Three things so its a bit long winded. Probably should have had three posts but thought I would condense it into one.
Firstly, how on earth do you fully eliminate pink eye? We have had it on and off since they were dipped in June/July. We followed vets advice and jabbed everything and used eye cream in those affected. We have done that 3 or 4 times now as outbreaks occur. We thought it had cleared up in all of them now one has got it in one eye. The problem being at this time of year they share hay racks. We had been scattering the hay, but as it seemed to have been clear for a couple of weeks we started using the racks for convenience and to reduce poaching/wastage. Its HLS land and poaching is very frowned upon. She is always the first there so even though we have separated her now, chances are everything else will have had contact with her, and with them being pregnant if they go blind as some have been doing there must be a risk of abortion.
Secondly, we have a few sheep that have speckled patches of lost wool on the front of their heads from the nose up to eye level. A couple have gone completely bald there. Speckling in my past experience has normally meant a flukey problem, and we are on land that seems to have an obscene worm/fluke problem which has been carnage this year to the extent we may give it up next year, but as a result they are fluked regularly. Any sort of deficiencies likely to cause this?
Finally, following on a bit form the last question how often do people need to worm/fluke their sheep? We used to do the ewes twice a year at most at our last place. In the autumn and at lambing time and have never had a problem. A lot were not even done that often. The land we are currently on we are looking as though we are going to have to do a chunk of them every 3wks. If we don't, they are dead come the next time around, or very poorly. The lambs have been dying for fun. Is it normal to have to do them that often? We are on very wet land with a great deal of run off from a deforested area and the fields above. I have asked the neighbour and his basic answer was "there is a reason nobody local wanted that land." I know the last tenant must have lost a few here as there are skulls everywhere! The vet is coming to have another look next week and we have more FECs to do as well. The problem we have really is that we have 30 ewes on this piece of land, and I don't really want to move them onto any of the other land we have, partly due to the risk of spreading parasites but mainly the pink eye.
Any sort of input would be appreciated as its been a miserable year close to culling the lot of these!
Topic: Advice please (Read 3227 times)
