You lucky ewe

It was a bright and sunny afternoon, and Harry was about to go up to the stables to feed the horse when Lucky arrived to join the family. Harry was surprised to see someone coming to the front door, they did not get many unexpected visitors, postman Steve being the usual person to come through the gate, the occasional pair of Jehovah’s witnesses, and the annual visit of the man selling the red-cross poppies. This person was carrying something, and they seemed to be quite distressed about it.

“Can I help you?” asked Harry as he stepped towards them, wondering what the issue was.

The woman looked at Harry as she put the little heap on the floor. “Sorry to bother you, but I came across this sick sheep. It looks like it is dying, and I didn’t know what to do with it, and this was the first house I could see”.

Harry could see where this was going, as a problem was being placed firmly in his lap. “Err, and how is this my problem?”

“I am on holiday here at the moment, so I have no idea who owns it, or who the local farmer is. I hoped maybe you would know and that you might take it there? Maybe the farmer has a gun, as that is probably the best thing for the poor creature.”

Harry looked at the bundle, clearly a young sheep, and it seemed in a very bad way. Unable to stand on its own feet, and the light of life looking dim and distant in its eyes. “Ok, leave it with me, I’ll make sure something is done. I’ll probably take it to the local vets.”

“Thank you” and with that simple acknowledgement the woman left, never to be seen again.

Harry studied the animal a bit closer now, its back end seemed quite raw, and was that something moving on it? Best to get additional help at this point, and his wife had done some animal nursing training, and whatever he did next, he would need her help.

“Ellie?” Harry called out, but he was not heard. So he left the sheep in the courtyard, it was clearly not going anywhere at this point, and went back to the house, opened the rear door and called again. “Ellie? Can you please come outside, we have a small problem…”

Ellie came rushing out, wondering what the latest crisis was “Is the horse ok?”

“Well, I didn’t get as far as the stables” and Harry explained about the woman and the sheep.

Ellie was not looking too impressed as she approached the fluffy bundle. Her face screwed up as she saw the state of the animal. “Well, nothing I can do for that thing, best you take it to the vets. Maybe they can save it, if not they will know what to do with it. Looks like fly-strike to me, and those are maggots crawling over the back end, so it seems fairly advanced.”

While Ellie ‘phoned the vets to make them aware of the emergency case wending its way to their doors, Harry rushed to the storage room, and came back with a large cardboard box. He lined the box with some old towels, and placed the sheep gently in the box, then put the whole ensemble in the back of the car.

Harry was about to drive off, and Ellie’s parting words followed him down the road “Don’t give it a name!”.

As Harry drove to the vets, the poor waif in the back was making pathetic little bleating sounds, so Harry tried to explain to it that things would be ok. “Don’t worry little one, everything will be ok. Just taking you to the vets, they will know what to do.” Maybe it was the tone in his voice that seemed to calm the lamb, but it seemed to be quieter as they drove on to the vets. “You’re lucky that I am taking you there, if I took you to the famer he’d probably just put you out of your misery. Yes you are definitely lucky”. Harry mulled over what he was saying, and laughed out aloud. “Well, we now know what your name is then! Your name is Lucky!”

So, despite Ellie’s warning, the sheep was given a name before it even got to the vets. A dangerous thing had happened now, as once an animal has a name it will always be safe with Harry.

Arriving at the vets, Harry left Lucky in the car and went inside to find out where to take her. The receptionist called the vet.

“Hi there, my name is Julie, are you the man with the sick lamb?” Julie looked like a nice caring person, and hopefully she would be able to help Lucky.

“Yes, it looks like she has fly-strike, hopefully you can do something for her. Should I bring her in here?”

“We will see what we can do. If you can please bring her round to the farm animal area at the back of the vets? We will meet you there.”

Harry had been there before, so he knew the way, and drove Lucky to the back of the vets where they had an area they used for treating the farm animals. The main inside part of the vets, and the consulting rooms in there mainly being used for dogs and cats, and more traditional pets.

Harry picked Lucky up from the box, and took her into the room, placing her gently on the table that was in the middle of the room. Julie was there waiting, and had with her a vet nurse.

Julie introduced the nurse as she started to examine Lucky. “This is Linda, she is a trainee nurse and will be helping me today”.

As Julie was looking at the state of Lucky, Harry explained the background.

“Sounds like she is indeed lucky. Another few hours and she probably would have died. She is severely de-hydrated, and I am not sure that she will survive, but let’s clean this area and we can treat her. The next 24 hours is critical for her”. Julie was saying the right things, but was not looking that confident. “Linda? Can you please help and remove these maggots from this area?”

Linda and Harry were both trying to clear the crawling maggots from her raw back area. There must have been hundreds of them on there. Linda was using a small pair of tweezers, and looking quite squeamish as she gently picked them up one by one, so she was not going that fast, Harry on the other hand was just taking them off with his fingers, and dumping them into the plastic container that Julie had provided.

Meanwhile Julie was sorting out some medication. “This will help kill any of the maggot eggs that are still on her, or in her.” She explained, as she poured some liquid on to her shoulder area. “And this will help fight off any infection.” As she emptied a hypodermic syringe into her hind quarters.

“Best thing now is to ensure she has access to grass and water. If she survives until tomorrow then things should be fine. I would say it’s fifty-fifty if she will live or die, but hopefully you got her to us in time.”

Harry thanked them profusely for their help and, gently putting Lucky back into her box in the car, drove back home. Lucky was quiet on the way back, her body was probably in shock with all that had happened to her.

On arriving back home, Harry was confronted by Ellie “I should have known better than to trust you not to name it.”

“Well, she already had a name, she told me what it was, so it was not really my fault”, which Harry whispered almost sheepishly.

Lucky was taken to the area which had been fenced off for the chickens. The chickens used to have a large free-range area surrounded by electric fence to prevent them from being hunted by foxes, but recently a bird-of-prey had been attacking and killing them, so they were kept in a smaller caged area within this. There would be plenty of room for Lucky to roam around, and lots of grass for her. A large bowl of water was placed in there with her, and Harry retreated back to the house for a cup-of-tea.

Checking on her an hour later Harry was dismayed to see the swarm of flies surrounding Lucky, many of which seemed to have settled on her back where the infestation of maggots had been removed. This would never do, clearly the medicine put on her had not yet had time to take effect and deter flies, and also her wound was uncovered and was clearly attracting more flies.

“Like bees to a honey pot!” Harry was describing the issue to Ellie. “We can’t leave her out there, they will eat her alive. Should we just put her in one of the stables?”

“That won’t work” said Ellie “The stables are open, so the flies will find her there. No, we need to have her in a fully enclosed area. The annex would have been ok if we had not filled it with all the stuff you have accumulated over the past few years. I think it will have to be the kitchen.”

Well, this was not going to be easy, but then not many things were in their lives. Life seemed to put a lot of challenges in their path, and this was just another example. A small indoor area was fenced off using some of the boards that had been removed from the roof of the annex when the flat-roof had been replaced. The cardboard box was put inside the area so that she would feel safe, and any mess she may make would be limited to a small area, and some grass was put in with her with a bowl of water.

Bandit, the cat, did not seem too impressed by this intruder into his domain, but it seemed that he chose more to ignore this invader, rather than do anything about it. He looked at Lucky with some distain, seemed to put his nose in the air, and stalk out through the kitchen door, leaving her alone and undisturbed in the kitchen.

Lucky survived over-night, and seemed to get slightly stronger. Harry and Ellie thought this was a good sign, but they knew they couldn’t keep her in the kitchen forever, and decided that as the back area was exposed and open, that the best thing would be to cover it with something. Ideally a bandage should be applied, to keep the flies from causing more damage. Ellie made up one of her magic poultices, which contained some powerful herbs which would help draw the poisons from her body, and help to mend the wound. A large bandage was then put over this, and tied around lucky, going around her tummy, and over her back. Hopefully it would stay in place, and certainly it would deter the flies. In addition one of Harry’s old T-shirts was wrapped around her, so it looked like she was wearing a cape.

She looked a very strange sight when put back in the chicken area, sort of like a “super-sheep” with her cape flapping behind her. She seemed a lot happier that day, and was wandering around her area eating grass, and did not seem to be being disturbed by the flies. Harry built her a small shelter, so she would have some shade to protect her from the sun, and a roof to protect from any rain storms. Seemed that Lucky would be ok, she would recover from this fly-strike, join the family, and add a new element to Harry and Ellie’s life.