This was Garlic yesterday, enjoying the winter sun after an hour or so grazing in the poultry paddock. She was in there again today but shortly after eating her tea, it was obvious she was not feeling that great. As she is due to kid in just over four weeks, any kind of illness is not just bad for her, but it could prove lethal for her kids. Back in 2010, Whey (Pickle's mum) got some kind of infection (the vet thought it may have been from a tick bite) and although we treated her and she got better very quickly, the rise in her body temperature was too much for the kids and three days later Whey aborted. The kids had died and Whey's body had then rejected them: they were just three weeks off being full-term! Garlic’s temperature was 40 degrees centigrade so not massively high (normal range is 38.5 – 39.7 ish) but as she was 'acting' unwell: grinding teeth (sign of pain), making a low moaning sound (sign of pain), feeling a little warm and lying down but not chewing the cud; we decided to err on the side of caution and give her both an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory injection. She had eaten her tea okay and she was able to 'run away' when she saw us coming with the needle but nonetheless, as our experience with Whey proved, we need to do all we can to stop this infection in its tracks.
We checked her later in the evening after our supper and she was no longer moaning BUT even if we have reduced her body temperature (and we won’t know that until tomorrow as we need to give the antibiotics time to work), it will be a few days before we can start to feel confident about the kids.
If we still have any worries tomorrow, we will probably need to talk to our vet!!