# Concerned for lamb safety



## greenacres (Apr 14, 2011)

Ok...kind of a long post with pictures.  My ewe was attacked by either my pony gelding or mini-donk gelding just before she delivered.  I am blaming the pony because he had LOTS of blood on him (knees to nose) -- the donkey had one little smear on his nose only.  The pony is being re-homed, but my question is, the ewe has since delivered a ramling.  When is it safe to have him in the pasture?  I have 2 tiny goat does (mini-pygmys they are about 20 lbs each), a Babydoll wether  and the Baydoll ram in addition to the mini-donkey.  The ewe and lamb are completely separated in the barn for now, but she is going a little nuts since she can't get to the grass to graze.  I have grass hay for her and she is getting alfalfa cubes in addition to grain.  I was planning on dividing the pasture with electronet and putting the ewe and lamb on one side and the rest on the other.  I posted pictures of the ewe: initial attack with just a bite mark on her ear and then the last picture with at least 1/2 her ear missing. There were 2 attacks (unfortunately, someone let her out of the barn into the pasture after the first one without checking why she was in there in the first place).  BTW, she has now lost all of the wool on her ears which are kind of pink -- I had given her 5 days of inject able penicillin after the ear injury (it has been 2 weeks), any idea why the wool is gone?


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## boothcreek (Apr 14, 2011)

She may be allergic to the penicillin and thats why her wool is gone. One of our cows got extremely ill(first mastitis which turned to gangreen? and then totally toxic) and the vet prescribed penicillin and she first lost all her hair after about a week on it and then started to develope open pussing sores all over....... the vet said that it is an allergy to the penicillin.....  Maybe your sheep is allergic too?


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## rockdoveranch (May 16, 2011)

Poor thing!  She looks miserable in the last picture.

I have heard horror stories about donkey's tossing lambs around and killing them.  Then I hear stories of them making good livestock guardians.  

At one time we had goats in with our sheep.  The goats were given to us and we eventually sold them.  The sheep and the goats got along well with and without babies on them.

You are re-homing the pony, but if I were you I would keep the donkey away from your sheep and goats, and keep the sheep and goats together.

Sheep tend to knock babies around that do not belong to them, not sure about goats.


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## carolinagirl (May 17, 2011)

Female goats are very mean to kids that aren't theirs.  I didn't know sheep were too.  I know when I brought home this ewe, her baby plus 4 other lambs, she was nice to all of them! they gather around here like she is their mother.  Maybe it's because they are older?


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