We lost Cindy this week. It isn't the way I wanted her to go. The irony, is that I had planned for her to go this year. I wrote about this already. She was one of our oldest sheep (and possibly older than I thought she was, as I may have been lied to when I bought her). She struggled with her pregnancy this year, and we needed to help make sure she had enough vitamins to support her. That was when I decided not to let her get pregnant again and let her go to her final rest. I was planning on it this summer, making sure her lamb was old enough to thrive without her.
Then a freak winter storm hit in May. I know this seems ridiculous, as they survive just fine all winter long through snow and wind. But this one started as pouring rain, then became snow and a bit of hail. It was warmish, barely below freezing. This meant it was WET. Heavy and wet. Their corral area became a SWAMP. The pasture had standing water in it. They could NOT get dry.
Being May, I had no winter hay left to put in the barn for them to stay inside and eat, like I do on rough winter days. These guys had to go out to eat. And they got soaked to the bone.
Cindy and Margaery didn't handle it well. I was giving them extra electrolytes and vitamins to help them push through it. And then Cindy slipped and fell. It was overnight, the area near the barn was pure mud from the unending rain and snow. She tried to stand up to go sleep elsewhere and she slipped in the mud. Her rear legs went out straight behind her. She was basically in a superman pose in the mud. Her nose was on the ground, possibly aspirating water.
As soon as we found her, we moved her someplace dry, and covered her in blankets. I proceeded with the electrolytes and vitamins, slowly throughout the whole day. She was unable to sit up and certainly unable to stand. She was hypothermic, and possibly prone to pneumonia.
She also had bad diarrhea. So, trying to get a jump on fixing her up, I gave her medicine for coccidiosis. I also gave her some antibiotics for the pneumonia. What we didn't know at this point was if she was injured. We needed to get her strong so she could try to stand.
We moved her into an area inside the barn where she would be out of the rain, as it kept raining intermittently all week. By the end of Sunday, the shivering was gone. Her eyes were looking brighter. By Tuesday, she could sit up on her own, and was eating some grass, but just not much. Sheep don't eat laying down, they need to stand, and she just couldn't. We kept trying to get her to stand. This is when we started to realize her rear leg may have gotten injured.
We kept up with the electrolytes and added raw milk to her twice daily liquids intake. We kept trying to get her to stand, but one front leg was swollen, and she had no control over one rear leg.
Then I came home, and found flies all over her leg, laying eggs. Yes, gross. This was a sign to me that there was some necrosis in her leg. Flies don't just lay eggs on critters, or all my sheep would have this over night. Something was wrong. I cleaned and disinfected the leg, but her hair and skin were coming off with it. Her upper leg was very swollen, and her hoof was cold. Something was really wrong.
She was, however, gaining strength. I gave some more antibiotics, in case there was infection in the leg. She was trying super hard to stand. But she could not balance. Her front hoof hurt too much, and her back leg was dying. Sheep can't survive if they can't stand to eat. I couldn't bear to keep her alone in the barn, laying by herself. We called the vet out to put her out of her misery. This is not how I wanted to say goodbye. This is not how I wanted to lose her. She made so much progress. If only she hadn't slipped that night, I could have brought her back from the hypothermia and pneumonia. I can not fix gangrene. I am so sorry her life ended this way. She was a sweet old girl. There is something special about an older ewe. They are so much calmer than their younger cousins. I'll miss her. And we've learned to keep hay on hand year round, so she wouldn't have had to go out in the rain to eat during that terrible storm.