The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Remy on November 27, 2012, 10:49:50 pm
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Doing a headcount this morning, gutted to find yet another sheep missing, went over the field to find it dead :'( . Again it was one of this year's Gotland lambs, a little boy this time. I had checked them carefully Saturday and all were fine as far as I could see, no sign of illness/lameness or looking poor. I went away Sunday morning till Monday evening, and thought my hubby would have checked them for me but he hadn't done Sunday and Monday he was working, so this lamb would have died Sun or Mon. It had just been started on by crows by the looks of it, a hole in the side and eyes missing :P so my initial fear that foxes took them appears wrong. I have taken it in for a post mortem today.
I am now wondering whether the relentless wet and windy conditions have just been too much for them, although this wouldn't explain why my adult Gotland ewe died mysteriously in September. I have moved all the other lambs (10 left) into a small paddock with a shelter and will start feeding them, although there was still a fair amount of grass on the paddock they were in. This paddock is too small to support them for long so they will be getting haylage/hard feed. I'm hoping to eventually put them in with the other adult ewes but will hold off till I get the results of the PM, which I hope sheds some light on all this! An odd thing is that all the three sheep seem to have died in roughly the same place in the field.
I so hope I don't get any more losses ... :-\
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Oh, that's awful. :bouquet: One feels so inadequate when things like this happen - and yet it's just sheep being sheep, coupled with this year's awful weather. I do hope the PM comes up with something, but it may not - our vet says he wants to be PMing while they're still warm, really; so many things aren't really definitively detectable once rigor mortis has set in, let alone once they've started to decompose. But at the least it'll get them thinking about tests they can do on the live sheep, or meds they can suggest, to hopefully avert another casualty.
I do feel for you, Remy, and hope this is the last loss. :-*
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Oh no :hug: I hope you can find out what it was - it leaves you just worrying it will happen again otherwise. Certainly the weather has been truly dreadful. I really hope this is the last :hug:
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Oh what a shame :hug: I hope this is the last casualty - I do feel for you :(
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Awful feel for you as have piggy casualty at present :(
You mention that they all have seemingly dropped down dead in the same spot, is it worth digging down to make sure theres nothing nasty buried there like old car batteries or a live electric cable or something of that nature thats casuing these sudden deaths.
anyway :bouquet: :hug: mandy :pig:
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It's been grazed all summer with no problems, I've had sheep on that field for over five years now - this is the first time I've had casualties in it! ???
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I do hope you get to the bottom of it all lover. It seem every time you go away you come back to another casualty. Have you anyone else who can check on them if hubby can't? Gotlands are usually tough little things, being a primitive breed. Get the rest checked for liver fluke. It is rife this year and this is the key time for it. Don't know what else to say. I'm so sorry for what you're going through. :hug:
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They all had Fasimec Duo in Oct, so should have been covered for fluke - hubby usually checks for me but I didn't remind him to do so this time - I shouldn't really have to but he's not the sheep person I am! ::)
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I do hope you get to the bottom of it all lover. It seem every time you go away you come back to another casualty. Have you anyone else who can check on them if hubby can't? Gotlands are usually tough little things, being a primitive breed. Get the rest checked for liver fluke. It is rife this year and this is the key time for it. Don't know what else to say. I'm so sorry for what you're going through. :hug:
My vet reckons its the worst year in the past hundred for fluke. Even if the pm cant ascertain cause of death, they can look for fluke.
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Hi Remy are your Heptavac vaccinations all up to date, did your lambs get them properly? just a thought when we lost our strong upstanding ram lambs a few years ago it came back diagnosed as pulpy kidney, now we thought we had vaccinated all the lamb, but we can only assume they didn't get done properly or somehow got missed. it's just a thought, you may well be ok but it does seem strange you've had a few die unexplained
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They were all Heptavaced in May, and I know all sheep were done because I did them myself! I have noticed some evidence of loose droppings in the field although there was no sign of scouring around the dead lamb's tail. The other one's remains were just bits of fleece so I couldn't tell!