As far as letting it heal on its own...the vet told me that's what alot of people do-but it hurts the animal obviously. It's my belief that, butcher or not, I have no right to inflict pain on any animal just because it's going to be butchered. (Of which none of mine are anyway).
That's my 2 cents!
Mitzi Potter
Oklahoma
At 11:41 AM 1/13/2005, Carol J. Elkins wrote:
Mornin' folks,
The vet just left after removing the cast from the ewe who broke her front leg six weeks ago. He is satisfied that the leg healed well. Of course, having been in a cast for so long, the leg is weak and wobbly and the ewe isn't putting any weight on it. So from my perspective, she looks no better than she did before the cast. He assures me that she will begin to put more weight on it in the next day or two. The leg rotated a little to the inside, but has a good calcium scar and should improve more over time.
Now what is interesting is that he said, in passing, that he has had a sheep break its leg and he never got around to tending to it. This sheep's leg healed pretty good on its own. He said that not all sheep will heal like this; it is more on a case-by-case basis.
So what I took away from that conversation is this: with sheep who are destined for butcher in a few short months, it might be okay to let a broken leg go untended because there is no return on investment. For breeding animals, such as my ewe, one should fork over the cash to fix the leg.
Comments anyone?
Carol
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