[desertmum]

No, not a rosette!  One of our lambs had scours so we took a sample to the vet - she has worms.  So yesterday we wormed all four of them.  They seem none to worried about the process.  They survived (so far!) and we survived - a good result all round.

We are like first time parents - constantly checking on them     Horses, chickens, dogs and cats we are confident with - sheep are a whole new ballgame for us.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

Its really good what you're doing, I'm like that with the buffalo and buffalo calves, plus the rest of the animals too. They are in a sense a part of the family and you have to take care of them as if they were your family, this is what my dad and mum have drummed into us all I'm glad they are ok, there can be a problem if you worm a sheep too late, it depends on the damage done to the insides of the animal which can be crucial.

[desertmum]

Glad to know we are not the only ones! 

[SallyintNorth]

Good shepherds spend time with their flock, just being with them and quietly observing.  Sheep being prey animals, they're very good at hiding symptoms.  So you have to know them well enough to know what's normal, so you can pick up on not normal.

One of my examples is Mildred.  To someone who didn't know her, she'd have looked like all the other sheep that night.  To me, Mildred not mobbing the quad bike and running alongside with her head inside the sack being first at the cake was not normal.  So I went back to check her later, and sure enough, she was down.  Calcium and vitamins, and she was up and running within 20 minutes.  If I hadn't known that behaving like all the other sheep wasn't normal for Mildred, she'd have been dead by the following morning.

[Marches Farmer]

The more time you spend looking at them the quicker you'll pick up the small signs of things like flystrike in particular.  Could just be a small shake of the head or a tiny, quick movement that alerts you.