The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Burrwoodfm on June 19, 2012, 09:09:33 am
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Hi Everyone - after we initially thought that our pet North Ronaldsay wether had foxglove poisoning, we now know it is copper poisoning, which I am absolutely devastated about. The vet has just been out, and it is very advanced, and he is jaundiced. Is there anything at all I can do to help him? The vet said it would be a miracle if he recovered, but I just can't give up on him?
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I'm so sorry to hear about your sheep. I've looked in my sheep book and it says ...'some success has been had with administering a copper antagonist ( a chemical called tetrathiomolybdate). I've very little knowledge about sheep problems - I rely heavily on this forum and on my vet, but having 4 pet sheep myself I know how devastated you will be feeling and will want to do anything you can to help your little boy. I'm rooting for him.
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Miracles do happen. Keep him hydrated as dehydration kills quickest if he is too lethargic to eat and drink. Everything here is crossed for him. Hope being a Ronaldsay he has the will to live which is so important.
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Thank you so much. How do I hydrate him - by syringe? He sooo lethargic - his eyes are fixed and he is breathing heavily, with this head down.
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Yes a syringe would work.
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A syringe will do, but a drenching gun would be better, if you have one.
It may be beneficial to add some glucose - 1level dessertspoonful/pint of water as this will give him some energy if he's not eating, and keep his rumen going. Give the water warm.
By the way, how did the copper poisoning happen?
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We had copper poisoning in a ewe many years ago, she was so bad she went yellow in her eyes. Our vet gave her a chemical that bound up the copper and was usually used in the heavy plant industry. We had to sign a disclaimer to say there would be no come back if she died.
I can't remember the name of the stuff but it was injected IV and was supposed to bind up any loose copper in her blood stream.
She survived and went on to breed a lamb and remained a pet for many years afterwards.
Try asking your vet if he knows the stuff or look on internet
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Could have been EDTA.
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If you are using lifeaid or another rehydration fluid you don't need to add glucose it is already in there. If you don't have success with the syringe you need a short tube of some kind on the end to make it easier to get over his tongue, but be very careful if he fights you as he could inhale the liquid. Slowly does it. You could even try a teat on a bottle, it has worked for me.
These rehydration fluids can be bought at the vet to mix up into a litre or so.
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Best of luck with your little sheep Burrwoodfm :bouquet:
It's worth mentioning in this thread that some breeds of sheep are particularly sensitive to copper, while many
need copper supplementation.
The whole of the UK is copper deficient; I'm not sure if some are more deficient than others, or all much of a muchness.
Copper is needed by sheep to thrive, and specifically and especially by pregnant ewes to develop the foetal skeletal system; lambs which were copper deprived in utero can be born with or develop swayback, as their skeleton is not strong enough to support their growing bodies.
Many general purpose sheep mineral drenches contain copper; copper is also often present in sheep feed and can be administered by injection, bolus, capsule or other medical method.
Too much copper is more dangerous than insufficient. Some breeds of sheep are naturally adapted to manage with no additonal copper and can be poisoned by being given dietary or medicinal copper. The most well-known such breed is the Texel.
Much higher levels of copper will be present in cattle feed - generally enough to poison most sheep if eaten routinely or to excess. Many cattle licks will also contain copper at levels which would be dangerous to sheep.
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Hi Everyone. Thank you so much for your replies. We lost him shortly after my post yesterday. I am absolutely heartbroken. I have never known a sheep like him. He was silly tame - would sit with you, kiss you, was desperate to be around people. Unfortunately we only had him for just under a year. He was a stray that the RSPCA picked up, so nothing was known about his past. I know that North Ronaldsays are hugely copper intolerant, and we are exceptionally careful with ours. However, I don't know what he was fed before he came to us, and if the feed had copper in it, then it would have built up in his liver over the years I believe (he was about 4 years old). Some kind of stress must have caused a liver bleed and released the copper into his system. The vet said that he very rarely saw that kind of jaundice in sheep. I know he didn't hold out much hope for him. He's left a huge hole in our lives - sounds silly for a sheep doesn't it, but he really was special.
Thanks again for all trying to help.
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Oh I am so sorry to hear that you lost him. What a shame. Top marks for trying though.
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So sorry to hear you lost your sheep :bouquet:
It doesn't matter what species they are, some animals just find their way into our hearts. :-*
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So sorry :bouquet: at least you tried to save him, they leave such a big hole in our lives don't they
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So sorry :bouquet:
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That's really rotten - so sorry :bouquet:
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Thanks everyone. Have just been to pick up some Tub-Ron to help purge any copper digested by the ewe's. Am scared stiff it is going to happen again.
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Sorry about your wether - we always seem to lose the ones we love the most :'( . But he was very lucky to find you and have some kindness in his life :bouquet:
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Hi Burwoodfm, so sorry for your loss, we lost our NR some weeks ago to a rhodedendron plant, which I catalogued on here. It was extremely upsetting as you say - they are so unusually friendly. We too are extremely careful about the copper thing - it's that some feeds can have a background copper level even if they have no copper added to the food. The background level has to be below 10% per kg. We use either straight sugar beet pellets or Harbro do a premium ewe nut which is also tolerated. They are fragile creatures though and I've read (as I think you have) that stress can release higher copper levels.
If you don't mind, could you tell me how you first found her and what were her symptoms - sorry, not something you want to do right now I'm sure, but it's useful for us to know so if it happens to us we can deal with it quickly. Don't want to have to cope with another nr loss if avoidable.
Don't cut yourself up about it if possible (I know I did) :bouquet: [size=78%] [/size]
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(((( :bouquet: ))))) lost two rams last year I know how it feels, very sorry
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I don't mind you asking at all - all information is helpful, and if it can help someone else, then that would be wonderful. I will however say that my vet said that even if we had realised that it was copper poisoning in the earliest stages, it normally is a death sentence, and there is not a lot they could do for the North Ronaldsay's in particular. Woolie, our wether was firstly off his food slightly. Then we found him in one of the stables just lying down upright, and not willing to get up at all. He kept looking at us very sadly. It was so unusual for him as he was always up and around us. I got him to his feet, but he didn't want to move. He looked noticeably bloated, and he was tender to his tummy. That was the first day. The second day he was looking about the same, still moving around though in drifts and drabs. The third morning we went out at 6 to feed him and he was lying flat out i nthe field, with his eyes flickering up and down. His breathing was noticeably laboured. We picked him up and brought him into a stable, but I think he was fitting. His head was strained backwards, and his feet constantly kicking and eyes flicking. Within an hour and a half he was dead. Once the copper is released, it causes liver and kidney failure, and then the build up of toxins eventually cause damage to the brain I believe.
I am not sure there was anything we could have done. However, I have discovered something I referred to earlier called Tub-Ron. If you don't know what it is, it is well worth looking into. It is a Tubby made by Denis Brinicombe. It is specially formulated for North Ronaldsay's, as a mineral lick, and it basically contains nutritional antagonists and specific powerful herb extracts which help lock up copper in the gut and cleanse the liver from toxins and mineral build up. I had never heard of it before yesterday - I wish I had! Our Ewe's absolutely love it. We are going to leave it out for them to lick at will, along with feeding sugar beet and flaked peas. I believe it has a lot of seaweed in it too, which obviously is the Ronnie's natural diet.
I am still beating myself up over Woolie. I just keep thinking it was something I did, or didn't do, or should have known about. The trouble is, the Ronnie's are just such as special breed, and are so hard to get info on.
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So sorry to hear about Woolie - I just love my sheep to bits and so know exactly how you will be feeling. I'm sure it was nothing you did or could have know about so just try to think of the good times you had with him. He was a lucky sheep to have been cared for by you.
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Sad times :bouquet:
As others have said some sheep need copper especially during pregnancy a few years ago we took the decision to change our flock to Lleyn and use the Hampshire as a terminal sire, we also kept a super Lleyn tup for pures. After our first year of lambing it was obvious after a couple of months that something was wrong the cross lambs wher not doing to well and the pure bred lleyns even worse they would just not grow. Eventually we found it was copper deficiency and know treat all Ewes with a mineral drench containing copper and the difference in lambs is amazing, although this year i had to assist with nearly every birth because of the large heads that comes from the hampshire tup.
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Pat Coleby gives a treatment for copper poisoning that consists of dolomite and sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) powder orally, and vitamin B15 injections. Apparently it is quite successful.
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Thank you Burwoodfm for telling us what happened, it is helpful. :-\
I do know about Tubby - we bought our first ewes from the Sec of the NR Soc, and she kindly gave me lots of leaflets about NRs which covers just about everything you would want to know, including the Tubby product and they are all really helpful. Unfortunately it was one of the two ewes she sold us which was killed by the rhode plant. NRs do seem to eat lots of browsing vegetation - much more so than our other rare breeds. Not everyone knows this as people just keep them in simple fenced off flat fields, whereas our holding is full of rocks and waterfalls and unfortunately a hidden rhode. We also keep goats, and the NRs i think are more goat like in their eating habits than the others - I believe Bagot goats eat everything too as opposed to other goats which are often fussy eaters (contrary to reputation).
We all learn from our experiences though and those of others thanks to this website. We have since bought another 4 NRs and all seem healthy and happy, although once you have had such an experience, it is a constant reminder in the back of your head. You shouldn't let it put you off keeping others I think, they are unusually friendly. Good luck Burwoodfm.
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Yes, like you I have found that they don't really touch the grass. We keep ours on a mixture of pasture and our old marl pit, which is scattered with gorse, trees, brambles. It is very wild and that is where the Ronnie's spend nearly all their time, coming back with goodness knows what stuck in their fleeces! The trouble is, with that sort of habitat you can't see what is growing underneath all the undergrowth!!
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Yup, we had to go around with a stick under the gorse and broom and in fact ended up pulling out every plant we weren't sure of which took ages and a lot of labour. And yes, they do become a bit velcro like until they're sheared - ours looked like frizzy haired hippis with little yellow gorse flowers attached everywhere. :eyelashes:
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Yes, the gorse and bramble always make stroking them a little interesting! :)
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Cripes... I just cried like a baby at these postings :o( I really feel for you having lost your wether. My sheep are like my grandkids (I am only 37 but have to wait a LOOOONG time for my son to give me any! LOL). I get really mad when I hear farmers in our local agri store asking for calf milk powder to feed their lambs. It's way too low in fat and protein and has quite a lot of copper.....then they moan their cades have died and start ranting about how much they hate orphan lambs (Not as much as the lambs hate you guys, I bet)! Not all farmers do this/feel like this - just a minority I am sure but I hate to think animals suffer just to get a little more profit in a persons purse.
Right - rant over - I am off of my soapbox now :P