Everything is muck and slack on our farm . According to our rainwater gauge , 13 inches of rain fall in just four days ! Uzzi and I huddled in our Port - a - Hut while violent storm after tempest bellow by . Uzzi detest boom , so he was scared .
Now , it ’s over , but oh , the mud ! Our pen and paddocks are a slack . Uzzi and I lallygag on top of our Port - a - Hut to get away from it ( Dad made us a cool wild leek up to the top ) , but the sheep are live in the yard .
The sheep ’s night fold is a mass of soggy , waste hay ( sheep are messy eaters ) and inches and inches of spongy clay . This elbow room they can catch some Z’s on weed . Sam the Lamb came to see us yesterday morning with rain dripping off of his fleece . Uzzi asked him , “ Hey , Sam , are n’t you afraid your wool will shrink ? ” That ’s goat humor . ( Sam did n’t laugh ) .
Tumnus , Big Mama and Shebaa the ewe are limping today . Mom recollect they ’re grow foot scald , a trouble when cloven - hoofed animals stand in mire . It ’s make by an anaerobiotic bacterium calledFusobacterium necrophorumpresent in most soil ; anaerobic mean they die when display to oxygen — but they enjoy thick clay . Fusobacterium necrophorumis one-half of a combining of bacteria that cause a nasty disease called foundation rot ; the other isBacteroides nodosus , but we do n’t have that on our farm . Foot scald is a milder contagion of the peel between the two claw on a cloven - pick animal ’s hoof . The skin gets pinkish to whiten in color , moist and stark naked . It ’s painful and it makes us limp , but unlike hoof moulder , it does n’t twist and ruin our hooves .
substantial - hoofed animals , such as horses and donkeys , get foot job from standing in muck , too . One disease is calledthrush .
And all of us , from horses to the sheep to Carlotta the sloven , are prone to amud - associate diseaseof the tegument called dermatophilosis because the broker that causes it is in the territory on our farm . Dermatophilosis , also called Mycotic dermatitis , is make when a bacteria , Dermatophilus congolensis , invades teensy abrasion in skin softened by prolonged exposure to rain . When it hap on an animal ’s physical structure , people call it rain decompose , rain scald or lumpy wool ( on sheep ) . It ’s commonly found on an animal ’s back and neck , but in bad cases , it spreads all over the dead body . Sometimes it occurs only on legs , especially leg with white grading , and then it ’s called loot or grease heel . It cause scaly , itchy , scabby skin that lifts off in crustlike patch . Ouch ! ) .
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