Hay all! Today, I will bring you au courant* with Mackenzie, who has been out and about, and show you a woolly resident who has been feeling quite poorly. Have fun!😄
Mackenzie and I attended Pony Club the other weekend. Mackenzie loaded straight on to the float, and we set off for the 25ish minute drive. I then groomed, tacked up and arrived at gear check right on time, then set off to warm up. We started in the dressage arena with obstacles. There was an obstacle, with stands that had pool noodles coming out that the horse would walk through. You start with them spread out, then move them progressively closer together… it’s harder than it sounds as the horse usually thinks the pool noodles are solid. There was a tractor tyre with strong wooden boards screwed on for the horse to put its front hooves on, and eventually stand all hooves on and then walk over. Mackenzie was the only horse in my group to nail the walk over, but she just thinks halting and waiting on it is a simply preposterous notion. Why on earth would you halt on it? So we’ll have to work on that… but still, she’s not bad!😄 There was something to halt next to and dismount on to, then remount which she liked, something where you had to pick up a pool noodle from a stand, then walk over and knock a tennis ball off a traffic cone, which I kind of flunked, 🙂↔️🙄but anyway! Among other obstacles such as little cones with poles attached where you would walk in between, halt and back up. Mackenzie was great at that one! We also did some jumping, in which Mackenzie was a little naughty, but then she bravely jumped the dazzleboard, even though it scared her😇, and certificate work for my upcoming C certificate. Then we practiced our falling off with three barrels on their sides where we ran up, jumped on them, and when we got to the end tucked and rolled. The idea was to hit the ground with your shoulder and roll to avoid breaking any limbs. It was very fun… there was a reason we had to wear helmets, but still fun!! I promise!😄
There was a sheep in the paddock looking rather under the weather, so we set out to bring her in with a trailer to have a better look. She was separated from the flock and couldn’t get up, so on closer examination Mum suspected she had pregnancy toxaemia, with what looks to be a multiple pregnancy, option A. Also known as twin lamb disease or acetonaemia, which is usually either A: the heavily pregnant ewe gets too fat and cannot physically eat enough to feed herself and her unborn twin or triplet (or occasionally quadruplet!) lambs, B: the available feed is poor quality, or C: the ewe goes off her feed for another reason e.g. indigestion, through a fence (which sheep are notorious for, etc. so has a big drop in blood sugar. The cure in sheep can be 50-70ml glycerine orally twice a day, and part of a 4 in 1 bag. (A mineral and energy IV drip.) We named her Harriet, and we hope she’ll get better soon. This information has come from the Naracoorte Penola veterinary clinic, which I have provided a link for: https://npvets.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Pregnancy_toxaemia_in_ewes.pdf
There are 5 lambs with more coming at the moment, 3 singletons and 1 set of twins. I couldn’t get close enough to get a photo (sheep are notoriously flighty…if one goes, they all go, and then you’ve lost them), but here is my pet sheep I had last year instead…the cover star. Meet Sammy! Sammy came to us from an old sheep farmer up the road, when Sammy had been orphaned. I was his one and only chance, so we took him on at 5 days old. He was skinny, a crossbreed (1/4 Merino, 1/4 Border Leicester and 1/2 White Suffolk), and a ram, but we didn’t let that stop us! On the condition that it was only temporary, I took him on. He was VERY difficult to get to sleep in the horse float, (until he upgraded to being difficult in a little hut of pallets for overnight😂) and at first could barely muck out because I didn’t know whether Mackenzie would love him or kill him, but when I collar trained him he was much better… after a dozen tantrums where he jumped around, ‘threateningly’ waved his head, refused to walk, and collapsed to the ground, then finally gave in and walked off, leaving me in stitches!! It turned out Mackenzie loved him… very much. She would lick him, and nicker at him, was very patient when he ran around her legs, and just generally loved on him. We think she thought he was her foal… she just couldn’t remember having him!😂 In the time he was with us he went through 22kg – 48.5lb – of lamb milk replacer powder!!! We had to be careful, because sometimes he would run off to the grain silos and eat the spilt grain… once, he escaped and ate enough to give himself a severe stomachache, and another time he ate a plastic disposable glove! He was fine both times though. He also enjoyed playing with my little brother, and he’d go crazy on tarps! Eventually, he got lonely and would baa and baa if we weren’t there, and as we couldn’t spend all the time with him he got too lonely and eventually we had to find a place with sheep for him. He couldn’t go with the flock here, because the sheep fencing is nonexistent and he’d just follow us back home. I think he thought he was a human. He ended up going to a rescue, where he soon made good friends and is now living a good life there. We miss him all the time though🩷. I can’t find his adorable baby photos with him in his little mishmash crochet/knitted rug in front of the fireplace, so I will update when I find them… watch this space!
Thanks for reading this post, I hope it was interesting and enjoyable. I will give an update on Harriet here soon, so watch out for it! Love, Amarylli🩵🐴 * au courant means up to date.
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