A few months ago, around Midsummer, we had a medical emergency among the sheep. I haven’t blogged about much from that period of time until now because of a series of hard-to-deal-with events. First my father was diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer and died shortly afterwards (not the best start to the year), then I had to have some abdominal surgery which slowed me down considerably. Our old dog Spot had to be put to sleep during this period too. To top that all off, we had to evacuate our humpy because of a bushfire threat to the area and we lost two of our sheep to an unknown predator in the bush.

During the week after I came out of hospital (on strict orders to stay in bed), Sid; our wether (and companion to Shaun in the past) began to act as if he had colic. I rang the vet and was advised to keep him walking and get him to drink water. So despite having a very painful stomach and being depressed I spent many hours following the poor boy and keeping him moving and drinking for two days (my partner and daughter took many shifts also). On the second day I drove over to a nearby town to get some pain killer for him (against doctors orders, but we do what we have to), I injected him, but it seemed to have little effect. On the third morning we decided to take him to the vet, so my daughter and partner got my little car ready to cart a full grown sheep (tarp on the floor and bedding towels) then we all spent an hour catching Sid and moving him into the car. We had to lift him in, which did not make my stomach happy at all, and he had no fight in him at all once he was in the car.

My daughter and I drove to the vet surgery, a trip of two hours, and unloaded poor Sid into their yards. He was in so much pain he didn’t seem to care what happened to him. After a few hours and many examinations, the wonderful vet discovered that he had a bladder stone and had not urinated for two days (I felt so bad about trying to make him drink). She gave us the option of putting him down as the operation to fix this is very dangerous and the recovery is long and involves a lot of nursing (oh and expensive). I just couldn’t imagine life at the humpy without Sid; his single minded attention to getting his food, his demands for a chin scratch and his afternoon greetings to my partner when he came home from work (to the tune of pleas for more food). We decided to give him a chance at surviving and said go ahead.

We went home then and left him to be operated on. The vet rang much later that day to say he had survived the operation but she had been forced to put in a stint to drain urine. Sid had to stay in hospital for a further two weeks, before coming home to be nursed by my daughter and I.

This is where the sex change comes in; the stint bypasses the urethra and penis altogether and exits the body in roughly the same place as it does in female sheep. Sid now pees like a cat; the urine squirts out in a stream behind him. We try not to stand behind him in good clothes these days.

Sheep and goats of the male persuasion seem to be prone to bladder stones if they have a high grain diet. We did not know this previously and had fed poor Sid many grain based meals in the past. He has been confined to hay and chaff since the operation though. Apparently he is very likely to suffer from this again so we keep a close eye on him to be sure he is peeing.

His post operative care consisted of bathing the operation wound twice a day to remove built up urine dribble, putting paw paw ointment on the existing rain scald and spraying pink stuff around (but not on) the wound to discourage flies. In the middle of his recovery we had to evacuate the animals to my Mum’s place because of a bush fire. This set back his recovery a lot because of the stress of moving and because he and his friends escaped their pen and decided to walk home. They made it to my uncles house and had to be collected from there. Eventually the scabs dropped off and the wound healed, and now we only inspect and wash the site about once a week. We still watch him closely to be sure he is peeing though.

The vet seems to think he will last another two years, we hope he does, we love our Sid. Our main concern now is making sure he has a good life in the time he has left. He is living with the rest of the sheep herd (sheep are very social and need constant companionship), and seems to be enjoying life again.