Happy Birthday Sue!
Unfortunately Sue's birthday was somewhat overtaken by events. With Ewe 0004's health seemingly deteriorating, I took the expensive but necessary step of calling out the vet. I asked them to bring some vitamin E for the wonky-headed chicken too.
Early afternoon they rang to say the vet was 45 minutes away. I had to hang by the phone, for the road was completely closed today as the electricity went off and the wires were fitted up to the new posts.
I made the most of being incarcerated by sowing seeds most of the day. But when two hours had passed I rang the vet again to be told they had been diverted to an emergency.
Eventually two vets arrived at about half past 4. By then I had sown a lot of seeds! They got straight onto the job and quickly diagnosed that the ewe had serious metabolic problems. The prognosis was not good. If she did not respond quickly to injections of calcium and oral drenches of glucose then she would likely die. The only other way to try to save her would be to induce her to give birth or abort.
There are three types of metabolic problem in sheep. The first is known as twin lamb disease, pregnancy toxaemia or hypoglycaemia where the demands of the rapidly growing lambs outstrip the ewe's ability to take on energy through feed.
The second is hypocalcaemia, also known as milk fever, a calcium crisis which can be brought on by stress as a result of poor nutrition, severe weather or dog worrying.
The third is a shortage of magnesium and is known as Grass Staggers.
Without blood tests it can be tricky to determine which is at play, but it is serious whichever is the case.
As for the chicken, neither vet had ever seen a case of wry neck before, so we were all playing GoogleVet! Most importantly, they brought me three syringes of vitamins which include the all important vitamin E, since it is probable this is the cause. Under all the furry feathers, Silkie hens are the scrawniest of creatures, so finding a breast or thigh muscle to inject into was not straightforward. Long term, the Silkies need sunflower seeds in their diet to avoid this happening again. If only I had known this before.
16th March 2018
The blood test results are back
The ewe is still alive and is standing up occasionally but extremely wobbly. I don't know if this is a sign of recovery or a last ditch effort by her. The situation really is very worrying. As a smallholder I feel an overwhelming responsibility for the welfare of my animals.
Down in the turkey pen, the first turkey egg of the year was sitting on the ground. I scrambled it and fed it to the Silkie mixed in with chopped sunflower seeds and cider vinegar. As yet she shows no signs of recovery.
I did today meet somebody who actually knew of wry neck. An old fenland type who keeps chickens for show. He reckoned the bird would be in a black bin bag by the end of the week! But that won't stop us trying as long as we don't judge the bird to be suffering too much.
News from the vet. Ewe 0004 was a bit low on Calcium and Magnesium but nowhere near as low as the vet suspected. So no need to inject the magnesium which I had been left or to continue with the calcium injections. We just needed to hope now that continued oral drenches of ketol (a form of glucose) would bring her blood sugars back up to speed and that she would soon start to show a positive response.
I still strongly suspect that the whole worrying incident has most likely been triggered by some sort of trauma. Given the way I found the electric fence, I'm pretty sure something had been through it and chased her. It would not be a fox, for that would not make the sheep bolt and besides, they just go under the electric fence, not through it.
If this were the case, it is utterly infuriating for it has seriously jeopardised the life of the ewe and her unborn lambs. It has been expensive and worrying for me too. Even if she recovers, I am dreading what will happen when lambing occurs.
I would like to think that Ewe 0004 is looking a little more lively this evening. She was flicking her ears for the first time, raising her head up and looking at me and she seemed to blink in response to me waving my hand in front of her eye. She does seem to know that I am trying to help her and seems to have learned to trust me.
With nothing more that Sue or I could do, we headed off to the Thai restaurant in Holbeach to forget the smallholding for a while and celebrate her birthday.
