It has been a hard summer here at Deer Creek Pastures. For those who have been following along, you know that earlier this summer I shared about Elderberry’s diagnosis with Caseous Lymphadenitis (CL) and the difficult decision to euthanize her, as well as my testing strategy to monitor health and rid the flock of CL. You can read the previous posts here: Flock Health Update: CL Testing, Euthanasia, and Next Steps and Biohazard in the Pastures: Caseous Lymphadenitis.

Unfortunately, I now have to share that we faced another positive case. Peanut, a purebred Katahdin ewe, developed a lump near her ear that looked suspicious. In August, after sufficient time on fresh pasture had passed since exposure to Elderberry, we tested the entire flock’s blood and also cultured Peanut’s abscess. Unfortunately, Peanut became the latest chapter in this CL saga.

Quarantining the Wildest Sheep

Peanut was my most adventurous sheep. Prior to any CL concerns or vet visits, she has had many a run in with electric fencing, charging through netting and getting herself tangled, and freeing her friends in the flock. During her initial quarantine period on the farm when she arrived in December 2024, she took down netting day 1 and went on an adventure. She has had no fewer than 4 escapes, so I knew that quarantine could be tricky.

As soon as the vet lanced Peanut’s abscess for sampling, it left a wound where fluid could drain. We couldn’t risk her being with the others and creating additional exposure opportunities, but my barn corrals are wood with a dirt floor, which posed a long duration contamination risk. I had a separate electric fence pen set up, as I had suspected she would need to be kept separate post visit, but she charged through that and then charged into the fence that her friends had been moved to, despite the fence being energized. 

Given the placement of her wound, bandaging to prevent contamination wasn’t an option. My vet suggested using the garage since it has concrete floors. Since I couldn’t set up a pen in the barn, we resorted to putting her in the garage bathroom. That’s how I found myself quarantining a sheep indoors.

For the first five days, Peanut tolerated it surprisingly well. Then she managed to open the bathroom door. A door jam kept her secured after that, but every feeding and water change required bleach, scrubbing, and vigilance. Even contained, every point of contact felt like another chance for the disease to spread. Simultaneously, keeping a sheep away from grass felt inhumane – she clearly wanted to get free and she let me know throughout each night by headbutting the door. The one silver lining to Peanut’s quarantine experience was that she got air conditioning.

Waiting on Results

Peanut’s culture came back positive fairly quickly, but we were still waiting on the results for the rest of the flock. My vet and I didn’t want to cull her until we knew whether more would also need to be put down, so that we could cull in a single visit. The waiting stretched on for 18 days. Eventually, my vet discovered there had been a mishap with the lab. We scheduled the euthanasia for August 28th, in the afternoon regardless of whether the results were back, as neither Peanut nor I could handle a long Labor Day weekend of quarantine. Due to my vet’s persistence with calling the lab, she managed to get results a couple of hours ahead of the euthanasia – the rest of the flock tested negative so only Peanut needed to be culled. 

In hindsight, had I known the results would take so long, I would have advocated to cull sooner and then possibly need to schedule a second visit if others had been positive. In farming, you make the best decisions with the information you have and the guidance you’re given, but the circumstances of quarantining inside left me with a lot of anxiety and sleepless nights.

Culling and Disposing of Peanut

This time, I knew I could not go through another marathon burn like I did with Elderberry. Her body took 17 hours to burn, and I was constantly adding fuel to keep the fire going.  Disposing of livestock bodies is incredibly challenging. Local landfills will not accept them and pet cremation is prohibitively expensive. With CL, you should not bury the body due to the persistence of the bacteria in soil, and burning takes a long time.  We decided to submit Peanut’s body for necropsy, which is basically an autopsy for animals, at the University of Georgia (UGA). After the autopsy, they handle the remains. While we know she was positive for CL, we could still get interesting data on herd health from the necropsy. For UGA to perform a necropsy, it meant that my vet had to submit paperwork and I had to drive her body about an hour to the vet school, but compared to the ordeal of burning Elderberry’s, it was a far smoother process.

Counting the Costs

Between purchasing Elderberry and Peanut and the veterinary care for both, the total financial loss has been about ~$2,250 so far. Elderberry was purchased for $350, already bred at purchase, and Peanut was purchased for $275 as a purebred Katahdin, so $625 on animals that were culled less than a year from purchase. Veterinary visits, testing, euthanasia, cultures, and the necropsy added up to $1,639.04.

Update: I reached out to the seller regarding my 2nd case of CL and will be refunded the $625 that I paid for Elderberry and Peanut – the seller had no legal obligation to do so, and I am grateful that she was willing to work with me.

This figure doesn’t include my time or labor and other standard care requirements. Countless hours went into moving sheep for testing, disinfecting equipment, bleaching shoes, burning Elderberry’s body, and even decontaminating my garage. It also doesn’t include the time and costs associated with daily care, such as hoof trimming, parasite management, feed, and dewormer costs that continued through all of this.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Now that the flock has tested negative, the vet’s advice is to treat them as healthy, rotate them through fresh pasture, and retest in a few months. Given CL’s latency, there is still a chance others could test positive later, but if they remain clear it may indicate some resistance worth breeding into the flock.

If more had tested positive, I had been prepared to process the remainder for meat and potentially start over down the road. Since they are negative at this time, I’m choosing to hold steady and not make rash decisions. Still, I find myself questioning if I am cut out for sheep. Was this an unfortunate early setback, or a sign that sheep are simply not the right fit for me and my farm?

On Failure

This experience has tested me in ways I never imagined. Managing a sheep in a bathroom, making the call to cull, and facing the biohazard risk of CL has been exhausting and humbling. I have never poured so much time, money, and heart into something only to feel like I failed at it.

CL has also left me with a streak of anxiety around animal care and biosecurity. I’ve gone through more bleach in two months than I had in the past ten years. The disease is ruthless in its persistence, clinging to soil and surfaces long after you think you’ve cleaned them.

And yet, I continue to remind myself why I chose sheep for Deer Creek Pastures. With 20 acres of pasture, I can stock and scale far more sheep than I could with cattle. Sheep offer potential for growth if I can manage the health risks. For now, I will continue caring for the remaining flock with intention, schedule a controlled burn of the contaminated pasture, and reassess as time goes on.

Farming is not easy. The weight of making decisions for every animal can be heavy, but it also means the choice is mine. How I grow this farm is up to me, and even in failure, there is freedom in that.