Mysterious Hair Loss on Lamb's Ears

I seldom blog about health worries, I once had a lamb blow up to the size of a balloon with bloat, I was too scared to take a picture thinking that if she died it would be too sad to look at the picture (yes I was not born a farmer and my sheep are more like pets than livestock)... That lamb did live and in fact is Blackie sheep whom you may have read about.

I have an odd health worry now, but not one that is too serious, it is mostly just puzzling. 

As you recall I had 7 lambs born in October. It is now January. A week or so ago I noticed two lambs (different moms) had some hair loss on their ears, just about where their ears attach to their heads. No other lambs had any such problems. The only thing the two lambs had in common was that they were white and black;  I also have 3 other lambs that are all black, one white and brown, and another black and white (unaffected at that point).

I thought.. hmm, maybe they need a new mineral block, so got that, but nothing seemed to change. I do not know if the lambs even lick it.

Well a couple of days ago the other black and white lamb also is showing some signs of hair loss on the ears, and he is also showing small areas of hair thinning on the sides of his nose.

The other 4 lambs are fine and show no hair missing.  There is no hair loss on the ewes either..  They are all wool sheep x hair sheep.

The areas of hair loss are too even and symmetrical to be anything such as ringworm or mange. 

I have found nothing online except one post that suggested an allergy to food combined with sunlight.

I should add that it is winter here, temperatures have been below freezing, we have snow and the sheep are getting hay and grain (oats). 

If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them. My vet is not as familiar with sheep as he is with cattle and nobody else here has a clue. 

I have not been out with the camera (when it is cold the battery freezes too quick and I have just not thought about it), but I have used a picture of a different sheep and drawn in the places of hair loss.

Update - Below is a picture I took today, it's pretty hard to get a good picture of a goofy lamb with a crappy camera, but I gave it my best shot - note that the lamb's are not itching.  It actually seems like maybe the hair is growing back in, it's hard to tell.

Solutions to Common Skin Problems in Dogs

Snowy Morning and Bad Llama

A couple of days ago we woke up to snow, the first so far.  Normally, here in Alberta, we would have had more by now, but the fall has been wonderful.  Even the bit that we did get was not enough to shovel. 

The animals can still get grass but in the fall there is very little nutrition in the grass so we feed hay, just once a day for now, they will get fed twice a day later when we really start getting snow, and winter sets in. 

Naughty llama

We do have proper feeders near the barn for feeding hay, but have 2 bales near the house which we are feeding now.  One of the round bales was just a bit too close to the fence and Crystal decided to help herself.  As a result she has bent the fence.  I nailed a board across the top, but she leaned on it so bad it broke off.  Eventually the bale will be out of reach, but it's funny because even when there is plenty in the pasture she insists on eating from the bale.  I think it is because she has it all to herself that way. 

I always try to throw out several piles of hay because the animals tend to move around from pile to pile and push others away, by having extra piles it means everyone gets something to eat.

Patsy and Girlie having breakfast

As we only have 10 acres we do not grow our own hay, rather we buy it and have it delivered.  We do not even have a tractor to move bales around, so must feed by hand.  Certainly small square bales are easier to feed, but they cost more money, and are getting harder to find.  As such we buy the large round bales and have them delivered. 
We put tarps over the bales to protect them, sun can take away nutrition from hay, and if water gets into the bales they will rot!

When we buy the hay it is always hardest to know how much to buy.  In the past we have not bought enough and had to get some in the spring.  This was often because it kept snowing, and snowing, and snowing, so we kept feeding, and feeding, and feeding.  Hopefully this spring we will not have to worry about that and I will not need any more hay.

They Came for the Hay

This winter has been long and hard (here in Alberta at least).  Our temperatures have been well below normal for the month of February, and now March.  The snow is still deep and due to the strange weather cycle we had this year, it is very hard for wild animals to dig through to find grass underneath.  As such deer have recently discovered our hay bales and have been coming for free meals. 

One day while my husband and I were home (March 7, 2011 to be specific) several deer came up the driveway for lunch.  Our donkey, Aggie, must have seen them as she started baying. 

The deer did not stick around for long.  While we did not intentionally scare them away, they must have heard the door open as we tried to take many pictures. 

I am sure they will be back, perhaps at night, or another day.

This is not our first invasion by wildlife, we have had skunks visit, coyotes (we chase them off of course), porcupines, and even a moose!  Read more about our Wild Friend's Visits.

If you should encounter a fawn resting - without a mother - you will want to know that it is best left alone - read more about what to do when you Find a Fawn.

If you are a deer, or know a deer, with wild deer issues Click Here.

The Great Sheep Escape

Every morning I go out to feed the sheep and let them out of the barn. I do this between 7:00 and 7:30 am. From the barn they can hear me coming and always make a racket, especially if I am late. On the morning of January 23, 2011, something was clearly wrong, there were no loud shouts of “HURRY UP AND FEED US!”. I was a little nervous to open the door, puzzled that they all might still be sleeping.

barn photo taken later in the day

I opened the door and turned on the light. There at the back of the barn was Dark Brown Barbado and her triplets, Mrs White Katahdin and her twins, over to my right was Favorite and her twins, tucked behind her was Mrs Brown Katahdin and a new lamb (more on that in my next blog post) but everyone else was missing. It was pretty easy to see where they had gone.

Our barn has 4 doors, one big sliding one at the front, with a small door in it, which we use rather than opening the sliding door. At the back is the door we use to access their pasture, and to the side another door leading out to hay, this is where I go when tossing hay over the fence to feed them outside.

photo taken later in the day - by the way.. if you think my barn is messy - you should see my house!

We have had crazy weather, the snow has made shutting the side door tricky, and as it happened I apparently had not shut it correctly the night before, at some time it blew open allowing the sheep outside for snacks - they were having a (pardon the pun) hayday!

It was a bit tricky getting them back indoors - lambs bouncing around like crazy, but at least the weather was better, up from the below freezing temperatures we have had for weeks, today is melting!  A quick head count to make sure I had all the sheep and lambs (10 sheep - 13 lambs) and then I had to attend to the new born lamb and its mom....

By the way... our sheep were not going too far, they had hay to eat and could not walk through the 18 inches of snow surrounding the hay, however you should know what to do if you ever encounter escaped livestock when you are out driving in the country - read here.