Well, not really. But you do have to do a lot of things yourself when you raise animals, because calling a vet out for every little thing would be impractical, not to mention expensive.

Tug is our oldest ram lamb, and he has these things on his head that look like horns, but are called "scurs". True horns grow directly from the skull, while scurs are not as securely attached. Whether they grow out of the skin layer or somewhat deeper I'm not sure. They are wannabe horns that are prone to breaking off and bleeding all over the place for no good reason. This picture was taken while they were both still in one piece:

Of course, ram lambs like to practice bashing their heads against things, and when you have scurs this is not a good idea. Tug started out with two scurs pointing up and back, and then one day the left one got banged about, and started bleeding at the base. Plus, it was now slightly cockeyed, so that it pointed a bit off to one side. It's been getting progressively worse, until the last few days you could see that the outer layer was completely detached from his head but still stuck to this kind of stem-like thing and was now pointing sideways, like another ear. It rather resembled an alien mushroom and was pretty silly looking.

Tonight there was the usual scrum at the hay feeder, and suddenly Tug emerged shaking his head and with fresh drops of blood dripping down over his eye. I grabbed him and Ken held him while I went for something to cut that silly looking thing off, Kwik-Stop for the bleeding, and Blu-Kote to prevent flies and things from getting in there and making a mess.

I came back with the loppers, the kind you use for pruning tree branches. Ken steadied his head and *snip*, off it came. I applied the Kwik-Stop (wonderful stuff) and then a few sprays of the Blu-Kote and he was good to go. While we had ahold of him I tested the other scur. Although he hasn't banged that one up (yet), when I put pressure on it, I could feel and see it move slightly. That would not happen with a true horn.

So, we'll see, but for now at least that thing isn't hanging off his head waiting to cause more trouble. He probably feels lopsided but he'll get used to it. I'm sure he'll repay us by knocking the other one off and making us repeat the process.

Anyone for lamb chops? :-)