Buttercup: A Sheep Saved
Animal Stories from All-Creatures.org

From Animal Liberation Victoria (ALV), August 2011

Driving back from the opening along a country road near Kerang, Patty and Skye saw what they thought was a dead sheep caught in a fence. They investigated and saw she was still alive.

Both back legs were caught in twisted barbed wire, she was in full sun, panting, a huge swollen tongue, bulging eyes and very dehydrated.

Once inside the van and out of the hot sun, we luckily had ice left over from the opening and we started to revive her.

We went into quick action, gave her water, cut the wire, made a blanket stretcher, rolled her on the blanket, pulled her to the van and somehow the two of us lifted her in to safety!

She was in a state of shock and panting heavily, we dripped water into her mouth and kept the ice packs on her overheated body.

I've never seen the tongue of a sheep so swollen and she was panting non-stop.

Luckily she did stand up right away and after an hour of constant panting started to settle a little. She stood by the open window at the back of the van and the air coming in helped cool her down.

I called her Buttercup as she was so beautiful and such an amazing creature (but all sheep are!) She was very frightened and it took her over an hour to 'look' at us and realise we weren't sheep.

Edgars Mission Sanctuary was on the way home and they very kindly took her in. It took around 2 1/2 hours to get there and once we arrived she was a different girl and much more settled and quiet, but still very frightened. This is Skye with her in the back of the van.

Buttercup gave birth to baby Skye, July 27, 2011!

We had not realised when she was rescued that she was pregnant. Both mum and bubs doing well!

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