More Worries

Something weird is going on in my sheep flock, and it has me worried.

Yesterday I discovered that my superstar worm-resistant ram Nicholai has a mild case of bottle jaw. This is an edema that forms underneath the jaw, usually a sign of anemia caused by a worm overload. Since Nicholai has been so worm resistant that he has not needed ANY worming for the past two years, this came as something of a shock to me.

Usually, before the condition gets that serious, you can see other signs: weight loss, paleness of the inner eyelids, apathy. But Nicholai is at a very robust, healthy weight. His eyelids, though paler than his usual bright pink, are not desperately pale. And until yesterday, he acted as if he was in perfect health... then BOOM! Apathy and bottle jaw.

The only thing that has changed for him recently is that he and his sons were separated from the ewes and put into the ram pen to wait for breeding season. The lambs are acting a little apathetic too. Is there something wrong with the ram pen?

Could there be some toxic weed that is making them ill? Unfortunately, there are plenty of weeds on the farm, many of them toxic. But the sheep tend to avoid those, and anyway, I've never heard of weed poisoning mimicking worm anemia before.

Anyway, I wormed all the rams and gave selenium boosters yesterday, but have not seen any improvement yet. I don't even know for sure it's a worm issue. It could be a mineral imbalance, even a copper deficiency (contrary to what most shepherds are taught about copper being highly toxic to sheep, Icelandics seem to need more copper than most other breeds).

The other sheep have been responding differently this year as well, and I have not been able to pinpoint exactly what the pattern is.

One ewe that I KNOW (from past years) has poor worm resistance has done fine all year. Some sheep that had worm problems responded instantly to the vitamin drench I gave them. Another hasn't responded to any treatment I've given her, but despite a persistent case of bottle jaw, doesn't seem to get any worse.

Both the wormers I've used this year seem to work for us, but I started getting worried about one of them when I noticed that every time I used it, exactly one week later, one or two members of my flock would get a wool break. I can't say for sure that this was the cause, but it happened every time I used that wormer and not when I used the other. Strange!

Part of the problem has been that with so many horses taking over all our pastures this year, I have not been able to rotate the sheep pastures as I would have liked.

It is SO frustrating. I know the right thing to do is to decrease my horse herd. Okay, fine. Most of them are now for sale. Even ones that I don't really want to part with. Because I know it's the right choice for the farm.

But then they don't sell! It's agonizing.

Imagine you're running a big corporation. Markets change, and it becomes clear that you need to downsize one whole division of your company. So, you make the painful choice as to which employees you have to fire. Pink slips for everybody!

But wait! That doesn't solve your problem because, unlike a normal corporation, you're running a horse farm, which means you still have to keep paying all those fired employees' salaries and health benefits, and provide them with office space until they find a new job, which in some cases could take months or even years.

It's just the worst of both worlds. I feel sad because I have to sell the horses, but then they don't sell. I can't enjoy them fully while they're here, because they cost too much to feed and we're worrying about money constantly. If I lower their prices to try to sell them faster, am I losing more money than if I waited and paid to feed them another few months? Who knows?

And meanwhile, the sheep are getting the brunt of things because the horses are so much more demanding: more feed, more care, more pasture required.

Yes, some of this is my own fault for expanding the horse side of the farm too quickly. But I really thought I would have sold at least half of my sales list by now. These are really nice quality animals, but the market sucks right now. It just eats me up inside to be able to SEE my mistake, and be trying to fix it, but not be able to.

Ah well. I need to just give it more time, I guess. We'll get through this. We have to. The horses will sell eventually, and the sheep will regain their fair share of the farm facilities.

And presumably, I will have learned some valuable lessons in the meantime. I'm certainly doing my best.