Wasn’t sure whether to bump this thread or start a new one, but...
The wool slip that led me to begin this thread in the autumn pretty much stopped, and I was none the wiser as too the cause - it only affected a couple of the sheep, and as I say it stopped. But the ewe affected has had an untidy looking fleece all winter. I noticed this morning that a largish patch on her thigh had pulled away, and on taking a closer look most of the fleece across her back pulled away like an easy care or something, leaving a small layer of fleece like she’s just been shorn. There was a yellowish tint in the wool, but the skin itself looks fine.
I’ve read all the threads on here I could find for wool slip/wool break (&
http://www.infovets.com/books/smrm/F/F770.htm and elsewhere) and as best I can tell it’s wool slip caused by some sort of stress. It doesn’t look like any of the mites/lice cases I’ve looked up, and other than looking shocking now and being slighter than her peers, she’s always been alert and hungry and active. One comment in a thread mentioned a case that turned out to be cobalt deficiency - I do know that shepherds in our area tend to Bolus for cobalt (I have been giving mine a periodic drench) and when I got them last year they turned out to have a quite high worm burden, so that’s two potential causes of stress from when the problem first appeared.
Two questions:
- is there anything else I should do to try to investigate the cause?
- what can I do to protect her from the weather? I’m thinking of getting a dog jacket for her for a month or two. Is that crazy?