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Lilka was born last spring and from the beginning it was obvious that she would stay on here at Stonehaven Farm. Everything about her was beautiful to my shepherd’seye…she is a katmoget (light badgerface genetics) with a perfect little body,  a big soft lustrous fleece with the long single coat that we have been breeding for….and beyond that, her impish personality completely captured my heart.

We almost lost Lilka this week to polioencephalomalacia…presumably from stress related to shearing a few days before. We were unaware of any problems until we found her having seizures last Sunday afternoon; she has been in “intensive care” ever since. An hour or so after giving her B-vitamins fortified with thiamine, CMPK sub-Q and some Banamine, she was once again able to stand….but still blind and confused. As soon as she was able to swallow, she got doses of probiotic to restore her ailing rumen.

Since Monday, Lilka has been looking like a well sheep in all regards except one. She hasn’t been able to eat or drink by herself. She has been given our rumen remedy, oral CMPK and copious amounts of probiotic several times a day…all keeping her alive, but somehow the flora in her rumen hadn’t been able multiply to numbers that would sustain her.

In addition to all this, as soon as she was able to deal with it, I began feeding her small amounts of hay by putting it into the side of her mouth…and although I have been careful to give her only a little at a time, she has chewed and swallowed very well; just couldn’t pick it up on her own. But she was obviously hungry for it…lately sniffing me and nudging me a bit when I was in the pen with her.

For the past three days, with sunny warm(ish) temperatures, it seemed better to let her out of her little pen in the barn so that she could feel like a “sheep” and could be as stress free as possible. So in the mornings, she got her meds and probiotic and was topped up with the rumen remedy and gruel before she went out with the others.

Each day, she has stood watching the other sheep, and going from hay pile to hay pile feeling that she ought to do something, but was unsure how to go about it. But TODAY (tah-dah!) she ate a little with the others…not terribly efficiently, but she managed to get her mouth around the hay for the first time.

We won’t stop giving her the rumen support and vitamins, but I feel sure that our dear little Lilka will recover, and will grace our farm for years to come.