first aid..Re: [Jacob-list] Trimming horns

[Jacobflock at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/28/01 8:53:43 AM Central Daylight Time, 
shepherdofspots at yahoo.com writes:

<< What's a spider web? Is it a kind of gauze bandage?
 
 Do horns grow at a "set" rate (like horse hooves), or
 does it depend on the individual sheep and their diet?
  >>
The spider web is the spider web that I find in the barn, on the back porch, 
wherever.  A spider web is protein, sticky, and put enough of them together 
they serve the same purpose as gauze.  We only use spider webs on horns and 
horn trauma.  We found that the webs were light weight, placed a larger 
matrix of material on the injury area than gauze, actually conformed to the 
horn better than any material.  We have a lot of webs in the barn area 
because I'm lazy.

Horns grow at a 'rate' that is controlled by stress; diet stress is at the 
top of the list.  In the wild the stress is seasonal (lean winters); domestic 
animals are stressed by us (shearing, changing diets, etc), weather (drought 
and pasture etc)., stress events such as moving or even changing their social 
order.  Keep an eye for breaks in fiber and changes in horn ring growth.  We 
can see last summers drought (TX) in our ram horns.

You can also see changes in your bank balance that correspond with drought 
periods. Fred Horak