The Woolly Patchwork Sheep Sanctuary

Bleatings from The Woolly Patchwork Sheep Sanctuary

Welcome to the latest issue of Bleatings.

After our last newsletter in February, the rain and mud continued. It felt like the longest Winter ever and I started to wonder if we would ever see dry weather again. It was so cold as well. We enjoyed a brief respite at the end of February when the sun put in a half hearted appearance for a couple of days and then normal, wet service resumed. March roared in like a lion, with snow, hail and rain. Amazingly we then had a lovely dry week with beautiful blue skies, even the mud started to dry up a little bit. Our spirits were lifted. Of course it didn’t last. At the end of March we woke up to 3″ of snow!! Fortunately that only lasted for a day.

Normally i would hope to have the younger flock turned out to grass 24/7 towards the end of March, but this year they were in at nights until the middle of April thanks to Storm Kathleen and Storm Pierrick both hitting us in the space of 48 hours, bringing heavy rain and gales. Once again we were under water.

March is booster vaccination month for the flock, where they all have their annual clostridial vaccination. I’m sure the sheep are less than impressed about having a quick, painless jab under the skin to keep them safe from clostridial diseases. I’m glad i’m on the giving end of the needle rather than the receiving end!!

The beginning of April saw the very sad departure of our darling little Midge. She had been a bit off colour in early March, although it was nothing that the vet could put his finger on. She had a course of antibiotics and pain relief/anti inflammatories as a precaution and she seemed to pick up, but sadly relapsed at the end of March. She was diagnosed with Texel throat, a chronic laryngitis that Texels can be particularly prone to. Despite an aggressive course of strong antibiotics and steroids she didn’t respond to treatment. She lost her appetite and desire to carry on and i had to take the very sad decision to let her go before she started to suffer. Even if she had responded to the treatment, it would have only been a very temporary measure as Texel throat always comes back and is fatal. Accepting that sometimes we can do no more kindness than letting an animal go is indeed one of the hardest things despite it’s rightness.

Midge came to the Sanctuary as a day old lamb in 2015 suffering with entropian and ulcerated eyes. Following veterinary treatment she recovered fully and led a trouble free life until she was struck down with the Texel throat. She was the dearest little ewe who just lived to eat, she never stopped to draw breath. She passed peacefully over the Rainbow Bridge on 3rd April with me beside her, holding her. Gone far too soon but never forgotten.

Finally toward the end of April, the main flock were all out to grass day and night. Shed cleaning started then. The big sheep shed which is bedded down with deep straw in the Winter, all has to be dug out and the floor scraped and cleaned. The soiled straw is spread on the fields to fertilise the grass growth. All of this is done by hand so it’s quite labour intensive but a good workout to keep fit!!

Once the shed is clean, the race is then set up in preparation for dagging and foot trimming prior to shearing in June.

In amongst shed cleaning i was also waiting for the ground to dry up enough to get the chain harrow out to do a bit of field repair where the ground had got very poached over Winter. I did manage a couple of days harrowing before it actually dried too much. So then i’m wishing for a little shower just to soften the ground a bit, but oh no, it rained again for days and everywhere went very sticky underfoot again. It did get done eventually!!!

The second week of May saw some lovely dry, warm Spring weather. Over the course of 2 days the flock came into the shed for a foot trim and dagging. I have a set of battery shears which soon whizz through the job of tidying and cleaning tails.

Dagging is removing any soiled fleece around the sheeps rear end and tail. Fortunately the flock are always pretty clean. Dagging makes shearing day so much easier and more pleasant for our shearer. All he has to do is shear the main body of the sheep and not worry about tails or any claggy or uriney bits!! It’s also much easier for me when i come to wrap the wool after it’s sheared as there’s no messy bits to pull off. It also prevents the sheep being pestered by flies once the weather dries up and heats up. A dirty bottom on a sheep will be a magnet to a fly to lay eggs on, which will rapidly develop into maggots which can eat into a sheep in a matter of 3 or 4 days, so that’s something i’m always very keen to avoid.

Poor old Denis has been somewhat unwell of late. He suffered with a respiratory infection in the second week of May. He must have felt pretty off colour as he stopped eating which was very worrying in itself. The infection was successfully treated and he regained his appetite but then he seemed to develop some kind of allergy and became very puffy and itchy all around his eyes, which lead to him rubbing his face and head and then he rubbed a sore patch on top of his head. He’s had antibiotics and penicillin along with a course of steroids and he is steadily improving day by day. He (and I) are totally covered in sudocrem each day which has softened the awful scabbiness you can see around his face and eyes and he has microbial eye drops twice daily to prevent any soreness to his eyes. The pictures show him at his worst and how he is today with a lot of healing having taken place.

Thank you to all who support the Sanctuary through donations, sponsorships, Amazon wishlist gifts and easyfundraising. I really appreciate all you do to help me run the Sanctuary and care for these wonderful animals.

If you would like to join our sheep sponsorship scheme, pop over to the website and click on Adopt a sheep which will take you to the page with all the gorgeous woolies looking for a friend. http://www.woollypatchworksheepsanctuary.uk

If you shop online you can sign up to easyfundraising. It costs nothing to use but raises quite a few pounds for the sanctuary over the year. We’ve just had a quarterly payment of a fantastic £46.66. http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/thewoollypatchworksheepsanctuary/?utm_campaign=raise-more

The link to our Amazon wishlist is http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/20FEIF88VWC3B and the sheep are always grateful of any gifts received.

Shearing will be our next job and we are just waiting for the weather to settle and then we can get those Winter woolies off and the flock can go out and relax in what we hope will be a lovely warm and settled Summer. I think we all deserve that after 18 months of rain!!!!

Thank you all for your continued care and support.

With much love

Caroline & The Baa’s