Hero goes to the Vet

 

Today, we spent the morning at the veterinarians office with Hero. After looking at his injuries more and a lot of discussion, we decided it was better to take him in than try to treat his injuries on our own this time. We don't have a lot of hands-on experience with things like castration yet, so we weren't quite up to the job. His other wounds were also starting to look a little infected, and I was worried about those. Luckily, we were able to finally find a vet that could help us after a lot of searching. The office is about and hour and a half away, but it was a nice drive.

I'm glad we took him in, not only did we get Hero all doctored up, we got a mini course on castration. If we ever have a situation like this again, we'll definitely be able to handle it on our own. I've only been to the vet with a pet, I was kinda expecting the same treatment on my sheep, but things are a little different for livestock. Hero did not get any sort of anesthesia or even local anesthetics, not so much as a pain pill. They cleaned him up, held him down, grabbed a razor and started cutting. Anyone who has the stomach for it and knows what to cut could have done it without a difference. I guess that's why most ranchers castrate their own livestock. We watched closely and asked a ton of questions, so now we have the experience we would need to feel comfortable doing it ourselves. I hope we never have to, and we don't have a lot of plans for the farm that will require castrations, but it's good knowledge to have for sure. He was also given antibiotics and a tetanus shot, both available at the feed store. The vet showed us how to properly clean his wounds. I was being way too gentle with my little squirt bottle. They took a hose with an adjustable nozzle, and sprayed the heck out of everything with pretty good pressure until it was clean and you could see a little blood rising to the surface of the exposed muscle . It's called hydrolyzing, and we have to do it twice a day on him until his wounds close. They weren't able to close up any of his wounds with sutures because of their locations and lack of skin, so we have to keep everything extra clean. The vet said the hydrolyzing will help get contaminates out as well as stimulate blood flow to the area. He also said it's going to take a few weeks for him to heal up and he's not out of the woods, but if we can keep him from getting infection and sepsis he should make it.  

I hope my poor little sheepy is going to be ok. We have good luck with healing hurt animals around here, so I think he'll make it. Positive thoughts are welcome right now!

Hero in his pen resting, he had a tough morning.