The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: feldar on March 14, 2012, 08:54:25 pm
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As you probably are aware by now we have had this damned virus Schmallenberg
just when we thought nothing else could go wrong! tonight when we went down the field, my daughter noticed a lamb who kept poking his tongue out. When i caught him up and checked his mouth he had an overshot lower jaw.
We checked the other lambs in the field as well and counted a total of 6 lambs with this defect, some so bad the teeth were really showing over the top lip.
What is so freaky is that when all our lambs were born this year because we had tested positive for the virus i meticulously checked their mouths, but some of these lambs are quite old now and they've only developed this problem recently.
We will go to plan B and bring all lambs and ewes in and creep feed because there's no way that some of these can eat grass. If they get too bad we may have to put some down we will just have to see
Just thought i would keep you informed, this bloody disease just will not go away and leave us in peace
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:bouquet: So sorry to hear your traumas continue, feldar. {{{hugs}}}
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What a nightmare {{{ hugs }}}
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Sorry to hear this, Feldar
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Sorry to hear this too. Thanks for posting though.
Luckily, being in wales here we dont have it, but evidence in terms of close observation is whats going to help kill this virus.
Thank you for documenting - and wish you and everyone involved the best from now.
Best wishes
Baz
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So sorry to hear you are having more problems. It sounds as if the fusing of joints includes sympheses and has gone on in some cases without producing birth defects but as growth continues the effects become noticeable I would imagine other shepherds are seeing the same effects. :'(
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Really sorry to hear about this :bouquet:
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thanks for all your support.
It is interesting in a way I've not herd anything on the news or farming press about defects after birth or growth problems maybe they just don't know what's going to happen. We will report it to our vet but there maybe people out there who think they've got away with this disease and are going to get a shock.
We were hoping to keep some ewe lambs that looked ok to breed on from but i question that now because what else could be wrong with them?
Other question is can we sell these lambs at market as stores and i must admit i am a bit worried about putting them in the freezer!! are they ok to eat i think we will have to sit down and have a think about this or seek some more advice.
Keep you posted
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This is just awful news,I`m trying to get my head round this ???? -- I didn`t know that Schmallenburg could manifest into deformities after birth aswell :-\
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What a dreadful development - I really feel for you feldar and hope that you get no more nasty surprises. You've been through more than enough already.
It will be interesting to find out if this is being replicated elsewhere - sadly I expect the answer to that one in 'yes'.
If it is being seen elsewhere then the VLA/Defra need to get this information out in general circulation quickly so that every one is armed with the necessary knowledge to be extra vigilent about the ongoing problems with this awful disease.
Thank you for keeping us informed on the developments - at least some of us have a better understanding thanks to your informative posts.
Keep strong feldar - Hugs!
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Thanks for posting Feldar - you are providing useful info for all of us. But I wonder how many lambs will be suffering this summer unnoticed? :(There will be thousands out on the downs and cliffs near here that are scarcely checked. We know where it was first seen but how did it start?
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I'd be gutted! I don't honestly know how I'd cope with layer on layer of such devastation in my flock and newborns. I hope your nightmare eases soon and you can resume a more normal pattern of life without any more horrors...................
Am I being pessimistic here, thinking this is only the tip of the iceberg? It is such a new disease will it mutate?
and, something everyone who keep sheep is dreading, will it quickly spread in these warmer times?
Does anyone know what ongoing research is being done on the disease/vaccine in Europe?
Kanisha.................?
It is creeping across France but, it doesn't seem to have reached us here in Finistere.........yet.
We had our first lamb right on time last night out in the field (two to go). All seems to be well.
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essentially it is a mutation of other viruses already out there and not present in the EU. Plenty of reasearch vaccine talk s about two years away on current estimates.
Nothing has been declared in 29 35 22 or 56 which covers the whole of Brittany odd then that it is so far along the UK coast......
best of luck with the rest of your lambing I am still waiting...... talk of all these lambs is killing me :sheep: :sheep: :sheep:
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?p=446043 (http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?p=446043)
(http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd278/SperedBreizh/SchmallenbergvirusinFrance.png)
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Sounds terrible and giving you a real nightmare
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Well we've spoken with our vet today and he is going back to DEFRA and the VLA with our info. He did say someone higher up may want to come out and view these lambs.
Dread going down the field now in case there is any more
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Hi feldar, I hope your trip down to the field didn't reveal any more deformed lambs??
I meant to ask whether the lambs with the subsequent undershot jaws were twins of other lambs (dead or alive) already known to have been affected by the schmallenberg virus or if they were from ewes that had previously had lambs that all appeared to be normal at birth?
I wonder whether Defra/VLA have considered taking blood samples of a supposedly 'normal' twin of one that is known to have suffered with the disease to see wheher that throws up any relevant data.
Hope you are OK!
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Hi Haylo-peapod
The lambs that are affected are from the same field as the lambs which tested positive for Schmallenberg. They are ones which looked normal at birth and nearly all the sheep had twins. The ram lamb whose twin was born deformed ( in my other thread) i've not managed to catch yet he's a quick little thing but i did try taking some photos last night, Most of the lambs took the P*** out of me and i got lots of pics of ears, bums and tails :D
But what i did get was below.
The first pic shows a lamb we know has a twisted jaw aand the second you would think is a lamb not getting enough milk he is so humpy actually what he has is a curved spine he is as heavy as the others and full up but stands like this all the time. We will have to see how he fairs as he grows
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All the lambs are doing well at the moment no casualties or skinny ones but their Mums have milk, We are going to catch up and bring in any overshot mouth lambs and mothers then creep feed and get gone ASAP, It remains to be seen how they "do" if their mouths aren't too bad we can get them to market any who are too deformed will be PTS
As for blood testing i don't think the government are too bothered and we just report findings to our vet who reports back to VLA centre, we can't afford to blood test everything and the directive back from them to us is yes you've had now deal with it!
Funnily enough our lambs are either twisted jaws or OVERSHOT on the bottom jaw, the literature only mentions Parrot mouthed as being overshot on the top jaw, trust us to be different!
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Can this dreadful virus be passed from sheep to sheep or only through midges? It could be risky taking them to market and spreading the problem .
I feel so sorry for You and your flock, truly dreadful.
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Thanks Tizaala,
i don't know if it can be passed on! i know it needs a host, all viruses do and that would be the midge and /or the sheep but are my sheep now carriers? and could they possibly infect others if a midge bites them and then another sheep.
I don't know if it crosses the placental barrier i wouldn't of thought so. The placenta is a very effective barrier in most animals and we are informed it is the massive antibody reaction to the mother being bitten and infected with the virus coupled with the hight temperature that such an infection causes that is the cause of the deformities in the lambs.
We haven't had much info given out since the first cases and i guess they just don't know themselves what's going to happen. I'm sure there will be someone out there doing a Phd on the subject as we speak.
Here's a photo i missed this is one of the lambs i know is overshot at the bottom, he runs about most of the time with his tongue stuck out
.We have had overshot mouths before, all big sheep farmers get one or two but i've never had such high numbers in such a concentrated area
Sorry they're not very good photos but as you know lambs just won't stay still for more than 2 seconds
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Awful news still Feldar. I was talking to my sheep farmer neighbour. He lambs about 1500 ewes and he reckons he probably wouldn't notice this virus if it occurs in his flock as a certain percentage of lambs born do have something wrong with them. I'm not sure I agree with him as it seems to me that we don't know enough yet about this virus. As you have proved with your lambs, the deformities etc don't always fit with what we've been told.
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It's now been confirmed as far north as Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire - 1 case in each county. The official line remains that it has only been found in areas at risk of midge incursion from the continent in summer / autumn 2011 and that further spread will have been through domestic midges.
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So how far does the midge incursion from the continent extend? I don't recall Leicestershire and Warwickshire being on the original list. :o
One small 'bonus' (if you can call it that) is that for the time being the numbers seem to be staying low in most counties outside of the South East and East Anglia. Not that this helps our friends in those regions sadly. Let's hope that as more of the northern flocks start to lamb the numbers don't grow too much more (preferably not at all).
I wonder if there would have been much spread from the domestic midges with the mild winter ???
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Well got more " unofficial info " from vet. It does cross placenta which is why we had to take lambs to VLA centre.They have to do a PCR on tissue samples to harvest the virus they can't get this from blood samples. The tissue is digested and run on a gel to confirm the virus is present.
We now probably have PIs ( carriers) in the flock and these would probably be the live lambs born with the mummified twins.
We could cull these out, but if say our neighbour has had this but doesn't confirm it, he would have PIs too then we would be back to square one. Unless all PIs are culled all over the country there would always be a reinfection risk so it's far better to wait for a vaccine.
On the plus side all the lambs are still doing well even Humpy ( little lamb with curved spine) so we just have to wait and see. Be good if we had a wet warm spring so everything gets bitten before any rams go in
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Oh wow.... I'm so sorry.
Has anyone confirmed for sure that the jaw/spine problems are due to SBV?
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If this is caused my midges drifting over from France why hasn't it happened here before?
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It's a whole new mutation of a virus....
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The laboratory in France confirmed that we did have one lamb with the virus - body fused inside the female in a U-shape. Possibility of others which were mummified or born dead but we did not connect this with the virus at the time so no accurate diagnosis on them as such.
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Oh wow.... I'm so sorry.
Has anyone confirmed for sure that the jaw/spine problems are due to SBV?
No they haven't confirmed it officially but i would be very worried if it was anything else! The lambs have tested positive so far but no one has tested live lambs our vet says this is because there'isn't a blood test available yet they have to harvest tissue and that he thinks would probably be from the spinal cord so not a viable option on a live lamb.
Having the odd funny jaw in a large flock is not the problem it is the numbers of lambs coming through with deformed mouths in one concentrated area that makes it suspiciuos if it's not this virus then i'm a worried lady
Sorry to hear your problems too Rich/Jan i hope you don't get any more. But i think if you had some mumified ones then the rest of your flock was probably infected too :bouquet:
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After an apparently normal lambing, I have been dosing lambs for cocci today and have found a large number of lambs who have bottom teeth forward of the pad. To be honest, the first thing I thought was oh crap the rams are no good, but on reading this I'm starting to wonder if I haven't escaped this virus after all. Just an odd one or two I could suspect a genetic fault but I have noticed about 7 out of 29 lambs - that's the ones who are really noticeable. I just hope I can get them fit for slaughter once the milk dries up...good job they like creep!
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Hi Hazelwood
It is worrying i know, i'm sorry to hear you have problems too. Trouble is the lambs are not that noticeable until you lay hands on them. we would have suspected our ram but we've used him before with no problems for several years, but then we know we tested positive in the affected fields. so i can only assume this is the virus that causes this deformity in the lambs born alive, who appear normal at first.
We will creep ours too and hope they don't get worse as they grow. only time will tell.
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I have one really bad parrot-mouthed ram lamb - the first born - but will watch the others much more closely now. Luckily 5 out of 8 were rams anyway and destined for the freezer. But I am concerned whether to keep this year's ewe lambs.
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Our sheep started lambing yesterday....a nice healthy ewe lamb from one and a prem dead lamb with twisted jaw and odd ears from another.....think we have it here....
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I'm due to start lambing on the 4th......I'm crossing my fingers. 102 ewes to lamb outdoors, will be an absolute nightmare if I have to deliver fused lambs.
Sorry to hear about your further troubles, Feldar. :(
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Our sheep started lambing yesterday....a nice healthy ewe lamb from one and a prem dead lamb with twisted jaw and odd ears from another.....think we have it here....
:bouquet: I do hope you don't, woollyval {{{hug}}}
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Our sheep started lambing yesterday....a nice healthy ewe lamb from one and a prem dead lamb with twisted jaw and odd ears from another.....think we have it here....
I hope not but even if you don't have another deformed lamb it doesn't take away the worry :(
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Good luck everyone , don't forget we are here for you if you need support :bouquet:
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Well, one of the overshot lambs died of what I suspect to be pneumonia so I thought i'd get the vet to check it out. Our vets couldn't be more disinterested if they tried! apparently there's no chance of it being schmallenberg causing the bad mouths - 14 ot of 29 - it's the fault of the 2 rams! I'm sorry, but that incidence is just too high, one of the rams sired a crop of faultless lambs last year....not happy!
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Look like we have Schallenburg here now. My first ewe to lamb delivered a large single all fine yesterday. Second ewe lambed twins here this morning, ram lamb 100% fine, second ewe lamb born with twisted pasterns, over shot jaw and unable to straighten legs fully. Perky little thing otherwise. Vet PTS and now gone to VLA. :'(
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Oh no, I'm sorry :-*
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So Sorry to everyone with this disease.
We have had a positive test as well, my vet told me it wasn't in our area and that it was most probably copper deficiency or borders disease but eventually let me send it to the VLA.
I haven't noticed any issues with the other lambs that are growing nicely and only problem is that every year we have 1 that has eyelashes that turn in but that is very easily retified and he is fine now.
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Really sorry to hear of the continuing problems people are experiencing.
Hazelwood - do you know if any other farmers/smallholders in your area are seeing similar things with their lambs? Incredible that the vet is so disinterested bearing in mind the percentages affected and the fact that last year you had no problems with identical breeding. You would have thought that with a new disease causing deformities in lambs that they would want to explore anomalies like this. How can they possibly say categorically it isn't caused caused by SBV ??? I hope the other lambs fare better than the one you have just lost :bouquet:
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I am sorry for those affected too and i fully agree Hazelwood the incidence of twisted jaws is too high if not Schmallenberg then what? I have never had such a high number in one field. They say it doesn't affect lambs born to an early service but i think it does, we lamb in December and a lot of our lambs just wont "do" this year they are not deformed but they don't hit our target weights this year.
I could say this could be caused by a lot of factors but we are not wet behind the ears in sheep farming and have enough experience to know this has been one hell of a funny year for us.
We've lost ewes for no reason to pin point and we've lost lambs too. The most important factor is we tested positive so for now we will just have to wait and see what this year brings.
The rams will go in around mid July and if we have this virus in our midge population everything may well be naturally vaccinated by then, i feel for those north of us who may well be affected next year if we have carriers infecting others.
Just for the record my twisted jaw lambs are growing slowly but humpy lamb seems to be fixed at one weight for the moment he also has a large lump on his face he was born with but that hasn't gone either so we will have to keep an eye on him. How on earth can i send that to market they would throw the book at me!
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The vet has indicated that overshot jaws are not a recognised symptom of SBV, hence the reluctance to test. I have taken the lamb up to the knacker's now so that is that. I think if any more snuff it I will approach a different surgery to at least explore the possibilities.
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The vet has indicated that overshot jaws are not a recognised symptom of SBV, hence the reluctance to test. I have taken the lamb up to the knacker's now so that is that. I think if any more snuff it I will approach a different surgery to at least explore the possibilities.
Didn't it show one on countryfile that was either over/undershot as a result of the disease?
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Well my vet indicated it was a direct result of the disease! just goes to show i think they are in the dark as much as we are :o I have to say my vet has been brilliant.