Resistance is useless

Years ago, my neighbour above was hooshing sheep up our lane "by hand". Make that many years ago because hooshing is now done by/with/from his 4x4 and a lorra honking of horn. But at that earlier encounter there was time to pause when I remarked on the fact that the last straggling lamb seemed to have only 3 legs. Apparently his 5 y.o. youngest son, trying to be just like daddy, had gone into the barn picked up a syringe full of antibiotic and injected the contents into the meaty part of the lamb's left thigh. The leg had 'gone septic' and 'dropped off' but the lamb had survived and there we were.  This was in the last 20th century when farmers were exempt from any sensible measure of control w.r.t. the doctoring of their livestock. This was on small [5 y.o. apprentice] scale and huge [profligate use of penicillin as a growth promoter for battery chickens].

We've been in the farrrming biz for 25 years and one of the handiest tools in the chest is a topical antibiotic spray [R] to give the illusion of control when surveying and treating damaged feet. Sheep Ovis aries are designed to hop across a rocky terrain, grazing on grass and forbes and shrubberies. The related goat Capra hircus is more of a browser [shrubberies and bushes and trees] than a grazer - but they also prefer / need a rocky under-footing. Without regular abrasion and sand-papering, the claws of sheep over-grow, and split and break and get infected. And grass, if the slightest bit too long, will deliver paper-cuts between the toes which also get infected.

It is probably not a good idea to be so flaithulach with antibiotics in the environment. At the most recent visit to the Vets for matèriel against the autumn dosing it was revealed that the terramycin spray could only be dispensed by prescription, whc fair enough, and The Vet would have to visit at least once a year to allow such prescription with a clear conscience. Accordingly two days later, The Vet made a Passing Visit [cheaper than a call-out], viewed the sheep at close quarters and allayed our concern about a lump on the lower jaw of one of the ewes. Job Done, see you next October.