the ewes:), and now Ingrid is really digging into her food. I also added a bit of Apple Cider Vinegar to all of their drinking water. That stuff is amazing. We're not out of the woods yet, but praise the Lord for so much improvement so quickly!
My plan is to drench everyone again in the morning and evening for the next two days, move them all to the horse pasture, and then worm them again in 14 days. They haven't been in that pasture for over a year, so there should be significantly less parasites there. Typically, parasites aren't too hard to control here because it's a dry climate. We have gotten a lot of rain this year though, and I think that's part of what's going on here.
And that's about it. It's been a busy week, even without the excitement today. VBS (which was awesome!), cherry picking, bringing in a load of hay, dropping my bro off at the airport (I had to get up at 3:30 AM - no one should have to do that. But it was very nearly worth it just for the sunrise. Beautiful!), more VBS, and then today. Wow, in a way this week flew by, but at the same time Monday seems like a faint memory from long ago. And now, this farm girl needs some rest...and maybe some Captain America.
Happy Trails, y'all!
Question: Are you a morning person or a night owl? I want to know!
