[Jacob-list] Heat related deaths?

[Zach Oaster]

We lost one of our favorite older ewes a few weeks ago due to heat. It was
the fifth day of 103+ degree heat on our farm, and it finally took a sudden
toll. Our sheep had lots of shade and water, and most of them tolerated it
fine, but this ewe was still nursing 2 big lambs, and must have just got
over-stressed. She was very suddenly lethargic for one afternoon (at which
time we made sure she was shaded, cold watered, fed, and we even gave her a
dose of antibiotic), and the next morning we found her dead. The same day
we lost three rabbits. Not a good day.

This year has provided some crazy weird challenges. Heat is one, but the
dryness here in Michigan has been another. The ground here is so dry that
my high tensile electric fence basically was useless because the ground is
so dry that it doesn't ground well... no electrical ground = no effective
electric fence. Suffice to say the ram lambs had it figured out and were
helping themselves to the neighbor's high grass for several weeks until I
was able to reestablish authority (ha).

just a weird year.
^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
Zach Oaster
zach at fattoaster.com
^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
Visit Zach & Lindsay's farm blog: http://www.fattoasterfarm.com
^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^



On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 2:13 PM, joy <jspidle1 at yahoo.com> wrote:


> Has anyone had any heat related deaths. I found my ram dead in the pasture

> on Friday and i have no idea why..... he was fne in the morning, UTD on all

> his vaccines and had a FAMCHA check recently.... (nice and pink). He was

> shorn in late may, had access to plenty of water, (both natural stream and

> stock tank). I had been noticing on the severly hot days he was a bit

> distresses but everyone's been distressed with all this 100 + degree

> weather.

>

> He was a really nice ram :-(   ...................

>

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