Has Crispy had his chips?

Crispen is our pedigree ryeland ram, a huge soft handsome lad who is now six years old. The names of the pedigree rams begin with a letter that corresponds to the year, A is 2000 so C, Cripsen in 2003. He has sired two previous years lambs at Rock HQ and we are awaiting his third batch with bated breath. Hopefully it will all go smoothly this year, but as our previous experience has been far from easy we will have to wait and see. There is a bit of a housing shortage here as the spare rooms are occupied by pregnant goats and and a stroppy shitland. I expect, much like last year, the dogs will have to cosy up as their kennel block is used as a temporary maternity ward.

Crispy has been with the ewes for a while now, its almost time to separate him away so they can lamb in peace. He has been losing weight recently and this last week he has been off his food. They are all due a dose of wormer tomorrow so I initially put his poor condition down to a combination of not being able to graze because of the frost and snow and worms. I did have a nagging worry at the back of my mind that there might be something more sinister as the root cause of his weight loss.

Hes a very tame chap so I was able to take hold of him really easily and unceremoniously dumped him on his backside to check him over. Straight away it was clear what his problem is, he has lost his top teeth so cannot chew the sheep nuts and grazing short winter grass will be almost impossible. He is I believe whats known as broken mouthed. This would normally mean the end for him, but as we are far from normal and have a huge bond with this big lad we are trying out various foodstuff he can manage to eat. Oats and pellets soaked in milk proved successful for a few minutes but he went off it, the others, including canines mobbed Tracey for a sample so it cant have been all bad.
We did find he scoffed rabbit feed, full of nice nibbley bits and flower heads so we are hopeful we can get him back into condition and enjoy life here for a while yet.

Luckily we were planning ahead for a change and his best ram lamb from last year, Hercules, wasn't castrated so whatever happens to Crispy he has at least made sure his genes will be passed on.