The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: feldar on March 12, 2012, 09:07:29 pm
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Hi Everyone i asked permission to post these.
The second picture shows a lamb who was born with a full term twin. the twin is alive and well a ram lamb but as you can see his twin was born dead.
the first picture shows a twin of lambs. the ewe was bleating like she had lambed so i checked her, but she showed no sign of giving birth. the next day she had a small amount of discharge on her tail but still no obvious signs of labour a few hours later she pushed out the full term lamb and i removed the fetus twin from her cleanings. the labour was very quick and although she bleated a bit she showed no interest in the larger lamb.
Sorry if this distresses anyone that is not my intention., but this is how this disease manifests itself.
we have lost two ewes because the lambs died inside them and they did not clean properly
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Mother of pearl, those are pretty horrific. What a nasty nasty thing this virus is. My heart goes out to you and to everyone who is suffering this. It is interesting to see the pictures as it gives a visual idea of what to look out for.
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Horrid, but better to know :-\
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Yes I wasn't aware that this sort of thing was likely to happen. Its bad enough to have to deal with deformed lambs but not knowing if your ewes are running around with dead lambs inside is just as difficult. sorry to hear that you have lost two ewes:-(
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It's not nice but better to know what can happen - thank you Feldar for passing on information
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Thank you for posting. They are awful to see but it is perhaps best to be prepared and know what one may encounter.
Our soay are due to lamb for the first time soon and hoping that we will miss this. Even if we really enjoy our first lambing season I think we may skip breeding next year if this virus continues to spread .........just dont think that we could deal with this with our limited knowledge and experience.
Our thoughts to everyone having to cope with it this year.
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I echo the above, gruesome as the pictures are they show what to look out for - thanks for posting them, and good luck with the remainder of lambing folks!
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Thank you for posting, you poor thing to have to go through that AND lose ewes too :bouquet: :bouquet:
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That's truly horrid :'(. Thankyou for posting though.
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Appalling. Our Hebs are due in 2 weeks, first lambing for them and for us. I'll be heartbroken if this is what lies ahead... and feel desperately sorry for anyone who has this awful situation. :bouquet:
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Thanks, feldar; I really appreciate the way you and others experiencing this terrible disease have kept us informed.
As to avoiding lambing next year... I am hoping that the virus does its rounds early(ish) in the summer, infecting all the ewes when they are not in lamb (and when this year's lambs can tolerate mum's milk going off for a couple of days, coupled with having a temperature themselves.) All sheep will then be immune and there should be no impact on next year's lambing.
Or have I misunderstood it?
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Thanks Feldar. Usually so excited about lambing which is a little tainted by the threat of Schmallenberg this year. It is incredibly helpful to have some more idea of what signs to look for however. So sorry for your heartache. Bless you for posting such obviously distressing but very important images.
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My neighbour and I both lamb in April (about the eighth in my case) so we have a few worrying weeks left. On the bright side another neighbour who lambs from November to May has had no problems so far.
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Thankyou all for being understanding. So much press went on about the deformed lambs that i don't think anyone thought much about the aborted lambs. To be honest a big commercial farmer probably wouldn't find little aborted lambs like ours because they would either get lost in the straw of the barn or if you lambed outside a fox would take them. I only saw it because it was freshly lambed.
It does all stack up with why we have had so many singles this year, when we were expecting twins, also why some in lamb ewes suddenly looked empty.
All material sent off for testing has come back positive so at least we know we are not dealing with anything else.......yet
We had our last twin born at the weekend from the same field healthy and happy, so there is a good ending
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Not a good thing to go through. What is stressing is the uncertainty. We have only had the one case so far but someone 2 miles down the road has had 50% losses. Difficult to endure but the positive is that each healthy lamb is one you might have lost.
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Thankyou Felder for posting info. on schmallenberg.
Sorry to hear of your losses :bouquet: - have you many more to lamb?
Thanks, feldar; I really appreciate the way you and others experiencing this terrible disease have kept us informed.
As to avoiding lambing next year... I am hoping that the virus does its rounds early(ish) in the summer, infecting all the ewes when they are not in lamb (and when this year's lambs can tolerate mum's milk going off for a couple of days, coupled with having a temperature themselves.) All sheep will then be immune and there should be no impact on next year's lambing.
Or have I misunderstood it?
SallyintNorth- That is how i`m thinking at the moment. I hope the infected midges come early over summer and the ewes get immune before getting in lamb again.
Tilly
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Thanks so much for this feldar, what a terrible ordeal you and others are going through. Particularly sorry to hear about the ewes that died as they did not cleanse properly. Do the vets have any suggestions on whether anything can be done to assist them with the cleansing? Like everyone else I am really grateful for the insight you have given us into this terrible disease as it is always good to be as fully informed as possible.
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Thanks Feldar, very helpful. Not nice to see but I would rather see this on the page than unepectedly find it in the field :(. As you say, large commercial flocks must be losing so many lambs without apparent explanation. It must be playing havoc with their planning.
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The ewes that died didn't show any signs of being ill initially. They suddenly went down hill rapidly they looked pregnant and they were in the last stages of pregnancy. Admittedly one ewe was fairly old and having her last set of lambs but the other one was a young ewe.
We noticed the frist ewe suddenly looked weak and wobbly one evening when i went to feed them and when i caught her up she collapsed off her feet. Thinking it was twin lamb disease ( before we knew we had Schmallenberg) we drenched her and injected vitamins and treated for twin lamb. She did not improve so we called our vet who prescribed a strong course of antibiotics and a steroid. 3 days later she was still hanging on but getting steadily worse so we repeated everything. 3 days after she was so bad my hubby shot her, she was lingering on to a bad death so we called it for her.
The following week we had another ewe go exactly the same way, we shot her too. Our vet offered a PM but by then we had had the first deformed lambs born so we kind of put two and two together.
Since then we have had the two other ewes abort naturally so they cleaned ok and those two pictured lambs which luckily the ewe managed to clean properly.
We have finished lambing now so we can relax for this year :wave:
Just to add once we shot the ewes they smelt very bad very quickly, really smelt of infection. you don't normally get that in a fresh dead animal