How to treat a sheep that is wounded and has stitches?

Answer 1

Your veterinarian will have specific instructions for you regarding what to watch for and how to handle the sheep.

In general, stitches for a traumatic wound such as a laceration or bite rip need to be monitored closely for infection (redness, swelling, heat, pain) as the risk of bacterial contamination is high; depending upon the specific cause, your veterinarian may put your sheep on antibiotics immediately and these need to be given until the end of the doses is reached.

Your sheep may need to be kept in a barn or shelter and segregated from the rest of the herd as well to keep it from moving around too much and ripping the stitches out; a companion or two may be kept with your sutured sheep to keep its anxiety down.

The stitches need to be kept clean; in terms of working with sheep, the area was probably bandaged and you may need to look under the bandages once or twice a day to see what is happening.

If all goes well, the veterinarian (or a competent shepherd) can remove the stitches in 14 days and turn the sheep back out with the rest of the flock.