The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: feldar on February 07, 2012, 01:44:04 pm
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We have found a ewe who is totally blind. She is a month from lambing though i suspect she has reabsorbed, and we can find absolutely no reason why. We have penned her and she is finding it hard to eat and she looks not poorly, but a bit depressed. Has anyone come accross this before ? even our vet is stumped
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CCN? If it is - she won't be upright for much longer - you will need a Vit B injection asap.
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get another vet one that knows about sheep
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I bought a ram once, that had come 4th at an annual breed show and sale.
I thought he was nice and quiet, and when I got him home instead of heading for the ewes he waited till they came to him.
Next week I found him totally entangled in some electric netting, fortunately very quickly and rescued him.
Eventually he fell into a pool and drowned. I thought it was the weight of the show fleece that had finished him off. It was only when I realised that 2 of his daughters had been born blind (from 2 different ewes) that I realised what had been causing the problem.
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aye he might have been blind but he could still perfom ;) :farmer:
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CCN? If it is - she won't be upright for much longer - you will need a Vit B injection asap.
She has had all that and our vet has perscibed all the usual antibiotics and steroids but she is still blind and unfortunately loosing condition, i just thought i'd ask as we have a wide knowledge on this forum and somebody may have had the same thing happen but i think today hubby will put her out of her misery cause it's not fair for her to suffer much longer.
Thanks anyway
Trust you Robert ;D our one eyed ram is still the quickest in the flock!
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aye he might have been blind but he could still perfom ;) :farmer:
Ever seen the film "Scent of a Woman"?
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that reminds me of a joke i will post it on jokes and funnys
just imagine if men had that same sense of smell as animals it would cause mayhem ;D :farmer:
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Human sense of smell is not developed as well as in other animals....ie it is there and we choose not to develop it. We cover ourselves in all sorts of modern living smells If we did go back to the wild then we too could smell each other and notice the changes!!!!
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Sure you've probably checked this but I had a run with blindness is my ewes last summer. I believe it was an infection pink eye. I noticed the eyes tearing a lot then would film over cloudy causing the eye to be totally blind. It was self limiting and all seemed to recover ok. I did lose one older wether that went blind but he had a previous bout of caseous and seemed to have neurological symptoms.
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lostlambs cattle get it as well it is caused by flies :farmer:
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On the moorland farm we would get a few sheep go blind every year, some years almost an entire batch. We were never completely certain which of the many possibilities it was, nor was the vet, and we were not convinced that antibiotic powders made any difference. We would give them antibiotics (in case it was listeria) and B Vits and they pretty much all always recovered. Any so blind they were in danger of hurting themselves we'd bring in and pen until they were safe. Mind, catching them wasn't as easy as you'd think - their hearing was not impaired! You would need two of you, and/or a dog or dogs, so that there would be sounds coming from several directions and you could confuse her and grab her.
The sheep's eye seems to be capable of extraordinary regeneration. I had one ewe got flystruck in her eye, she had collapsed in 300 acres of thick moorgrass and wasn't found for a few days, by which time I am afraid to say the entire eye had gone. We treated her, she recovered - and a year later she had a complete new eye, which looked perfect. She couldn't see out of it but you could only tell that because she didn't blink if you flicked your finger in front of it.
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That is truly amazing Sally!