Tandem Collies

My younger border collie, Maggie, is still struggling with pain issues after days when she has a lot of exercise. Adequan and Duralactin are helping, but not solving the problem. I tried giving her buffered aspirin on working days, that also helped, but still not entirely. The vet has given me some NSAIDs to use on the days where she exercises really hard, which is usually about once a week for sheep chores. I’m just starting to try those now, and am finding that giving her one in the morning before she works seems to make the evening much better for her. But the next morning she is still very stiff and sore.

The other thing I’m trying out is having Gene, my older border collie, help out with sheep chores, so that Maggie doesn’t have to work so hard. There are some pro’s and con’s to  using two dogs at once. 

 

Cornell on Low Input Systems

I ran across this recent publication Low Input Lambing and Kidding, by Cornell University and found it to be really refreshing reading. It had my keen interest from the introductory paragraph describing one impetus for the study:

During a recent sabbatical in New Zealand, Dr. Michael Thonney, who is director of the Cornell Sheep Program, had been intrigued by the relaxed attitude lambing of New Zealand pasture based farmers toward lambing.

It goes on to say that their Extension program gets a lot of inquires from experienced sheep and goat farmers who are not seeking help with the day-to-day basics of small ruminant husbandry, but rather, how to make it be less labor-intensive. This white paper is an attempt to offer advice on that subject, based on a small study.

 

In the Numbers

Here are my lamb counts for the year. I had forty ewes overwintered here. One was a late summer-born ewe, so I suspected she may not breed, and she didn’t. That’s ok. Of the remaining 39, six are not pregnant, as confirmed by recent blood tests. Five of those are ewelambs. The sixth is my Jacob cross ewe, who is two; I don’t know why she didn’t conceive. So, she will have to go this year.

 

Frothy Bloat in Grazing Lambs

I’ve had several cases of frothy bloat crop up this year. The interesting thing is that it’s appearing in regular ol’ lambs nursing on their mothers, at the age of 3-4 weeks, when they are just starting to transition to real ruminating. I’m used to seeing it in bottle lambs trained to drink of the “milk bar” bucket. They are prone to bloat because of their gorging habit when the bucket is re-filled  with milk. But I’ve never seen it before in regular, non-grain-fed lambs, and I can’t find any documentation to explain it.

 

Ordinary, Yet Noteworthy Number Seven

I like to write a lot about strange cases, anomalies, and sick animals. Though they are the biggest headache, I also find them the most intriguing. Today I will write about one of the rest: all of the perfectly normal, perfectly boring sheep which are noteworthy for capturing none of my attention at all.