A Hard Loss

Thomas

February 2010 - August 2015

We lost Tom-Tom last week. Our best guess is that he ate something toxic by the pond on Saturday (we are still trying to figure out what). On Monday he stopped eating and seemed really sore. The vet came out and he had an elevated heart rate and resp rate. He was groaning as he exhaled and seemed to be having some muscle spasms. She gave him anti-bloat medication, pain killers and antibiotics. The next day we remembered that he had grazed for an hour out of the paddock, and I thought I figured out that we had milkweed growing there (turns out it is common weed - which isn't toxic like milkweed). We gave him some charcoal. By Thursday he seemed much better - he was drinking and walking around more, but still wasn't eating. On Friday I went out to to the morning chores and I could tell he wasn't going to make it - he looked to be in heart failure. We called the vet, but Thomas ended up dying as she was on her way.

We had Thomas for 2 years and he was such a staple on our farm. He loved his head scratches and he always came when we called him over to the fence.

I'm going to look forward to not having to watch my back every time I walk near his paddock (he could make quite the dent ramming page wire fencing!) but more than that, I'm going to miss that big, gentle (with the ewes and lambs, and Pippa especially) ram.