You will of course remember Bubbles. She was a triplet born by caesarian at the farm next door to Struan Farm. Her mum died, and I rescued brothers Elvis and Ajax along with Bubbles. They spent the night wet and shivering in front of the roaring fire, me sitting with a bottle of colostrum in hand, willing them to live.
Sadly Elvis died. Bubbles and Ajax recovered and moved to the pet pen, but later that season John forced me to send them to his sister in Taranaki after his arbitrary limit on my pet lamb numbers was reached. Unfortunately Ajax also died several months later. But Bubbles thrived in Taranaki, even greeting visitors to the garden during the fringe garden festival.
This past spring John's sister asked us if we'd take Bubbles back. They are selling their property and building a house, something complicated enough without a fat pet hogget who thinks she's a person.So Bubbles made the trip back to Struan Farm.
It wasn't an easy adjustment. She was overweight and wasn't used to walking around, sat and ate the grass around her. I think she was also missing her "Mum" terribly. Thankfully pet lambs Sugar and Spice decided to adopt her, teaching her how to walk around and be a sheep. For awhile they were a trio. Most recently Bubbles joined the mob that was out with the rams. She lost some weight and was acting like a sheep. All good.
Until last week. John went to move the mob into our front Pet Paddock, which had quite a bit of feed. He noticed that Bubbles kept sitting down, and when she stood up she coughed. She didn't look and wasn't behaving well, so he kept her isolated in the paddock behind the Cottage and moved everyone else. He returned to tell me that "one of my brown faced sheep" was having a problem, and that I needed to check it out. He didn't think she was going to survive. While I went up to check on which of "my brown faced sheep" it was, and to try to figure out what was happening, he rang his sister to break the news that Bubbles wasn't well.
When I found her in the paddock she was sitting quietly, but when she stood up she had a wheezing cough. I left her to settle down and returned to ring Farmer John. His diagnosis: pleurisy. He instructed us to leave her, that stressing her wasn't good for her. And so we did that. I also discovered that it might be infectious, so we left her on her own for a number of days.
Good news: Bubbles has recovered, phew! We don't know if the dust from the drought we've had, the weight she's lost, being put with the ram, or all of the other changes she's been through in her life these past months, weakened her immune system. But she's better now. Yesterday she was sitting by the gate wanting to be moved with the rest of the sheep. She's now rejoined the mob.
Mum was updated.
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