catchall for birthing issues
If dipping navels and trimming hoofs are the spinach and carrots of shepherding Soay sheep (as in, “eat your vegetables, dear”), the choice of a naming theme for our Soay is the dessert cart. Naming themes are about as close as most Soay shepherds get to unmitigated frivolity. They are fun to come up with, fun […]
For generations before the internet replaced paper, boys happily frittered away countless hours on baseball cards, memorizing statistics and honing their negotiation skills. At the same time, if they were lucky, they were introduced by their grandfathers, as Steve was, to the insanely arcane world of scorecards, meticulously recording the details of a game with their stubby […]
Will Rogers once said, “The best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can’t ask his patients what is the matter–he’s got to just know.” Will Rogers was right, but his vet almost certainly relied on a good thermometer as a substitute for a patient interview. When we have a listless lamb, one who is not up […]
Dousing a newborn lamb’s umbilical cord in iodine as soon as possible after birth is an inexpensive way to guard against infection. After a few weeks when our lambs go back out into the pasture, they have to fend for themselves as far as scrapes and cuts go; it is not cost-effective to treat them […]
When I looked at the first draft of this post I nearly cancelled the whole blog in despair. Nitrile gloves — now there’s a headline grabber. If I did not lose you to generalized boredom, I was sure to lose you to a bad case of MEGO. Then I remembered the “dance” I describe here, the task where the […]
Anticipation, excitement, and a certain tension are in the air – a sure sign it is almost time for lambing to begin. When we start getting edgy about all we have left to do before the first lamb appears, one of us inevitably asks how we are doing on supplies and equipment. On a rainy […]