A Lamb
We lost a lamb today. Nematodirus outbreak knocked him back and he never recovered after treatment. It was my fault, I should have paid more attention to the NADIS forecasts.
He lived in our bathtub for a few days, drinking and munching on hay, and taking a totter outside when we took him out. He seemed to be improving with oral rehydration therapy and his appetite was coming back. This afternoon he crashed. I took him outside for a stretch and he couldn't walk more than a few steps. He lay down, let out the smallest, saddest bleat I'd ever heard and I just burst into tears. I sat him on my knee in a blanket and got him to drink more fluids.
The vet said that the nematode infestation can cause permanent damage to the gut lining, so even after treatment he just wasn't able to take in goodness from his food. There was a slim chance that he might make it with intensive, aggressive therapy, but he'd suffered so great a loss of condition that his recovery was very unlikely. We chose to put him to sleep. His blood pressure had dropped to the point where the vet had trouble finding his jugular. It was very quick, and I patted the white spot on his little head as the light left his eyes. We're grateful that the vet was so good with him.
My crofter friend tells me that I need to harden my heart to these things, that where there's livestock there's deadstock, that it's 'just a lamb', but I don't know how someone could sit there with 8kg of helplessness on their knee and not feel something. There's a reason Christians choose the lamb as a symbol of pure, unbeguiled innocence. Just a lamb was my entire world this afternoon.
It sounds ridiculous to feel this way when he was destined for slaughter. I don't have an answer for that.
We're burying him tomorrow, in a place where we'll plant trees. It'll be nice for him to be a part of that. He was a good boy.
I don't have any real point to make, I'm just really fucking sad.