The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Pasture Farm on November 17, 2013, 11:24:15 am
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Just been to top field to find Charollais tup down can't get up this years ram lamb in with a dozen ewes due out today fine yesterday afternoon on the late check not been down long no mess got him in barn just wondering any ideas??
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Could be pasturella? will need treating very promptly with appropriate antibiotics (penicllin is not effective) if it is for best chance of recovery.
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Several ideas ? hope youv'e phoned a vet temp or normal ?
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Talk to the vet.
Could try Calciject or twin lamb drench if you have either around from lambing - both will raise blood sugar levels and neither will do any harm. Some tups just don't eat when around the girls, and this year's lamb won't have much 'reserve'. If that's all it is, he'll be back on his feet pretty quickly.
But it could also be much more serious than that - so phone the vet.
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If hes a lamb I would suspect pneumonia and give him Alamycin/Engymicin ASAP
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Any oak trees? Just lost a good ewe due to eating acorns as there are so many on the trees this year.
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Any news? :fc:
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Liver Fluke I treated all the flock for it apart from this one Tup who was a recent purchase I did treat him for worms during his incubation period but not for Fluke. He had been Heptavaced
Vet tried to help but he is now Dead first time ive had fluke and could not believe how fast it takes them
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Sorry you lost your tup :bouquet:
first time ive had fluke and could not believe how fast it takes them
It's not that it takes them fast, it's that they can conceal their symptoms until it's almost too late. So sorry you've had to learn the hard way, but hopefully your story will save other people from making the same mistake. :hug:
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So sorry for you and your poor tup. We often learn these lessons the hardest way. Really feel for you.
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So sorry to hear what's happened. Sure it's no consolation but we had pretty much the same thing happen. Last autumn we bought a ram as we had problems hiring one. We were told he'd been drenched so didn't do anything additional. He did the biz with our girls and then we lent him to our friend where he stayed throughout the winter. We planned to sell him on in the spring and having found a buyer we offered to keep him a few more weeks until the shearer came, so that he was all smart and good to go. On shearing day we also planned to drench everyone including him ( we use a wormer and separate flukicide). As the shearer started he commented that he felt a bit thin under all that wool- and a few moments later in mid shear he died. The shearer was terribly upset and blamed himself though it wasn't his doing. he had to finish shearing him dead and he was a bag of bones.We hadn't been up close to him since December and felt terrible and couldn't help think that we would have noticed he was pretty anaemic looking if he'd been at home. Afterwards my friend said " he has been a bit lethargic lately but I didn't think anything of it"- we were very cross with him, but at the end of the day our livestock are our responsibility
A horrible day which had me ringing the buyer who had set off to us to tell him it wasn't happening. In future we plan not to take any chances with bought in stock and always assume unless it can be definitely proved that we need to start from scratch with them. There's only a point to getting it wrong if we learn from it I think. :hug: I do feel for you
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Just in case anyone isn't aware - fluke drenching needs to be repeated at 6-8 week intervals during the risk period, generally October through March, and all year round in wet years or if the previous year was particularly wet. (Keep checking the NADIS forecasts for up-to-date advice for your region.)
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Pasture Farm, such sad news :bouquet:
Sally, thanks for that reminder. I fluke drenched mine on 26th Oct, including the new tup, and your post has prompted me to put a note in the diary for around 14th Dec.
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:bouquet: Sorry but thanks for posting. Ours are due but having trouble getting the lambs in. Priority now.
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We're on dry sandy sloping land (so dry our well ran low recently!!) and fluke test was negative in the summer. Vet said to minimise resistance we shouldn't fluke routinely given our conditions. Hope he was right?!!
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Sorry to hear of your loss, that's a real bummer :(.
For repeat intervals check the label on your product - they all tend to have different suggested intervals. Some might be 10 weeks (e.g. triclafas), some 12 (e.g. flukiver). And also, Like Sally says, check Nadis, as if you are in a high risk area you might need to repeat at much shorter intervals. This is because none of the flukicide products have any persistence, they only kill what is in the sheep at the time of dosing, so you could dose and turn out only for the sheep to pick up a fresh load of larvae in it's next mouthful of grass.
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We're on dry sandy sloping land (so dry our well ran low recently!!) and fluke test was negative in the summer. Vet said to minimise resistance we shouldn't fluke routinely given our conditions. Hope he was right?!!
Fluking is usually done on a risk-analysis basis. I have little fluke on most of my ground, so I only do them where I consider the place to be high-risk (I do them when they are on water meadows, in spite of never having found any with fluke damage there). I don't do them up on the chalk.
A good way to get an idea is to take a look at either your rate of condemned livers if you send them to the abbotoir or to have a look at any you have die - whenever I have a sheep keel over, I always have a look at the liver and lungs, even if I'm fairly sure what killed it.
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A good way to get an idea is to take a look at either your rate of condemned livers if you send them to the abbotoir or to have a look at any you have die - whenever I have a sheep keel over, I always have a look at the liver and lungs, even if I'm fairly sure what killed it.
SteveHants do you know if the abattoirs are required to provide you with this information if asked? We only 2 livers back from the 3 lambs we have just taken in so rang to ask about the missing liver in case it was condemned for fluke, they said they probably just forgot to send it to the butchers, so wondered what the situation was as would be really useful to know if it was fluke, especially as we have a fair bit of wet ground but are not aware of having fluke problems.
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What a nightmare, sorry to hear about the tup. Liver fluke has been better this year due to the dryer summer as well which makes it doubly annoying.
The latest advice on liver fluke seems to be that since there is NO carry through of a flukicide then sheep may need dosed up to every 2 weeks in cases (thankfully rare) where the conditions are optimal for infestation.
By no carry through I mean that if you worm dose a sheep the sheep may be protected against worms for a period of time after the dosing. This is NOT the case with ANY registered flukicide treatment. This means that although you treat from fluke today the sheep can pick up eggs tomorrow and become reinfected instantly so can still be affected by acute infestation.
Optimum fluke conditions are moist and in excess of 6'C. The reason the winter is the worst period for the fluke is the fact that the infection rate in the pasture has had all spring, summer and autumn to build up and the sheep is at it's most metabolic stressful time through the winter.
Vets are getting better at advising on fluke issues such as treatments, preventions, pasture management etc. Moredun research institute is doing a lot of work on it at present.