The Woolly Homestead: Livestock Loss

Update: After meeting with a vet we are 99% sure this was tetanus. Sprinkles arrived to our farm after we normally vaccinate our sheep for it and she didn't receive her CDT shot. We try to keep records for all of our sheep and keep everyone up to date but she fell through the cracks. I feel awful knowing we probably could have prevented this but mistakes will always happen. All we can do is learn from them.

I love the path we have chosen. I love our animals, garden, and even the chores. And while everything is great most of the time there are some moments where I really question what we are doing here.

Last week was one of those moments.

It started out on Monday with us losing, Sprinkles, one of our dairy ewes.

That was really hard. We realized on Saturday that she wasn't acting herself. From her symptoms it looked like she had bloat. We treated her for that but it didn't work. We tried other treatments on Sunday and by Monday we were treating her for every illness she could possible have. But she just kept fading. Then on Monday evening she passed away.

I cried, my husband cried. We had tried so hard to save her and nothing worked. This was the first time we lost a sheep that was supposed to be a keeper.

Looking back we are now seeing things that should have tipped us off sooner. We think that she may have had mastitis for awhile and then having bloat tipped her over the edge. We learned a lot of lessons through this experience, I just wish it wasn't at the expense of an animals life.

Unfortunately, with livestock in particular, that is the way a lot of lessons are learned. Most of us homesteaders didn't grow up with this lifestyle. We are learning as we go.

Sometimes the lessons are hard, but it means we can do better next time.

It stinks that we lose animals sometimes. But I feel a little bit better knowing that I did my best and these animals were raised with love and compassion.