The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: abc123 on July 12, 2020, 11:22:52 am
-
Hello,
So my lambs escaped yesterday into a neighbouring horse field, due to my electric netting battery going flat overnight and one of them is now listless, slightly bloated and foaming at the mouth.
Could this be a ragwort poisoning, or a change of diet. They do have access to laurel and ivy which will now be fenced off with electric netting, and ive ordered a spare battery for strip grazing, but any suggestions? The lambs are approx 12 weeks.
Thanks
-
Ragwort poisoning is cumulative, and sheep are less affected by it than other species, so I would think it unlikely that it's ragwort after only one night in a field that had other things to eat too. (Although as it was a horse field, maybe there wasn't much else to eat?)
Is its rumen working okay? If not, try the bloat remedy (basically yoghurt, oil, ginger, bicarb of soda : add the bicarb at the very last moment) to get the rumen going again.
Hope he comes right :fc:
-
I understand that ragwort is more a cumulative, slow poison which goes for the ?liver. Laurel is pretty deadly though. Our sheep never eat ragwort - the occasional plant will always arrive on the wind even though we remove any by hand every year. Usually they only eat it if it is accidentally dried with a hay crop, or nibble on young rosettes in such small quantities that it seems to do no harm. I suppose it could be a different thing with young lambs with no adults to show them the ropes.
It would be worth a phone call to your vet, and a search of all places the lambs have grazed to see what else poisonous might be there.
I am surprised that the horse owner is happy to graze their animals where there is a lot of ragwort.
Cross posted with Sallyintnorth
-
As above - more likely to be the laurel. I would google remedies and act fast.
-
As another note you may be better off with several strands of polywire than netting, as from experience netting conducts electric very poorly as there's more points for it to short out at.