“His ears are kinda droopy, and he stands away from the group, even sits down more often, . . . ” I recounted to Martha Pisano of Highland Farm last week. Being a newcomer to sheep shepherding, physical signs are somewhat mysterious. But knowing the woman who sold the lambies to me is an incredible card to hold in one’s back pocket, especially if she is as willing as Martha to coddle me through nervous uncertainty.
“Why don’t you just bring him back here so we can all take a look?” she assessed. My sigh of relief swept Lamb #26 directly into a fleece blanket (ha), onto Michael’s lap and back into our livestock transport vehicle of choice, the Prius. Once in Martha’s kitchen, Chop 26 set about dirtying her floor with various bowel movements. Husband Jerry gathered some up to swirl with distilled water before setting a drop underneath a microscope. We all zoomed in on what appeared to be worm eggs . . . 
Parasites are likely to accompany livestock. And after a round of de-worming it becomes necessary to move the critters away from the area of their defecation, so as not to mire them in their own problems. I syringed them some de-wormer a day or so ago, and accounting for the 72 hours or so that such stuff takes to pass through the system, today I moved the electric fencing. In a relatively quick 20 minutes, the lamb chops were relocated to a new part of the field; next I’ll move them daily, pivoting around the solar charger and grounding rod. Moving just the fence takes me five minutes.
Long term plans include building (finding?) a chicken tractor to follow the lambs. Putting the chickens on the land portion dis-occupied by the lambs give the birds a chance to eat all the bugs, thus reducing the parasite load on the field. A much better option in my mind than ‘killing’ the field with chemicals.
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