Livestock woes.

I got a frantic call from my sister this morning where she said that she needed me right away (Kyle is away driving the Azure route) so I rushed over to find that one of the sheep had gotten caught in the fence, which wouldn't be too big of a deal but in this case the dog had decided that this was a great opportunity for a free meal and helped herself to the entire back leg of the sheep. I suppose it was a shocking thing for the girls to come into the barn and see the sight of a sheep with nothing but a licked clean bone for a back leg. This was the worst I had ever seen, from the hock to the spine was completely eaten down to the bone, she was very much alive so I got the gun from the pickup and ended what must have been absolute misery. I've spent the rest of the morning butchering that sheep while Jenifer doctored the other sheep that had it's back leg severely torn up but is well enough to recover. She packed the wound/ripped muscles and tendons etc. with a paste of slippery elm, golden seal, onion, marshmallow and usnea tincture and gave her a 3cc sub Q dose of penicillin (probably the only "regular" medical thing we ever use) after bandaging that all together the sheep seems to be able to get around ok, though she can't use that leg at all yet. I am glad it is still cold out so there is less risk of infection and no flies!
The dog has eaten her way right into a one way ticket to total confinement, or very possibly a bullet, since a sheep eating dog on a sheep farm is a very bad combination. I guess Kyle will decide her fate when he gets home. It's a tough thing because we have seen and heard more coyotes this winter than every other winter combined, and have seen several wolves even, so a good guard dog is important. Last week a rather large wolf traipsed across the field just a few hundred yards south of the sheep pen here right in broad daylight. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. A few days after that there was a large group of coyotes fighting over something in the trees across the field from my barn, they were so loud about it that I could hear them in the house! All I usually hear at home is the owls in the woods and a train in the distance so the snarls and yelps were kind of shocking.
While I was butchering and Jenifer was doctoring we were commenting to each other how much we appreciated our mother making sure we knew how to do these kinds of things, for us it's just all in a day's work but it could very easily be something completely foreign to us. Many people would just call the vet but what about the huge bill afterward? or if there is no vet, or no phone with which to call the vet? Or how about when the vet's are required to report those who have not complied with the NAIS requirements? Speaking of that, I was at my neighbors the other day and he had the TV going, some news channel I guess. I was walking past on my way out the door when I overheard some politician in a discussion with some other nuts in government say that the voluntary NAIS was not being as effective as planned (what a surprise) and something would have to be done immediately to "protect the food supply" (again, what a surprise) At that point I had to leave (was in a hurry) so I missed what might have been an interesting segment of the news. I wish I could have seen the whole thing.