Author Topic: Drinking water (Read 2942 times)

moprabbit · « **on:** December 30, 2012, 10:43:30 am »

There was a post sometime ago about whether sheep needed water or not in winter. I replied saying that yes my sheep drink water particularly after eating hay. However a friend of mine has a 9 month old ewe lamb in the field next to mine and I have noticed it drinking large quantities of water. I thought one sign of worms was drinking a lot, but he said he'd recently wormed it. It does have some creep and has access to hay. It does look healthy and theres no scouring. Just wondered what others thought - is this normal? Thanks

SallyintNorth · « **Reply #1 on:** December 30, 2012, 10:53:35 am »

If they are eating cake and hay they need plenty of water, so if it's eating the hay it wouldn't surprise me to see it drinking.

What do you mean by "large quantities of water"? And how often?

moprabbit · « **Reply #2 on:** December 30, 2012, 10:57:18 am »

It stands for quite a few minutes at the bucket several times an hour - although I'm not watching it all the time.

SallyintNorth · « **Reply #3 on:** December 30, 2012, 11:58:04 am »

Ok, that's wrong. Nothing should drink that much.

Is it a wether lamb? Is it peeing ok? Is the belly swollen? (Thinking urinary calculi, maybe it's being fed a cake without the additive and is drinking loads to keep things moving through.)

Otherwise, I'd suspect some sort of infection or blockage or something.

If it were mine I'd check mucus membranes and temperature, if those normal maybe get poo tested for eggs of anything the wormer might not cover, and/or talk to the vet about something broad spectrum.

moprabbit · « **Reply #4 on:** December 30, 2012, 12:09:04 pm »

Thanks Sally - it's a ewe lamb. She's weeing fine and generally seems Ok but I agree with you about having a worm count done. I'll suggest it to my friend.