10/01/2025
Camping out with the sheep in minus 6 degrees!
Daisy was poorly yesterday. Totally off her food, head down and looking uncharacteristically miserable, not even showing any enthusiasm for a granola bar. Myrtle had been similarly but to a lesser extent a little off the day before. My first thoughts were that they’d eaten something toxic. Sure enough, upon a thorough check of the perimeter, we located the source. A rogue rhododendron right in the back corner of the wooded area, which had evaded detection and disposal last year. It was disposed of yesterday thanks to Vlado and Daniel with their chainsaws.
With all the snow it must have looked like a fresh green treat. Despite getting plentiful ewe nuts and hay daily, those fresh (but poisonous) green leaves were clearly tempting to Daisy and Myrtle, and quite a few had definitely been nibbled.
I treated Daisy with a drench of activated charcoal and electrolytes (the charcoal binds with the toxins). She showed a small improvement yesterday evening but Tanya and I decided to camp out in the top shelter with them, just to check that she and everyone else would be ok overnight. So we made a quick trip home to layer up, collect sleeping bags, hot water bottles and a thermos and settled down for the night with the girls.
Delighted and relieved to say that by this morning Daisy was making great progress.
And this evening when we went back along to check, she was back to full appetite, giving me kisses, nudging for more treats and head butting some of the others.
The first photo shows Amber who slept happily on my sleeping bag (and kept my feet toasty warm) for a solid 7 hours! 😀❤️