Posted: Saturday 14 June, 2008
Since we got the sheep in September, I've been waiting for something to go wrong. And this week it did. I had been meaning to get some "Crovect" to treat ectoparasite - flies, ticks, lice etc. but just hadn't got round to it. On Wednesday, Jura was fine - in Thursday, she was obviously distressed, wet backend, not eating, kicking at herself. Even without examining her, I was pretty sure that it would be fly strike so Dan went off to get "Crovect" and four 6 foot sheep hurdles.
After work, we caught the three sheep. Jura's the least tame but they all get anxious if Dan and I go into the field - they're fine if we go alone! We trimmed Jinx and Juno's feet (Jinx's grow much faster than the other two) and sprayed them with "Crovect". Then it was Jura's turn. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I expected - the maggots were numerous but small (I had endured some remarks about "bush tucker" from my boss earlier in the day), so I cut away as much fleece as I could and sprayed the area with "Crovect". Fortunately, her skin seemed to be undamaged. When we let them out, she immediately started grazing and looked much easier. A check today showed that all the maggots were dead - so we applied "Maggot Oil" to sooth the skin and prevent further problems. She now looks fine and is eating and cudding normally.
Hopefully, they will be shorn next weekend - we've had a real problem getting anyone to do this. In fact, last week, even before the fly strike, I was wondering if we should sell them but no decsion has been taken meantime.
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