The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Joshuafarrell on May 25, 2017, 08:49:57 pm
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Hello everyone - hoping for some advise
Background: been keeping sheep for about 8 years, various breeds and have encountered all sorts of issues and illnesses as with all flocks! Today we've had a death that has baffled me some what and I'm hoping someone may be able to help ????
Ewe: 9 year old pure bred Wiltshire horn, just lambed 4 weeks ago (lambs doing great) on heptivac system and all wormed with a complete four stage fluke control, calcium and selenium supplement and feet done. Great body condition, if anything maybe a bit too fat! Full mouth but not broken. On rough grass and some marshy land at the moment - all flocks looking great and lambs growing well
Symptoms - slightly quiet and separate for the last couple of weeks but still eating and feeding lamb. She has always kept herself to herself so this isint out of character although we have noticed her laying down rather a lot and a bit lack luster to move ... but with a couple of bellows ...shes been straight up for lunch
Saw her yesterday eating in field, today she was dead where they sleep at night under a tree, laying on side, head in air, white foam out of mouth, blood from eyes and ears but no damage to eyes from crows. Very bloated and gassy:stomach was solid with gas.
No injury and at this stage I can see no reason for death. She's an older ewe and this was going to be her last lamb anyway. She's my favourite, so whilst upsetting I'd really like some help in working out the issue.
Thanks again!
Josh from Scarletts Farm (22 years old) based in essex
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Difficult to say. Could have been pneumonia. But If it had been one of ours, and we noticed she was not quite right a few weeks ago, I.e. Subdued, not wanting to move, we would have immediately given it an A/B jab, just as a precaution. Sheep hide feeling unwell, and it is the subtle signs that the shepherd notices that gives you pause for thought. Unfortunately, waiting to see what might develop, can result in death.
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Bit of a rock and hard place to be. Jumping straight in with antibiotics isn't necessarily best practice either.
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You will always have the unexpected sheep just found dead after not really any symptoms... her age, broken mouth etc may all have been against her, and with it being quite hot at the moment her heart may have simply given out... unless any other ewes are showing symptoms of not being quite right, and in this heat all my sheep just look fed up and not very keen to move about, you may have to put it down to experience. But at nine years old she did have a good innings (as they say...).
Hope the lambs are going to be ok... if you have been feeding concentrate/creep I would make sure they do get extra rations, as it will be unlikely that they accept the bottle at this stage.
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The bloating and gas I think I would attribute to the hot weather speeding up decomposition (bit gruesome sorry)
Have they been sheared yet?
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Pasturella I would say. They can blow up with that.
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"Jumping straight in with antibiotics isn't best practice either"
Never said jump straight in. However, if you know your sheep and you know what is normal behaviour and what is not, and there are no obvious symptoms that point you in another direction, and you are worried that there is something wrong, then an antibiotic is what we use. And to be honest, it works particularly well with sheep and lambs to quickly make them better. In the early days, we waited much too long to do anything, and sheep go downhill very quickly, as I am sure everyone knows.
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As she only lambed 4 weeks ago I'd assume it was a post lambing infection. I've only lost half a dozen sheep over the years but pretty much all of them did 2-4 weeks after they lambed.
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sudden death, Have you tried lifting the dead ewe up by the back legs to see if fluid comes out her nose? there's a possibility it could be opa
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What's opa?
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Ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma, Jaagsiekte.
Cancer of the lungs that is caught by a virus.
There are a number of reasons for sudden deaths, several mentioned above. The only way to be sure would be a post mortem.
If no other sheep look to be affected, it may not be worthwhile.
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"Jumping straight in with antibiotics isn't best practice either"
Never said jump straight in. However, if you know your sheep and you know what is normal behaviour and what is not, and there are no obvious symptoms that point you in another direction, and you are worried that there is something wrong, then an antibiotic is what we use. And to be honest, it works particularly well with sheep and lambs to quickly make them better. In the early days, we waited much too long to do anything, and sheep go downhill very quickly, as I am sure everyone knows.
No you said you would give antibiotics immediately if your sheep was subdued or not moving as a precaution. The trick is in how long you observe and when you need a vets advice. Precautionary antibiotics before you know what is wrong or even if something is wrong that needs treatment and not just a change in management surely leads to overuse of antibiotics.
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sudden death, Have you tried lifting the dead ewe up by the back legs to see if fluid comes out her nose? there's a possibility it could be opa
Nothing in the post ( very fit maybe a bit too fat / 9yrs old / sudden death ) suggests OPA , it is a chronic wasting disease over a prolonged period with slow death if left alive
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I was told that the longer you spend observing sheep that are well the quicker you'll pick up on a sheep that's not. Leaning on the gate looking at your flock might not seem active to a casual observer but it's the way you spot flystrike and disease at a very early stage when both can be treated successfully. The antibiotics mantra of "As little as possible, as much as necessary" errs on the side of caution. In this case, with an otherwise healthy sheep showing atypical behaviour I, too, would have administered a long-acting a/b and probably confined the ewe and offspring to a shed for a few days for closer observation.
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Would anybody have taken her temperature before administering antibiotics? :thinking: before we jab anything we take its temperature which has really reduced the amount of antibiotic use here but it's surprising how many people still don't use or even own a thermometer for livestock.
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I was told that the longer you spend observing sheep that are well the quicker you'll pick up on a sheep that's not. Leaning on the gate looking at your flock might not seem active to a casual observer but it's the way you spot flystrike and disease at a very early stage when both can be treated successfully. The antibiotics mantra of "As little as possible, as much as necessary" errs on the side of caution. In this case, with an otherwise healthy sheep showing atypical behaviour I, too, would have administered a long-acting a/b and probably confined the ewe and offspring to a shed for a few days for closer observation.
The OP said the sheep showed this behaviour for two weeks so I would agree that before then a vets visit might have been wise.
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Well said Twizzel ..... first aid is always take temp first ............ that is what vet does too! .... No high temp then no infection then no AB's needed. Simple!
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did you say 9yr old? Ive never seen a 9yr old sheep. OPA would be in the flock and many of the ewes would look wasted away while eating like a horse. Most def look awful before lambing so I would scrub that idea right out.
At 9yrs old it could be a list of sudden organ failure. I'd put it down to age with lambing stress and poss calcium deficiency. The bloating is due to the heat all sheep blow up and stink really quickly.
Im not sure what the vet would feel about breeding ewes this old to the risks with lambs being left orphans.
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Rereading this def looks like a pregnancy toxemia caused by the lamb drawing calcium from her bones. Had a couple of older wiltshire horns that were huge this year and once lambed went rapidly down hill. Just because a ewe looks fat on the sides if you can see a spine means the ewe is under condition.
Once the ewe post partum looks dazed and weak little you can do - I gave the calcium inject, oral drenches etc if no improvement after 2 days then its only one route.
I would speak to experiences sheep farmers on max breeding ages and risks associated. Most ewes once broken mothered 4-6 are known as culls due to inefficient grass consumption and usually looking condition.
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Thanks for the comments ... all flock still happy and healthy ... all in great condition! Fingers crossed it's a one off? She's and older ewe so could of been a huge number of things... we try and use antibiotics as little as possible to ensure resilience when they're really needed. We graze on rough marsh land and it's very much survival of the fittest and most healthy.
Anything that's constantly ill or lame eventually gets culled out to stop those genetics being passed on. It can be tough but as a result we breed fantastic strong lambs. We breed from the best and keep the best and the rest goes in the freezer or to the market.
Sad to see my favourite go ... her lamb has gone to a friends to live with fellow orphan lambs. Here's to the future and less sheep deaths!
Thanks
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What breed do you have?
I gather primitives last a lot longer than "modern" sheep breeds (so 9 might not be ridiculously old)
Hopefully all your others continue to do well.
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Our Southdowns often produce lambs up to 13 years old, probably helped by the fact that they have excellent teeth all their lives unlike, say, the Beulah. They're generally retired when milk production can't keep up with demand. I do like a shed of mostly old girls, who know what they're doing and just get on with it. Had one case of twin lamb disease about ten years ago - probably due to stress caused by an abscess on her leg hidden by the wool, but she recovered. Not yet had a case of grass staggers. Horses for courses, I guess.