Ounce of Prevention

Yesterday I travelled from Portland back to the ranch in Nehalem with Sage and Brian, who had appointments in town. When I arrived here I was unmotivated to work, but so many lambs have been born that we are backlogged and had to dive right in to doing nuts, tails, and tags. On the subject of castrating, you may or may not know that the most common current practice is to snug a rubber band, called an elastrator, around the nutsack, using a stainless steel caliper. After a few days the nuts just drop off, and an open wound is less likely to develop. So it seems less torturous. As Brian said, "I'd hate to go back to the days when they were biting them off."

While I was absent, an odd medical condition led to a change in the regimen for newborns. Apparently the lamb known as Ann Bronte was suffering from rickets, but recovered with vitamin A/D treatment, so now it's a standard preventative treatment for new lambs in the form of a subcutaneous injection. If you're like me, you probably thought that rickets went out with English buccaneers in the 18th century. But no, a trio of factors - the lack of sun here on the Oregon coast, the leaching effect of grass (?), and the impenetrability of mothers' wool to what dim light is available - make young sheep susceptible to D deficiency and thus rickets.