Warning for description and a not-very-graphic picture of sheep injury.
Today the boys started beating up Bran, and since I still haven’t gotten a verdict on what was wrong with Johnny I am paranoid, so I tried to separate Bran from the others.
Just because I haven’t had enough catastrophes lately, while trying to squeeze through the gate Bran caught his skin on on the edge of a fence panel I didn’t know had a sharp place and gave himself a big gash all the way down his shoulder. So for the second time in two weeks we had to wrestle a very large sheep (by my standards) in the back of a very small car and haul it to the emergency vet. Bran did not like any part of this process.
A very exciting ride, a bunch of shots, and what felt like approximately a million stitches later, he is back home and sharing the “quarantine” pen with his sire Liam, who is too polite (and too arthritic) to beat anyone up. The vet says it was very clean and didn’t puncture anything important, just torn skin, so he should be fine.
“Like they say, nice guys finish as Designated Quarantine Buddy every time somebody gets hurt. Or something like that.”
Liam was compensated in crunchies for his babysitting service and I think he forgave me.
Bran kinda hates me a lot right now though. Wouldn’t even eat crunchies unless I threw them over to him.
“I’m not letting you within ten feet of me for love nor crunchies, you’re not taking me to that awful TortureJailPlace again!”
Poor guy. I’m going to leave him with Liam for a week or two and then move him over with the girls and see how he gets along there once the skin heals up. At this rate I’m going to end up moving the whole boys group over one by one, which at some point will defeat the purpose. Maybe I will just glue foam padding to their heads or something.
“I get no attention or love or treats at all, I have to make do with just stolen hay!”
Between shearing the fluffiest ones on weekends, Jeb still having to have the hole in his broken horn fly-sprayed every few days, Nova needing supplements in the morning to help her keep weight on, Johnny’s mysterious illness, and now Bran’s injury, Mira says (loudly and frequently) that there is entirely too much attention being paid to sheep-that-are-not-her lately. But all the doctoring has been giving her lots of time to steal hay from the barn (superior to hay in the hay rack, and apparently even better than fresh spring grass??) so I say she’s still coming out ahead on the deal.