On the Road to Recovery
I mentioned earlier this week that we had a ewe of twins suddenly go down with a raging fever Sunday afternoon. 108.7 degrees! Normal for a sheep is 100-102 degrees. (See all the completely-inapplicable-to-anything-in-your life facts you can pick up as a reader here at High Cotton?)
We called the vet.
We weren’t sure exactly what it was, but heatstroke seemed likely–although odd. We moved her to the cool concrete garage floor, started some fans running, and Mr. Fix-It started shaving her. (“Shearing” implies something neat, intentional, and organized–he was just shaving as fast as the clippers would go through.)
And we started praying. (Without any other way to help sometimes, our kids are becoming quite the farming prayer warriors.)
Here she is on Tuesday in the garage with her lambs.
The vet got there and started an IV (you can see that dark spot on her neck where the catheter was put in), and the garage floor did it’s job. Her temp was back down to normal within an hour.
She was able to sit up like she is in that picture, but she wasn’t able to stand up on her own. She would eat and drink if we put the pans right by her head, but she couldn’t move to them if they got bumped away by the lambs. We didn’t know if she had brain or nerve damage from the high fever.
Poor Mr. Fix-It! Even sweeping up 3-4 times a day and ringing the pen with cat litter and wool to soak up "messes," his garage is still pretty nose curling right now.
And, what about the lambs?! If she couldn’t stand, what would they eat? Had the fever had dried up her milk? Would she just reject the lambs from stress?
I tried hand feeding the little guys on Sunday and Monday, but they were having none of it. So I hung a bottle of milk replacer up and draped it with their momma’s wool (that crazy contraption hanging up there by her head) in case they might try it if they did get desperate. And we kept praying.
By Wed with no significant change by lunchtime, we conferred with our vet again. She was bright-eyed and eating, but unable to stand up. Was this a hopeless situation? She’s a valuable, purebred ewe that produced a fine set of twins this year and last year for us…we decided that we hadn’t completely exhausted the playbook and came up with a couple more strategies to try.
Poor thing looks like a returning prisoner of war.
But when I got home on Wed she was prone on her side again, kicking her legs uselessly. I have to admit, I thought she was a goner.
Crying and praying (and sneezing), I heaved her up, up, up onto her feet one more time.
And she stayed.
For an hour!
By Thursday she was getting up and down by herself and her appetite had increased significantly.
She's still moving stiff and slow, but she's moving on her own power.
The little ones were nursing every time she was up on her feet and they’re frisking about like normal lambs, so we even think her milk supply is ok, although it’ll take close monitoring.
These two seem none the worse for the whole ordeal.
We let her graze fresh grass from the backyard last night and everyone is moving to new spring grass this weekend so hopefully all those fresh vitamins and minerals and yummy, leafy foods will help her get back on track. While we don’t feel like she’s completely out of the woods yet, she definitely seems to be on the road to recovery. What a blessing!
What a tough lady!
It’s frustrating not knowing exactly what set all this off or what might have been going on inside to cause her to react to the heat so badly while everyone else was fine. I guess it’s a good reminder that we’re not all-knowing God.
It also brings home my point from a few weeks ago. If you’re visiting a farm, be careful how you judge the animals’ appearances. She might always be a little stiff, a little slow, a little scraggly… but what a trooper! Still nursing, still mothering, still dedicated to her job! What an example of perseverance!
What a lesson to the rest of us!
I hope she continues to recover, poor thing! That is very odd that she’s the only one who got sick. At least she’s recovering now and the lambs are ok too.
Yes, we’re so glad everyone seems to be doing ok. It’s nerve-wracking trying to figure out what’s wrong. We worry that it’s something everyone could get or we worry that it’s something that will come back again.
It’s funny too, we were talking with our vet about how sometimes you go for years without any trouble and then one year it just hits. We haven’t needed the vet out in more than 2 years and then, BAM, twice in one season.
Hello!
I’m so sorry to read that your Ewe went down like that….but I’m glad to see that she’s feeling better. Isn’t it strange that she was the only one who went down like that from the heat. I can understand it taking her a while to get back to normal though….my husband got heat stroke when we were moving a few years ago and he dropped to the floor. Even a couple of months later he still didn’t feel normal and didn’t have much energy….he says he’s never been quite the same since. Now we’re real careful when it gets hot. The doc told hubby to drink something with electrolytes…..I wonder if there’s something like that for animals? Might be worth checking into. She’s a beauty and so are your two lambs. Thanks for stopping by today…it was nice to ‘meet’ you! Have a wonderful day…
Maura 🙂
Yeah, sometimes it’s just a guessing game. The vet thinks that maybe there was something else going on that made her more susceptible to the heat than everyone else–but since she responded so quickly to heat stroke treatments, we may never really know what the first trigger was.
We do have electrolytes for their water, but sometimes you have to be careful because they don’t like the taste and won’t drink it. With her we put some dextrose, etc. in the IV to make up for it and slipped her some molasses in her water to encourage her to drink up.
I am so glad your mama lived! What a great job you did!
You bring up a very good point, too… not to judge things by what you see once. We had an ancient pony for the last 3 1/2 years of his life, and by the last year, he looked like a starving wraith. With Cushings, and other issues, he was vetted constantly, and fed special feed. I am sure people coming up and down our road who did not know us thought we were starving him to death, but instead, we agonzed over him constantly until he died at the age of 34. Sometimes there ARE animals that are not being treated well, but sometimes we have loved and slaved over animals only to see them take a sad turn.
What a good ending for your story, I hope she stays healthy. The lambs are little dolls!
what a page turner of a post! i am so relieved your mama sheep is doing better. i am wondering the cause of this reaction . are they allergic to any weeds in the pasture? i know horses can have serious reactions but i don’t know anything about sheep. happy spring!
I’m so glad that she seems to be okay – how scary it must be to have no idea what is going on!! The twins seem to be very frisky 🙂
I’m so glad she’s doing better. That’s quite the ordeal you’ve all been through. I hope she continues to recover. I have some moms right now that look horrible because of how much they’ve been giving to their kids.
I’m glad she’s doing better. What a courageous thing your family does for these animals!