The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: tommytink on February 05, 2020, 09:13:07 am
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Vaccinated our small flock of Hill Radnors yesterday morning. In the pm when I was fixing their water I noticed one was breathing a lot more rapidly than the others. She’s still like it this morning. She’s pooing fine and ate the cake we put out. Haven’t observed her grazing yet but will check again. To the eye she is a lot rounder than the others. Unfortunately our plan to scan them was scuppered by the person we were meant to be going to not communicating with us and when I checked with a scanner myself they said would be too late to pin down numbers. Her expected due date is 8th March.
Any advice please?
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There is always a small chance that you get the occasional reaction to any vaccination. Also getting the sheep in etc is potentially stressful and especially the closer lambing gets. Scanning is also potentially stressful.
Sheep as they get heavier in lamb can spend a lot of time breathing more quickly.
I would keep an eye on her and if she took a turn for the worse call the vet.
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Thanks Harmony. Being first-timers (us and the sheep!) I worry about everything!
She hasn’t separated herself from the others at all and as I said is interested in food and has eaten her cake. She is maybe a little lame but did have very small foot tidy yesterday (just removal of loose or flappy horn) and also the ground is pretty muddy everywhere.
She may well have been breathing like this before but the fact I’ve specifically noticed it now makes me think she wasn’t. Plus she has a month to go and it seems like a long time left to start breathing like that already but again, she does seem a lot fuller than the others to look at.
I understand like vaccines we have that they can make you feel a bit grotty. I don’t know how hard a dose it is in that respect. They all seemed a little more subdued this morning, not the usual amount of baa-ing around the bucket.
I’ll keep an eye on her for sure. I’m guessing if she separates, becomes withdrawn or lethargic, off her food etc is the time to consider a vet?
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Yes, any worsening of or new symptoms, get vet.
For future reference, tipping sheep up this close to lambing is not advised.
Even if I had a ewe totally lame, I would avoid tipping her. With a bellyful of lambs, the compression of the internal organs when she's tipped could cause issues. (Shearers ask you to hunger sheep for shearing for some hours before shearing because a bellyful of grass can cause issues when tipping them, especially tups and unbred sheep who will be in good condition.)
It's pretty normal to have some slight lameness in the run-up to lambing. Friends who've been pregnant point out that as you get heavier and heavier, everything aches, and especially your feet ;).
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Don’t worry Sally, we didn’t do any tipping. One of us holds them whilst the other checks their feet so they’re upright the whole time. We bought a turnover crate for these as they’re that much bigger than the Badgers but I find it a rather medieval contraption and don’t really like using it. I still haven’t grasped how to turn sheep on their bums. The guy that sold us the Badgers showed us a way but it wasn’t the conventional way that I’ve seen when I’ve looked online. When I try that sideways move they end up spinning round in a circle with me!
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Good, that would be my suggestion for doing feet when they're pregnant - or have bellies full of grass - if you really must.
I find it best to keep handling to a minimum in the last 8 weeks of pregnancy, especially with sheep who don't know you well. They can be easily tipped into metabolic disturbances, and those can kill quickly if you are not on the ball with the injectable calcium.
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I've had various different reactions by my girls after they've been heptavac'd. I've had coughing for a couple of days, lethargy and lumps at the injection site. As everyone else has said just keep an eye on them. Hope all goes well with your lambing.
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Thanks for the advice Sally. That was the last time we’ll be handling them and checked feet as they were in anyway so two birds with one stone. We moved them to a new field, and plan to move them once more before they come in to lamb. I don’t think this should be too stressful as they follow us so readily it’ll be a gentle stroll up the track.
We’ve checked on her a couple of times today. She’s up and about, grazing with the others. Looks well enough so will see how she is tomorrow. Noticed our ram has the same breathing so he’s under observation as well. Other half said not keen to give them it again if it’s going to cause them issues (we know of someone who doesn’t do theirs) but I think I would feel worse if they contracted something we could’ve prevented.
Thank you for the luck moprabbit! I’m off on a lambing course this Saturday; I went last year but as this year is the real deal for us I thought I couldn’t go wrong with a refresher!
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Heptavac-ing late pregnancy ewes is much more about boosting the levels of antibody in the milk for the young lambs, thereby protecting the lambs from something that could have been prevented. Whilst any of the diseases covered can hit a ewe - or tup - if they are sub-par at any time, it is neonatal lambs who are most at risk unless protected by antibodies in the mothers' milk.
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Sally in the North- i know this is a bit off the original point but- is that true what you say about shearers? I shear my own 6 pets and 2 years ago one of my unbred yowes went very strange after shearing and died of (im guessing- as no vet would come out here) pneumonia, despite treatments. I wondered if it may have been cos i dont starve my sheep- i came home from work one evening- called the girls into the shed and sheared them there and then. As it distressed me so much (she was of course my favourite- one i had rescued from the shore covered head to toe in liquid s**t as a wee lamb) i asked the vet at the time whether the fact i did not keep the sheep in overnight or whatever prior to shearing may have predisposed her to maybe coughing up and then inhaling rumen fluid but the vet poo poo-ed me and said there was no risk and absolutley no need to starve my sheep prior to shearing in future- indeed she accused me it would be a welfare issue to do so! (i thought blimey im only talking 8 hours- sheep are off food far longer being transported to mainland!) She said, and i can see her point, that commercial shearers ask owners to keep their sheep off food prior to shearing is so the sheep dont poop while being sheared and potentially ruin the fleece (esp as many sheep on summer grass tend to be a bit loose shall we say). Thoughts.....?
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The shearers I worked with on the commercial farms up north were unequivocal. Sheep to be sheared should be hungered for a minimum of two hours, or the pressure on the internal organs, especially in very fit sheep (those not rearing lambs, typically), can cause heart attacks and other issues. If you watch a shearer shearing, they move the sheep about and press on various bits of them in order to keep the skin taut, which is what prevents cuts. If you have a sheep with a full rumen and you press in the groin to tauten the skin across the flank, you are putting a lot of pressure on the guts, the rumen, and the other internal organs. If the rumen and guts are empty or nearly so, there is plenty of room for the shearer's fist :D
She said, and i can see her point, that commercial shearers ask owners to keep their sheep off food prior to shearing is so the sheep dont poop while being sheared and potentially ruin the fleece (esp as many sheep on summer grass tend to be a bit loose shall we say). Thoughts.....?
Think about it... in 99.9% of cases, the shearers get paid per sheep; the sheep's owner gets the money from the sale of the wool. The sheep pooping on the fleece is not the shearer's concern ;)
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yes but when it goes all over the shearing board it needs to be cleand away between sheep or it is a slip an poo everywhere makes clippers hard to hold and, wll it as all in my vivid imagination what the scene would look like!!