Glad I went home for lunch. BlueBut managed to wedge himself under board at front of shed and was yelling his head off. Seems okay once freed, he headed straight to mama for a drink.
One of the new baby ram lambs has a damaged eye. @Baymule gave me some advice over the phone. If eyelid will close over it, I'm considering gluing closed and give antibiotics.That way it will not be open wound for flystrike.
Glue? I thought we were talking about talking him to the vet. LOL Take eye out, don’t take eye out, stitch closed. Or watch to se if it gets any worse.
Gorilla glue?
First aid glue?
Special eyeball glue?
Super glue?
The eyeball is definitely dead. Surface texture is off and no response to touching it. Vet is $66 for visit before treatment cost plus receptionist was not sure they can do anything. Waiting on call back from actual sheep vet.
IF vet or my EMT brother-in-law can't remove it, my next option is glue shut with human style surgical glue. I have plenty on hand for treating my various minor cuts. I have antibiotics and it would prevent flystrike.
@Ridgetop I don't know. I swear Sunday evening he was okay. Today I was out watching them graze and he looked funny. I caught him and found eye like that. If it is an injury, he maybe poked it on cattle panel end. I've done best I can to smooth with grinder but they still are a little poky.
I've been sick to my stomach all evening thinking about it. I'm pretty sure if he lives he's going to be dinner now instead of a herd sire. Who would buy a one eyed ram lamb? I think I'm going to spend weekend grinding things more and making wood frames for all my cattle panel gates. It will make carabiner use hard but oh well.
These things happen. Just take hm to the sale yard. Meat buyers won't care that he has only one eye. There are always lots of bucks around.
Are you testing the whole flock for Scrapie Codon 171? If you have been buying your foundation stock from scrapie tagged flocks with no record of cases, I wouldn't worry about scrapie until you have larger numbers of sheep. You can also cut the possibility of scrapie in your flock by buying and breeding to RR tested rams. Or are you setting up as a RR Codon flock? If you are selling on Craigslist, Craigslist buyers seldom ask about Codon 171 testing. Are you also planning on going on NSIP?
The Scrapie Flock Certification Program (SFCP) was added in 1992 as a voluntary program for sheep and goat breeders in California. We got our tag number then. The nationwide mandatory Regulatory Scrapie Slaughter Surveillance (RSSS) started April 1, 2003. In the voluntary program you could choose the numbers or letters you wanted, i.e. CA RT1. Now the state assigns you a number prefixed by the state, i.e. TX 123. With individual state scrapie numbers being assigned to breeders, and mandatory scrapie tagging of all breeding and butcher animals, any cases that turn up in the industry are traceable back to the original seller. Since the mandatory program started the incidence of scrapies in the US has decreased about 99%. There are very few cases of scrapie in the United States now.
BTW: If you put antibiotic drops in the eye it should not get infected. The eyeball will dry up but does not need to be removed, especially if you plan to sell him at auction as a meat buck around 2+ months old. No point spending money having the eye surgically removed before taking hm to the auction.