This morning I had my six-weeks-after-the-baby checkup, so I couldn’t sit around in my pajamas all morning. I was actually up and ready in plenty of time and was topping off the baby’s tummy while I waited for Andy to finish up with the animals and get ready to leave. Baby and I were lazing on the bed nursing, the fans were blowing, the birds were chirping. It was all pretty idyllic, so when I thought I heard Andy yell something from outside I tried to ignore it. No no, I was just imagining I heard his voice. It was nothing. A figment. A weird bird. My brain kept working, though, and realized that (A) Andy had been outside for a very long time, and (B) weird birds do not say, “SHEEP HURT.”
I hopped up and ran to the window and saw Andy in the sheep pen pouring some grain into their bin. Huh. Maybe I did imagine it. Then I saw something from a horror movie: a white sheep with a bright red face.
I put the baby in a safe spot, hopped into my shoes, and ran down the hill. By now I saw that Andy had been using the grain to try and lure the injured sheep, but that hadn’t worked so Andy was chasing the sheep (one of the white ram lambs) around the pen trying to catch him.
There is blood dripping off the sheep’s chin. He broke a horn. The horn was still dangling off the sheep’s head by a flap of skin. Did I mention the blood?
I freaked out a bit and tried to get in the pen to help, but in my panic I didn’t actually turn the fence off and kept getting shocked while I tried to open and close the fence. When I got in, we both tried again to catch the sheep but weren’t able. Andy went back to the barn for more grain, and with its power we were able to grab the sheep.
Here’s kind of what it looked like: The horn (about four inches long) was dangling like I said. It was mostly hollow (and filled with a pool of blood). On the sheep’s head where the horn used to be was the horn bud-type-thing … a little cone about an inch or two tall. And it seemed like the thing was just leaking blood.
I held the sheep and Andy sprayed blukote (kinda like liquid band-aid) on the wound. It was pointless. The blood just washed the spray down the sheep’s face. We realized that was futile and tried to figure out other ways to get the bleeding to stop. One problem was that the dangling horn was really bugging the sheep, and he was shaking his head and smashing it into the ground. We decided we needed to get that horn off. Andy tried to quickly yank it, but that wasn’t going to work. I held the sheep down while Andy ran up to the house for a pair of snips and a rag to try and help stop the bleeding.
When he got back, Andy fairly easily snipped the horn off. He then held the rag to the horn stump thing, but it just wasn’t helping. He tried the blukote again. No luck.
Finally we realized we couldn’t do anything else. We talked about calling the vet out, but this isn’t a pet and as horrible as it may sound the sheep wasn’t “worth” the cost of the vet. We realized that horns break on sheep in the wild or sheep out on big pastures, and they survive. The wound would clot eventually. So, we crossed our fingers. Andy finished up chores, we both cleaned up, and we left.
On my drive home from the doctor I kept my fingers crossed that I would find a fairly healthy sheep with a stopped-bleeding wound. I was rather nervous and had this horrible thought I’d have to call up our neighbor to see if he’d bring his gun over and put the sheep down. Thankfully, when I pulled up next to the sheep pen, I saw that the sheep was doing okay and that the bleeding had all but stopped. I took another peek about two hours later, and he’s pretty much the same. When Andy gets home we’ll probably have another go at getting the wound coated with blukote to keep the dirt and bugs out.
A coworker of Andy told him about this stuff called “BloodStop” made for occasions like this. We’ll be picking some up today. If this happens again, we’ll be better prepared. As I read back through this I wonder if we should have called the vet. What I wrote sounds sort of horrible…the part where we just left. Where is the line between being neglectful and being farmer-y? We don’t want the sheep to die or be in pain, but again…this isn’t a pet. Most likely this sheep will end up being meat. I don’t know. I’ll definitely be thinking about this for a while.
Even though the blood has stopped flowing, the scene is still pretty bad. The other white sheep have red on them where they’ve come in contact with some blood. Perhaps the ram rubbed up against them or perhaps they picked up some blood from the grass. There are some bloody marks on the shelters. Andy and I both have purple stains on our arms and hands from the blukote. There is a horn in the kitchen sink, blood stained and with purple spots. Worst of all is, of course, the sheep himself. The entire left side of his head is a nasty mess of blood and blukote. It’s sort of black/purple. We may be able to wash him off a bit, but the blukote stains.
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Cabol wrote all that on 6/27 and then we forgot to post it. As an update, the sheep seems to be doing well. Most of the blood and blue kote have washed away in the rain. We saved the horn, although the kitties like to try and play with it.
