Life and death on the farm are in the details. The shape of a lamb. Remembering that the ewe that didn’t stand up last time is the same as the one still lying down this time. Is a lamb lukewarm or warm.In feeling which way the curve of it’s belly lies. Empty or full. In noticing that a hurdle is the wrong way round. In remembering which willow tree is in leaf and which isn’t. In having neighbours that are good.
Our second last ewe to lamb was in trouble.
I checked the stables where we housed the remainder of the flock two nights ago. The first ewe at the door, in a pen hard up against the goats, was lying down. It was close on midnight. I roused the remainder of the lambs and ewes, checked for full bellies and empty feed buckets, topped up water and fed the cosset lambs their late night feed. She still hadn’t stirred. I felt her lambs. Lukewarm and empty bellied. She wasn’t feeding them. I tugged her gently up, two arms under her to set her to stand. She couldn’t. Her front legs buckled and folded under her. She tried herself to get up, lambs nudging and nickering for milk. She fell again.
Time was short. I checked symptoms. Toxaemia or Milk Sickness. One probably fatal. One possibly fatal. Toxaemia is hard. It’s a glucose imbalance. Under or overweight pregnant ewes can come down with it. And it’s probably fatal. Milk sickness is a calcium deficiency. Fatal in 6 to 24 hours if not treated in time. But very treatable if caught.
I rang round the neighbours while cooking up milk bottles for her two lambs. If she can’t feed, I’ll have to. I reran her last month in my head. Poor grazing. Possibly bullied off the feed trough a little. But not enough for toxaemia. Her condition was ok when last checked. I ran out and checked. Her feed bucket and hay feeder full, her water bucket untouched. She is low on nutrition. But it’s a sudden break. Probably not a long term issue. Probably not toxaemia.
Sounds like milk fever. Please be milk fever. Milk fever, milk fever…Milk fever I can treat.
One neighbour had what I needed. A syringe, injectable calcium and glucose. I called to his door late at night. He answered with care , medicine, and welcome advice.
I mixed the glucose into a five litre water bottle. It looked like off-brand lucozade. Fed her 300 ml and injected her with calcium. The diagnosis for milk fever is treatment. If she recovers within 30 minutes of injection, it’s milk fever. And she will be ok. If not, it’s toxaemia. And she probably won’t.
This is as serious as it gets in my farming. It’s one in the morning. I’m on my own with her, with the decision, with the diagnosis, and with the whole deal. If I mess it up I have two orphan lambs. If it’s milk fever and I mess up the treatment she’ll be gone within the day. Possibly by morning. I feed the lambs while I wait. I feed her more glucose. She laps it up. I have 55ml of calcium.I’ve used twenty. After a quarter of an hour, I pick her up. She can’t stand. But it seems…closer. I inject her again. 20 mls. And I run down the driveway to a copse of willow I noticed in leaf. Just about in leaf. Thin tendrils of just uncurling leaves centimetres long. It’s two in the morning and I cut armfuls of branches. One thing my shetlands cannot resist is willow leaf.
I tie the thin willow limbs in bundles and hang them from her hurdle, leafy bundles of succulent green inches from her mouth. I’m worried. She’s not standing. I have 15 mls left. The goats, being little Machiavellis, are trying their damndest to steal the branches.
She nibbles and strips the willow leaves. I let her feed and then, in a pause, I lift her up and set her standing. She stands, to feed her lambs. She is shaky, wobbly, uncertain. She falls again. But she is better. I inject the last 15 mls and feed her more glucose. She stands, herself, to feed her lambs. Shaky, and with joint pain. But standing. I sit by her pen reading Greek History by lamplight. Swatting away moths and midges. I feel her lambs. Warm and full bellied. I have done enough. She will hold till morning. I check on Aurora and her fine lambs, our last ewe this lambing. I come back, the ewe, still wobby, is drinking from her bucket and nibbling hay.
In the morning another neighbor gives me a second bottle of calcium and I inject another 20 ml. She jumps to her feet within seconds. Certain, surefooted. No pain or stiffness. We are done. We are safe. We are clear. I bring her and her lambs across to a clean field with some grass and set them loose. She grazes, hungrily, pulling and ripping the sward. Two days later she is bounding around the field, curling up around her lambs, grazing, galloping, mothering. Well.
The margins are small. The border between one outcome and another thin. The decisions, sometimes, lonely. The work quiet, emotional and late at night. I have missed the moment and it leaves a sucking vacuum. A space where something has dropped away.
Today we won. I walk away with pride in a job well done. And needing some sleep.
