The Perils of Dry Weather

We have not had any measurable wet stuff of any persuasion in the past month-ish or so. And for November in this part of the world, it’s unseasonably warm with our days staying mainly in the high 50’s to low 60’s.

Not only is this increasing our fire danger severely, it also allows the bark beetles to get into the pine trees and start to kill them off.

It affects the sheep as well.

And we had a thing happen because of how dry it is.

We have a broken hoof.

Mr Rudah busted the side wall of his hoof all the way up to the hair line on his leg.

Sheep hooves are made of the same thing as your finger and toe nails are. I suspect many of you know how it feels to bust one of them in a bad way. I bet it makes you say bad words! I know it makes me do that.

The hoof consists of 3 bones and a wall that surrounds them. So a wall crack can expose that bone and surrounding soft tissue to bacteria and then you end up with a massive infection

Mr Rudah is one of my bigger wethers . He is also Leo’s full brother. He is also the butthead that took me for a drag down the hill and busted two of my fingers which are now permanently deformed.

Anyhow…I saw him limping and being the turd he is, would not let me get a hold of him for a closer look. I was able to see the crack anyway. I have no idea what he did. He was fine when I turned everyone out in the morning and by noon he was gimped up. I got him lured into the barn with some grain, and where he would not have to travel far for food and water.

This morning Michael and I got him caught and doctored up.

He was not amused to say the least.

He did actually behave better than I anticipated with this process.

Got the supplies ready first. Gauze pads with a generous glop of bag balm on it, a roll of dressing, and the obligatory vet wrap and hydrogen peroxide.

Isn’t that a pretty crack? I gave him a dousing with hydrogen peroxide first. I used that because I knew rubbing alcohol would burn and make him freak out on us

First wrap and padding to take some of the pressure off that one toe. You can’t see that the other toe has more padding so the busted toe stays off the ground more.

Pretty green vet wrap to keep it all together and add more padding to the bottom.

All done for now. He was convinced we were trying to remove his foot at first and shook it around doing the Hokey Pokey to get it gone. He did settle and is now walking without a limp.

We will change it again in about a week and probably have to keep this up for several more until it either falls off and has new growth or it mends back together on its own. He will stay in the barn for the duration and keep Tally company.

Again, he is not amused with all of this.

Keep your fingers crossed we get some moisture soon, or we will be dealing with more busted feeties!!

Blessed Be!