Lost Loki

I saw him standing still a little too much over the last few days. By the time I got Matt to help me catch him (he's over 100 pounds I'm sure) I saw his gums were white ans swollen. I wormed him and treated him with Vit. B, selenium, and Nutra-drench for a couple of days hoping that would bring him around. Yesterday Matt saw him getting up to drink twice. I called the vet to find out what he might need and they said keep up the B complex. Picked it up after work and rushed home. There he was lying dead on the barn floor. It's bad enough to lose little ones but when you lose the big lambs who are turning out to be so handsome and spectacular it's worse. Loki is the son of Othello, my rescued Morehouse Merino ram and a lovely high percentage BFL black ewe. I still have Nicholas, another Merino/BFL ram lamb but I like Loki better as he was more Merino with a very dense, fine fleece and had more of Merino face. I'm kicking myself for not getting a shearing going sooner. Jim couldn't come the day I tried for, then school started with shows, etc. Loki would have been wormed sooner and might have lived, if that's what killed him. I thought about clipping his hair but now, a day later, he's very stinky and I would have to wear a mask. If I had a better knife I would try to cut him up for the dogs, but he's too big for me to drag outside and I don't want to do it in the barn where the sheep sleep. All that gorgeous Merino wool wasted. That's farming...gloriously wonderful at times and other times it just rips your guts out. Luckily I've only lost one other animal this summer and that was my cute little Hecky to meningeal worm. Not bad compared to what I've heard from others, but both deaths might have been avoided by better management on my part.