Here are two old farmer sayings about sheep:
-A sick sheep is a dead sheep.
-A sheep is an animal looking for a place to die.
Those are of course, exagerations, as I’ve found sheep pretty resilient, but it is an indicator that they mask illness pretty well so sometimes by the time you figure out they are sick they are dying or already dead.
I experienced this a month or so ago when I found my young ram flat on his side lying in the mud one cold morning. I wasn’t sure if he was injured or what was wrong with him but brought him in the barn to warm up and dry off. I could feel his ribs under his wool coat I so I know immediately he was in poor body condition. He perked up a bit and I kept him in the pen by himself so I could give him extra feed and care. He remained slow and lethargic over the next couple weeks so I had a friend with a microscope conduct a fecal exam. She reported back that he had roundworms which explained his low energy and stool matted to his back end. I treated him with deworming medicine and hoped that the warmer weather and new green grass would further revive him. His feces looked normal again after a week and he went out to graze with the ewe with the twin lambs and an old ewe that needed extra nutrition, but was still pretty slow getting around.
I thought he was slowly improving but he seemed to regress the last couple days. He hadn’t put on much weight and was still lethargic, and very gentle and complacent with me; even friendly. Perhaps due partly to his weakened state he followed slowly behind me when I led him to green grass or back to the barn, his long dark Heritage Suffolk ears drooping like mature pole beans.
There is a strange dichotomy with farm animals that are being raised for food. You do everything you can to keep the animal stress-free and comfortable and then you have it killed. Of course that is why we have them exist in the first place. I see it as the farmer’s duty to respect that animal’s life throughout.
We don’t name the animals that will be used for meat but since I expected this ram to be around awhile as breeding stock and his friendliness I considered giving him a name. My dad always named the herd bulls on our farm in MN after the person we had purchased them from; so we had George, and Larry, and so on. But I had bought this ram from a farmer named Anne and that wasn’t going to work. So with his passive and amenable good nature I decided that, if he pulled through this, I was going to call him “Pal”.
He started to regress, though. The green grass didn’t help as he barely nibbled at it, obviously getting weaker. I had to help him stand up on Thursday afternoon and again yesterday when I gave him water and an energy drink with a large syringe to keep him hydrated. I even gave him some antibiotics in case there was some hidden bacterial infection dragging him down. I knew that evening was going to make it or break it for him.
I slept poorly last night, worried, and got up early this morning to check on him. My heart fell when I got to his pen and saw any chance of saving him was over. I blamed myself, crushed. I should have noticed him getting skinny sooner, maybe given him a second dose of wormer, and although his wool was rough looking and he was in a warm barn perhaps shearing him with the other sheep had been a bad decision and added too much stress for him. Farm animals rely on us for food, water, shelter, everything. Their health is our responsibility and I’d failed this one.
Head down and shoulders slumped, I methodically headed to the outbarn to start chores. As I walked by the pen where the rest of the sheep were I saw Ally gazing intently in the walk-in shelter area under the barn and, as my eyes scanned in the early morning light I saw the wriggling of a small white object contrasting sharply with the black sheep behind it. Stirred to attention, I know immediately what it was. A newborn lamb, still glistening wet from the womb. Pal’s offspring. The black ewe was only a year old so this was her first lamb. She’d be nervous and I’d need to separate her from the other sheep to help her bond with her lamb, dip the baby’s navel in iodine to prevent infection, and make sure the mother had milk and that the baby nursed. There would be time to grieve the loss of the ram later, but right now I had purpose to attend to. The responsibility of this newborn and her anxious mother. A chance to learn from mistakes and make better decisions.
The cycle of life. It was only a ram; it was only a lamb; only a chilly barn swallow; only a horse, only an old woman in a nursing home with Covid-19. All God’s creatures. Lives that call for being treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.
Have a blessed sabbath tomorrow.
This morning’s new life:
