Sander's Story / Our Miracle Baby

Summer’s Sander is a beautiful true black herdsire. He has great locks, luster, confirmation, and personality; but his life started out very rocky.Sander was born August of 2008, a month early to a maiden dam. He didn’t figure out right away how to nurse, and his dam being a new mother didn’t understand how to help. We started milking his dam, and amazingly she stood patiently for us to milk her and watched as her new baby boy got her bottled milk. Sander had a plasma transfer and had been covered by an antibiotic until two days after his transfer. Sander had never been a vigorous cria, preferring to sleep. In fact, we never seen him romp and play in those early days. His condition visibility started to deteriorate at about one month of age, as he started walking with an arched back and his back legs seem to be getting weaker and weaker. We had moved to a new location, so were not acquainted with any new vets but we soon made the rounds. None of the local vets could figure out what was going on, and gave us no hope. We persisted, finally contacting the Colorado State University Vet School. They diagnosed the problem as a selenium/vitamin E deficiency. By the time this diagnosis was made, Sander had become completely immobile, unable to use his back legs. We immediately dosed him with BoSe and continued with oral vitamin E daily as advised by CSU. Every couple of hours in the days that followed, we supported Sander’s back legs (moving him like a wheelbarrow) so that he could visit his dam for milk, the hay tough and poop pile. Both he and his dam knew we were there to help and totally cooperated. (I am still amazed at how smart these animals are!)After four days of continued treatment and our assistance, he started to improve. After four days, Sander was able to stand by himself. His legs were still not very strong, but he was able to get around. He continued to improve, and we continued to treat him with BoSe monthly and oral vitamin E daily. Even though we had finally found the right diagnosis we continued to learn more about this problem. It turns out that a vitamin E / selenium deficiency is commonly known as White Muscle Disease, and is well documented in lambs. We learned the importance of providing a free choice, high quality mineral that includes selenium.Our happiest day ever was the day Sander jumped into the air and pronged with the other crias! To this day, Sander now almost four, shows no signs of ever having the deficiency and is definitely our miracle baby! NEVER give up on these animals no matter what their situation is; Sander reinforced that to us with his miraculous recovery. These animals have an amazing will to live and can pull through anything as long as they have the support they need. We are grateful for the vets at CSU, without them we wouldn’t have Sander. Sander’s first crop of crias are coming this fall of 2012!