Another sheep tip...that may seem familiar if you have a dog.
All the Punkin's Patch sheep stay here for their entire lives. Old age for a sheep starts around 10ish. Smaller sheep can live longer, like smaller dogs, but they all face many of the same old age maladies as old people, dogs, horses...
One of our oldest sheep right now is Krista, who is probably 14. She's gotten pretty arthritic and is now on a daily dose of meloxicam. She comes out to get a little breakfast with three other old sheep each morning, but instead of trying to keep her breakfast, with her dose of ground meloxicam mixed in, separate from the others, I just make her a little jelly sandwich ;-).
While this looks like burnt toast for some reason, it's actually just one slice of whole wheat bread (to make it healthy ;-) with a spoonful of grape jelly smeared all over and the ground meloxicam sprinkled on top. Fold and go.
Going...
Gone...to Bea's dismay.
What makes this nice is that I don't have to stress her (and me) by catching her every morning to stick a pill down her throat. She comes running for her "treat" and I come out looking like Mary Poppins ;-).
To prep your sheep to take medicines like this, start by having some plain bread parties. Sheep love bread once they figure it out. You may want to do a practice run with the jelly too in case of any super suspicious characters.
Feeding medicine "treats" is a great way to handle many situations with sheep, but you still need to get comfortable giving shots and oral drenches when needed.
And remember, I am not a vet. You should always run something you read on the internet by your vet first...but I'm pretty sure if you ask a vet about this, they will probably tell you not to feed your sheep jelly sandwiches ;-D.
4 comments:
You are so smart! A great idea!
I might have to try this! My sheep have never had bread, but I suspect they'd like it. No one here over nine years old at the moment....
What a great way to administer the meds!
But of course!
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