Vixen

If you read my latest newsletter you know about the sheep that died recently. As I was writing that and looking at this sheep’s history I thought that she is a sheep that deserved a blog post. She was included in the recent post about the lilac two-horn ewes that are here.

This is Vixen in 2016. Why Vixen? I sometimes choose names that will remind me of the parents. Her dam was Foxglove. I know that is a plant, but I used it as a Fox theme. Vixen’s half-sister, Foxy (born 2015), is still here.

In 2017 Vixen went to Black Sheep Gathering and won Champion Jacob ewe.

She also went to the State Fair later that summer. That’s her in the middle with crossed legs.

This is Vixen in full fleece in January 2018.

After shearing.

2018 Vixen with one of her lambs.

2019. Vixen wasn’t the biggest pet here, but she was always just behind Jade and Hazel and Trista if there was a possibility of treats.

Vixen had twins every year since 2018. In 2021 I kept both of her lambs and they are still here. That’s Axis (ram) on the right and Lupine (ewe) on the left. Their sire is Axle.

This is a photo I took November 30 when I wrote the post about the lilac ewes. Now I see something that I didn’t notice at the time. Who would notice that little bulge under her belly?

By December 9 it was much more noticeable. That is the day that the vets came out to ultrasound all the ewes. As I was gathering the ewes I noticed this bulge and knew that we needed to check it out. The vet said that it was a hernia and she could feel the small opening in the muscle tissue where the small intestine was protruding to cause the bulge.

Knowing what I do now I can look at that previous photo and see this at an earlier stage. I think you’ll have to admit how easy it was to overlook that the slight bulge in a ewe with full fleece.

So no more pretty pictures here…just the story. Vixen was confirmed pregnant with twins. The vet suggested surgery as an option because it was likely that as the lambs grew this would become a much bigger problem. This was a Friday. We made an appointment at C-Barn (UCD VMTH) for Monday. I kept Vixen off food on Saturday and Sunday in preparation for surgery. The surgery was not as straight forward as hoped because about 5” of the small intestine was adhered to tissue in the internal wound area and the vets had to break those away to put that part of the intestine and the other “fresher” part back inside where it belonged. Then they stitched up the muscle and skin layers.

With what I know now I can see in that first photo where that 5” of intestine had been herniated for awhile before the larger amount bulged out.

We brought Vixen home Monday evening and she seemed relatively alert. On Tuesday she didn’t seem to be doing as well. She showed no interest in food or water and she stayed on her feet all day, I think because she hurt. We attributed this to the fact that she had just had abdominal surgery and that is reason to not feel so good for a day or so. On Wednesday there was no change and, in consultation with the vet, I decided that I’d take her back to C-Barn Thursday. Vixen died sometime after midnight. I took her back to C-Barn so the vets could do a necropsy and find out what happened—as much for the experience for students as for me to learn more. It turns out that there was peritonitis, probably as a result of those adhesions that made the intestine more fragile.

There is another part to this story (still without photos). On Monday I got an email from a veterinarian at UCD who was looking for eyeballs of Jacob sheep for a research project. Do you know of the connection between Jacob sheep and Tay Sachs research? The following is from Wikipedia:

The vet who contacted me works with a colleague on the east coast and human gene therapy has begun based on some of the research they have done using Jacob sheep. He explained that there is an increase in retinal inflammation in the sheep with Tay-Sachs disease (and I think in people but I’m not sure), but they have so far only worked with diseased sheep. He needs eyes of non-Tay-Sachs sheep to include in the study. I contacted him when I thought that things were going downhill for Vixen. After she died he was able to work with the C-Barn vets to salvage the eyes for use in his research.

Speaking of salvaging things, I couldn’t bear to let that fleece, so close to shearing time, go. I sheared Vixen before taking her body to VMTH. This is the wool I salvaged. I have now washed it and will start working with it soon.