A Near Death Experience

February 17, 2010 
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This near death experience actually occurred a few months ago but I was having computer problems and couldn’t get this posted. Sue is now fully recovered and back to her old tricks.

You no doubt remember Sue from previous posts by Lauren, but, just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you. Sue is our pet sheep who was bottle raised by me. Nathan says WE raised her, but I don’t remember him ever getting up at 3:00 in the morning to feed her, so I raised her.

Sue is now quite big and mostly grown and thinks that she is a dog. She did not grow up with the flock of sheep, and really doesn’t know what to do with them when she happens upon the flock. I think that she believes herself to be above them, she certainly would never dream that she is actually the same species. Sue was raised around our dogs at the house and follows them everywhere mimicking them as much as is possible. She plays chase with our English Shepherd, Tirzah, follows my Lab Aidenne, tries to eat dog food every chance she gets, sleeps with our guard dog Mandy, chases the cats with our other guard dog Naomi, and generally acts like a dog. Of course the dogs follow us around the farm on our daily chores, and so of course Sue follows us as well. If Sue is accidentally left behind she will cry incessantly and run frantically up and down a fence until we go get her.

A few days ago I was putting out round bales of hay by myself with the tractor. Nathan was about to head to a farmers market. Aidenne, Tirzah, and Sue tagged along. I am always VERY careful when driving the machinery around the animals and for the most part they are very careful as well. But, how much common sense can you expect out of a sheep who thinks that she is a dog? All was well, until I started to pick the hay up with the tractor. The front-end loader of the tractor has an attachment called a hay fork, which consists of two very large pointed spikes to spear the hay with. These are not sharp, but they can be painful when run into (I speak from personal experience. I run into a lot of things). I am always worried that a cow or other animal will run into them and hurt themselves so I keep them up and out of the way at all times. Except, when spearing the hay, they have to be exactly at animal level. So, I lowered the hay fork and rolled slowly toward the bale. Then, just as I am about to spear the bale, Sue, who has been quietly standing to the side, decides that she needs to get to the other side where the dogs are, AND, you guessed it, she runs right between one of the spikes and the bale of hay. Luckily, I saw it happening, and was able to stop fairly quickly, but not before she was pinned against the bale. I backed up and jumped out of the tractor. As soon as she was unpinned, Sue ran around the bale and stood still looking very upset (you would be shocked at how many emotions a sheep’s face can show). I ran to her, and thankfully didn’t see any blood or other evidence of trauma. I gently checked her all over and could not find any broken bones, but my biggest worry was that she might be injured internally. She was obviously in pain and I felt HORRIBLE.

I carefully walked her back to the house and after checking her again, went to finish putting out the hay. She didn’t try to follow me or the dogs which was a bad sign. I knew that if one of her stomachs or intestines had been injured it would take a little while to show up and there wasn’t anything I could do. As soon as I got back I checked on her again. Her mucous membranes looked good (pale membranes are a sign of internal bleeding) but she was lying on the porch shaking and looking generally very bad. I felt SO bad for her. Of course Nathan didn’t help by telling me that it was all my fault that I had possibly killed our pet sheep. I tried covering her up with a blanket, but she was still shaking so I went to plan B. By this time Nathan was gone, as well as Lauren (Lauren had her ACT Exam that day.), so I was on my own. I knew that Sue needed to stay warm (it was a cold day) so I decided she was going to have to come in the house. The bathtub seemed the safest place to put her so I lined it with blankets, got her up, and walked her through the house and into the bathroom.

This is where it got a bit sticky. As I mentioned earlier, Sue is mostly grown up and weighs at least 100 lbs. I do weigh more than she does but not by a significant amount. I kept looking at Sue and then at the bathtub and back at Sue. Hmmm, she wasn’t going to jump in on her own. There was only one way to do it, I had to pick her up and put her in. I looked at Sue again (Who looked very dejected, by the way.) and prayed “please God help me get her in!” I managed to lift her over the edge of the tub, but then there was the problem of setting her down when she wasn’t wanting to stand up. So, I sort of gently dropped her into the tub, poor Sue! She ended up basically on her back with all 4 legs in the air just looking at me like, “What are you going to do to me next?” I carefully righted her onto her chest where she could lay down normally. The whole time she never struggled (very unusually for Sue) but seemed resigned to her fate. The next step was to get her some pain meds so she could feel better. She didn’t enjoy the shot, but pretty soon she seemed a little happier.

For the rest of the day, I sat inside working and watching Sue in the bathtub. She sounded so pitiful! For most of the day she lay quietly groaning and occasionally drinking water I brought her. I checked her temperature and gave her more pain meds, as needed, and just watched. I still wasn’t convinced that something may have been punctured inside, and that she wasn’t going to make it. Then I walked in to check on her and lo and behold, she had stopped groaning and was peacefully chewing her cud! There is nothing so immensely reassuring as seeing a ruminant chewing their cud. At that point I felt pretty confident (and EXTREMELY relieved) that she was going to be okay. Finally that night, when Nathan walked in the door she “Baaad” to him, and got up like she was ready to get out of the tub. She still isn’t quite her old self, and is obviously still hurting (she likes her pain medication!), but I think we are out of the woods. We all hope to bring you many more Sue stories and wish her a long, happy, safe, and smarter life.