The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: feldar on February 26, 2012, 10:40:22 pm
-
Hubby and i have just come in from lambing our first schmallenberg lamb. all twisted up and barely alive. we thought we had got away with it cause most of our flock lamb December but these are our late commercial ewes so lamb now. Most to be fair are ok but they are at a different field this one was served at our home field a stone's throw from the coast.
I thought we had been lucky up till now; they had a case on the Isle of Wight and we are just over the Solent from them. Never mind these things happen, but the little thing looks so pathetic :'(
-
So sorry to hear your news
-
Feldar,
Very sorry to hear your news. We are just along the coast from you, in West Dorset, and lambing this week. Although we only have a very small flock of non-commercial ewes, I am expecting the worst. Our first lamb has an undershot jaw but otherwise seems ok. I hope it does not affect too many of your flock, good luck with the rest.
3 1/2 pages in the Sunday Telegraph today, I don't think sheep welfare has ever received so much publicity, and on Countryfile this evening as well.
-
My heart goes out to you all lambing now in the south :bouquet:
-
Sorry to hear the news feldar and I hope you don't have many more affected as I'm only ten minutes from the coast on the other side of the channel this is looking more gloomy
-
Really sorry to hear that Feldar. :(
-
What a blow :( I hope the others are alright. My Shelties don't lamb 'til mid-April so I've got a few weeks of worrying yet. The ewes look fine though so I'm hoping all will be well. There's going to be a lot of anxious days and sleepless nights this spring.
-
Sorry to hear that Feldar, we are waiting to start and dreading it as we only have such a small flock. At least you now know that the ewe has life long immunity from the virus, if that is any consolation x
-
Thanks everyone,
We went back last night to check her again and just as hubby thought there was a twin in her. It was presented with four legs forward but this was because the back legs were fused forwards and extra long. The head was fused to the side and hubby just couldn't lamb her normally. the next bit is really horrible sorry, he was pulling the front legs to get the lamb up into the canal and they just came away1 thankfully lamb was dead but the front knee joints were so malformed they broke off. bless him he was a hero, he managed to turn the lamb and i stress at this point we were only interested in saving the ewe.
He worked the back legs out very gently and lambed the lamb breach but it was touch and go.The ewe showed no interest in the lamb and is happy this morning feeding away.
If ther is any advice i would give you, i would say save your ewes not the lambs, your ewes are more important and can always lamb again and to be honest if the lambs are deformed, they are not worth saving.
-
|How many ewes are left to lamb at yours Feldar? Poor hubby, sounds like he did an amazing job, so glad you've saved your ewe
-
Feldar judging from an article I read on BBC news it is often necessary to do what you guys had to and break bones in order to remove the deformed lambs as there is just no way to get them out any other way, you did exactly the right thing, but how awful for you.
The only upside (if there is one) is that your ewe should now be ok for life, or so 'they' tell us.
-
We got 17 more to lamb, Llanwenog cross hamp ewes.
Will still be a financial blow if they all come out like last night. But heart goes out to big commercial farma what a disaster for them or indeed anyone, even small flocks it so worrying. Luckily the ewes if you can get them through the lambing are fine but watch those fused legs you can easily hole the uterus trying to get them out. Gently does it i say.
-
It sounds so totally grim and I can't imaginehow so many people are going to be faced with lambing like this :'(
Its like some sort of sick joke :'(
I was just wondering my one ewe who hasn't been right for some time is probably pregnant but I am concerned that this virus may have caused problems would an ultrasound show the type of deformaties clearly enough to determine if this is the case?. Ouessants are so small I doubt it would be possible to do the sort of manoevering described and I may have no choice but to look at a caesarian I'(m thinking it may be bett to elect to do one anyway in this ewe if I could tell that the foetus was affected
just updating my thinking on this would it not be better to know in advance those ewes likely to be affected? I am wondering if scanning all the ewes and identifiying those with deformed lambs would save some worry when to comes to lambing being able to have some confidence that there are ewes who can lamb normally and those that may need closer watching.
-
wishing you all the best
-
So sorry. It must have been awful.
-
I understand totally Kanisha, it's very hard especially if you have a small flock and you don't want to loose any. If you have a good vet then i would talk to them. Mine is really good i we often pick his brains.
We spoke to the VLA centre this morning and they want the lambs for research so we are going to buzz them up there to Winchester, any chance of getting a vaccine for this thing and i will do all i can to help.
-
Awful thing this. Hope the rest goes OK - fingers crossed, anyway. :bouquet:
-
I was just wondering my one ewe who hasn't been right for some time is probably pregnant but I am concerned that this virus may have caused problems would an ultrasound show the type of deformaties clearly enough to determine if this is the case?. Ouessants are so small I doubt it would be possible to do the sort of manoevering described and I may have no choice but to look at a caesarian I'(m thinking it may be bett to elect to do one anyway in this ewe if I could tell that the foetus was affected
just updating my thinking on this would it not be better to know in advance those ewes likely to be affected? I am wondering if scanning all the ewes and identifiying those with deformed lambs would save some worry when to comes to lambing being able to have some confidence that there are ewes who can lamb normally and those that may need closer watching.
Annecdotally, we did hear that some people who had sheep scans a while ago told us that their scanning man was having difficulty in telling how many lambs in some cases. The problem with the deformed lambs is that some/many have all the right bits, but these are fused together, so scan would not show the difference. Might help in some cases.
-
So sorry for you. Thankyou for the detailed description of lambing as it is going to be so difficult if bones are fused.
All of us here in Dorset and the South are worrying about whether our lambs/kids are going be Ok when they are born.
-
Very concerned here too as start lambing in less than 2 weeks.....as Kanisha said Ouessants could present even more problems although they do have a fairly wide pelvis for their size.....I am not looking forward to this and am in close contact with my sheep farming neighbours over it :-\ we reckon that if one of us is affected its going to be all of us.....
-
Sorry to hear it :(
It seems to have hit the mainstream news now (headlines on a couple of websites and a section on the lunchtime TV news)
-
Thinking of you.
-
VLA took the lambs said it's hot topic at the moment, i think the more info we can get out there the better so i will keep you all posted of anymore we get. These things are only scary cause we've not seen them before so more knowledge is always good :wave:
-
so sorry to hear, must have been awful but thanks so much for sharing, hope the rest are ok x
-
Aweful - thinking of you.
-
Sorry to hear that Feldar, up until now our lot have been fine. I have the last 3 ewes due next week so fingers crossed. I'm hoping that as my lot are shorn fairly early they are pretty woolly by the time they are tupped, so the midges think it's not worth the effort....will know next week. Good luck with the rest of yours, and everyone else for that matter....
-
That's horrible, so sorry to hear your problems - I hope the others are okay :-\. In some ways it's a good thing if your lambs can be useful in the research being done.
Good luck to everyone else in the danger zone, it must be a very worrying time for you all .. :(
-
Oh no that's awful :(
Hope the rest of your lambing goes ok x
-
I wonder what happens when the lamb is born alive but deformed - how do you humanely kill it? or does someone have to come and do it from the vets?
-
So sorry to hear you news, but thank you for sharing as hard as it must have been :-*
For the first time in my life I am dreading lambing :'(
Good luck everyone x
-
To be honest if they are deformed they don't live long, they can't suckle because they are very parrot-mouthed but the two we had last night would never have survived one only lived about 2 minuits.
The less deformed ones you can probably tube and get going. I think a good blow to the head would finish them off
We are a bit worried now because we sold some in-lamb ewes to a couple who are going into sheep for the first time!
I feel so awful about it but we are in contact with them and we have offered to come round and lamb the ewes for them. What a thing for new breeders to see though might put them off for life :o
Had a talk to our vet too and a lot of things add up this year. We didn't have a bad early lambing but we had an odd lambing, some were small singles and made you think there should be a twin, some have been very slow to grow, and some have been one big lamb and one real snotty thing! we were blaming the ram and even talked of moving him on but we can't blame him now cause he was on the field these ewes have come from. We'll run him round next year and see what happens.
We are hoping our ewe lambs (shearlings this year) are going to be ok , they went out to tack in November and also ran these fields so they may have been naturally vaccinated.
Anyway good luck to you all soon to lamb
-
So sorry for you. I've been reading up on this and it sounds absolutely horrendous. :bouquet:
-
Sorry to hear of your woes, Feldar.... :(
I'm due to start lambing Apr 20th and I am really really hoping my ewes got the disease and had developed an immunity before the ram went in on the 1st Dec.
I'm not far at all from you and most of my ewes came from the IOW this year...fingers crossed.
-
We are a bit worried now because we sold some in-lamb ewes to a couple who are going into sheep for the first time!
I feel so awful about it but we are in contact with them and we have offered to come round and lamb the ewes for them. What a thing for new breeders to see though might put them off for life :o
I think that is really, really kind. What lovely people you are for offering that level of support :bouquet: We are kidding for the first time this year, obviously slightly worried but just keeping everything crossed. Watching this thread with interest as we are surrounded by commercial sheep farmers here :-\
-
Sorry to hear of your woes, Feldar.... :(
I'm due to start lambing Apr 20th and I am really really hoping my ewes got the disease and had developed an immunity before the ram went in on the 1st Dec.
I'm not far at all from you and most of my ewes came from the IOW this year...fingers crossed.
Good luck to you SteveHants, i am hoping yours were vaccinated too i think the IOW was infected on those high October winds we had here that's when we can trace the start of our worst cases. the other ewes were through their first trimester by then and we didin't get the deformed lambs born.
-
when we can trace the start of our worst cases
does this mean you have had more?
On a brighter note I spoke with a breeder colleague close to the belgian border they are half way through lambing ( now) and so far none affected and no abortions but I know of people in Holland who had deformed lambs last year the question is was the virus here last year .
-
Yes, after our vet consultation we worked out that the first lambs we had that died earlier in the week were probably Schmallenberg lambs too. They only lived about 30 seconds but were not deformed but they were hard to lamb, we didn't keep the carcases because we didn't expect it to be this disease. We were a bit cocky thinking we had got away with it this year.
It was only the next two that presented malformed. that's when the s**t hit the fan.
I think we have had it longer than we thought but earlier lambs have not presented malformed,
Actually i'm hoping everything has been bitten then we know we are ok for next year.
The rest of our ewes are due in the next two weeks i know this is nothing to like a big commercial farm but it will give us an indication of how badly affected we are. Like i said before we were blaming our ram for some unusual sized lambs but we have to be careful it's easy to blame every bad presentation or small lamb on one thing we may have just had some small lambs this year!
-
Really sorry to hear what you have been going through, a terrible experience for all.
-
Quick update really pleased two more single lambs born in same field both really nice lambs and no problems, up sucking, fully formed very nice lambs, very relieved shows how random this disease is ;D
If we only get a few cases i will be a happy lady.
Roll on a vaccine to cover us all for next year
-
great news Feldar!! We are not that far from you either and all are ok here x