Poor Cuthbert: a sheep with an abscess

My poor tup Cuthbert has been in the wars these last few months and on Sunday I found that he has a big abscess on his jaw.

When I fetched him home from his wanderings, he had a puncture wound on his jaw which was infected but I treated it and it healed over... or so it appeared. On  Sunday it was suddenly huge and hot to touch. Poor Cuthbert had rubbed all of the wool off it.

Luckily with some help from my friend Elle and some Animalintex, I was able to put a poultice on it and bandage him up. Now I just have to keep replacing with clean dressings and wait for the poultice to work its magic. In the meantime, I'm not sure that Cuthbert is convinced about his new look!

Back to Sheep

It is now looking as though the funeral will take a couple of weeks to organise. In the meantime, I'm staying put at Knapdale with the dogs and sheep and lots of friends to help me out. It looks as though my brother, Joe, and his girlfriend Lauren, will come up to look after us all either today or tomorrow.
This morning I received an e-mail that cheered me up somewhat. I've been chatting with Robin McEwen-King about a ram lamb of his for a few weeks now. Well, this is him, Galtress Ptolemy. Thanks very much to Robin for the photos.

He's grey,

he's spotty,
he has a fine crimpy fleece,
super conformation and he's just what I wanted.
It's a shame that he damaged his horns as a lamb, but this isn't a genetic fault so it doesn't matter. His horns were like his twin's (shown below) until he knocked them.
Hopefully I'll get down to visit soon and all being well he'll go in with the girls mid November with an aim to have lambs mid to late April. Something to look forward to!