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Goats like pigs have been getting a bad rap for years. I think it goes back to the "Billy Goat Curse" in 1945. Looks like the year of the goat has finally arrived (albeit somewhat out of sync with the Chinese calendar). Steve Bartman just took the heat off of goats everywhere. Vilified by Cubs fans, he has now become the patron saint of goats. Baatter up. http://www.mvschool.riroe.k12.il.us/headley/Curse.htm
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear AS: goats will eat much more woody stuff than sheep, and reach much higher up. And they are not vulnerable to dogs, as sheep are. I still remember our first goat, out on our front lawn. When attacked by a stray dog, it ran away at high speed, and just as dog began to catch up, turned on a dime and butted the dog unconscious.
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Good point about sheep and dogs, wwh. So true. Of course, if you had a rent-a-sheep operation, you could also throw in a llama to watch over the sheep. Rent-a-Sheep&Llama, Inc.
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if you had a rent-a-sheep operation, you could also throw in a llama to watch over the sheep.This is such a good idea, llamas are already becoming the new sheepdogs, Wordwind. http://www.ida.net/users/SRLlamas/sheep.htmIs a new word on the cusp of emerging? "Sheepllama"?
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Sheep llamas have problems too. One of my wife's friends got a very painful kick from one. In MA, stray dogs are not very common now. But coyotes are. One of our ewes stupidly lambed way down in back field. A coyote ate half of the lamb.The ewe did not have a mark on her, but never stood up again, and would not drink nor eat. The vet could do nothing, but I got a bill for twice what the ewe was worth. And what was worse, he could not tell me why. I wondered if there had been a vascular injury to her adrenals. .
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The ewe did not have a mark on her, but never stood up again, and would not drink nor eat. The vet could do nothing
I had a little trouble following your ewe story at first, wwh.
I take it a lamb is a baby sheep and the ewe in the story is its mother. It take it the ewe went in search of her baby lamb and found it dead [half-eaten].
Is it possible the ewe died of a broken heart?
Dogs are known to grieve for their deceased owners. I have heard stories, possibly apocryphal, that some mother animals will grieve for a dead offspring.
Is this possible with sheep?
Evidently, your vet didn't think so or he wouldn't have charged you so much for doing nothing. [I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, of course.]
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Ewe!, how ever did you make it to journeyman, with out not knowing ram, ewe, and lamb!
it is a semi secret, but everyone on this board has a sheepish tendencies.. (you do know what 'faldage' is don't you?--have you ever looked up the word?)
and many here could easily wear the silly sweat shirts that proclaim Ewes not fat, ewes fluffy!(me for sure!) and many, many, many of us have 'sculpted' sheep (a small knick knack sort of thing)--all most all of them are different breeds-- its a secret little fetish we all have somehow 'acquired'.
we have had threads on Merino sheep and alcoholic sheep, (who were bottle fed, and before they were fully weaned, they discovered bottled beer, and never wanted to be weaned!)
yes, rams are adult males, ewes are adult females, lambs are young sheep under a year of age, and wethers are neutered males.. (as in a bellwether).
we are a sheepish bunch.. (as the boys from oz say about the kiwi's, (and vis a versa) and everyone says about the scots)
but we are a rare breed of sheep-- like the kind of sheep that were found on episodes of Monty Python.. wicked sheep, flying sheep, trecherous sheep.. We are very sheepish!-so watch out!
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Ewe!, how ever did you make it to journeyman, with out not knowing ram, ewe, and lamb!Sorry, of Troy. I never got past "Ba Ba black sheep". Re: We are very sheepish!-so watch out!Thank you for your shepherdly interest. With you at my side, I will never have to watch out for a wolf in sheep's clothing. Still, my question was sincere. I wonder if an ewe can die of a broken heart.
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Dear Grapho: with regard to that ewe that had coyote eat half of the newborn lamb, she went into shock. "Shock" is a medical term for vascular collapse, which is so complicated I had a hundred page book just on the one topic. When a lion trips and kills a wildebeest, the prey becomes unable to struggle almost immediately, well before having any important structured damaged. It makes them suffer less. Wofahulicodoc could tell us more about this.
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