The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: ScotsGirl on February 25, 2013, 07:31:51 pm
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One of my mules lambed last night. She had triplets although third was dead some time. Other two fine and mum ok except that afterbirth has not come away. I called vet this morning and he recommended ABs and to gently pull on afterbirth as it sometimes comes away.
I wasn't very happy doing that anyway it feels firmly fixed so have left it. Surely there must be something they can give me to help expel it. I gave caulofolum (spelt wrong but homeopathic remedy) but still nothing and nearly 24hrs. I don't want to lose her to infection.
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I wouldnt pull it. Give long acting anti-biotics and wait for it to come away/ break up.
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Oxytocin should help the ewe expel the afterbirth if it is still retained, have another word with your vet and ask about it, make sure you keep her covered with appropriate ABs too.
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Having a stress full time SCOTSGIRL :hug: I have to do as the vet described every year , not difficult , the womb is shrinking fast and the neck has closed before the cleansing has been expelled . gloved hand and pull with firmness but not really hard if no movement leave and try again next day. Hope fully by tomorrow she will have got rid herself, keep up the ab's and she shouldn't have any problems When the lambs suckle the ewe produces oxytocin naturally
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Tarragon took 5 days to expel hers after a bad lambing last year. Keep up antibiotic cover and she will be fine :thumbsup: :hug:
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Just to clarify is gloved hand going in and pulling or from outside? Neither appeals as worried it breaks off and she gets gangrene.
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I would NOT EVER try and remove an afterbirth manually personally.
Last year on day 5 my vet said it might be worth trying, but when I got back to the sheep she had expelled it. I was always taught you can do real damage and cause irreparable prolapses by trying to remove a cleansing :-\
I really would leave it alone hun, or at least get your vet to do it if they insist it is the correct thing to do ??? [size=78%] [/size]
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My vet did it to Dolly the ewe that lost her lambs a week ago - I was a wee bit worried but he said it was starting to disintegrate - Dolly is fine now (touch wood) very perky but not impressed with staying with the rams and not her palls - back to topic not sure I would be confident enough to do it myself though.
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Pulling from the out side, but no rush as i said by tomorrow she may have done it her self, if you dont feel confident then take her to a vet. Every one has their own limitations .
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I agree collie woman I was told the same. Will leave it a day or so then ask for help. Having said that I had a ewe prolapse a few years ago and thanks to the vet stitching her up too tight I lost her to gangrene.
6 down, 5 to go
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On the homoeopathic side try sepia as well as the caulophyllum (again spelling ?) and keep up AB cover. Pessaries can be useful if the cervix hasn't closed.
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Keep up the antibiotics and don't be in a hurry - she's had a long-dead lamb and it can take a few days.
BH has farmed sheep all his life, we have 200-300 breeding ewes now but in his younger days they had double that. He won't remove cleansings himself, always gets the vet to do it if it doesn't come away after a few days on antibiotics. But we have the economies of scale, and can spread the cost of the odd vet visit across so many more lambs.
BTW, if the vet stitches up a ewe who prolapses before lambing, you have to snip the stitches when she goes into labour. That's why I like to try the prolapse spoon first - she can lamb through it. Prolapses after lambing are bad news, in my experience.
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You did the right thing with giving antibiotics. As has been said, Oxytocin is the thing that the vet will probably try first.
Homeopathy has been widely discredited, you can give them those remedies, but don't expect them to do anything, and relying on them is bordering on negligence IMO (you obviously didn't here, but I wanted point out giving something treatments which have no basis in science because you "believe in them" is never good from a welfare standpoint)
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Alternative therapies always cause a stir however my dads cousin started using homeopathyhomeopathy on his sheep fArm and had a significant drop in birthing complications following the change. The good thing is it won't harm and my vet uses it alongside conventional meds.
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I refer to use a prolapse harness rather than a spoon - as a (female) vet once said, "I wouldn't like to wear one!" Ewes can lamb down through a harness if they have to. I remove them as soon as I see the lambs have moved into birthing position and there's a dip in front of the pelvis. Once had an exceptionally good ewe that prolapsed and rather than cull as I usually would I let her go round again as I'd read it could be due to low calcium so I injected her with 5ml of Calciject at each of the 4 pre-lambing sheep gatherings in the last month of her pregnancy and she produced 2 more sets of twins without prolapse.
I let the afterbirth arrive in its' own time - just cover with a long-acting antibiotic if there's been a long-dead lamb involved.
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BH culls anyone that's prolapsed, end of.
However on the moorland farm we kept records and had no repeat offenders. Not one. No special treatment, just recorded ear tag numbers of ewes who prolapsed and never had a duplicate. (BH still culls 'em - the cull ewes is one of the income streams, and that's the harsh reality :( of farming as a business.)
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The ewe that prolapsed only did so after a heavy handed friend tried to deliver lambs for me as I couldn't get them out. Did so much damage she kept contracting and prolapsed. Vet put back but kept coming out so stitched it but hadn't cleansed and the rest is history. When I called vet again as I was concerned he told me it was too tight so I had her put down.
Thankfully haven't had any more like that.
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It probably isn't the very best thing to do, but when I have been on my own and HAD to help a ewe out I raise the back end up onto a bale. YOu have to be reasonably swift as this put pressure on the diaphragm BUT gravity gets those lambs back inside the uterus quickly. I find it far easier to untangle lambs this way. Last year I had to lamb a friends Poll Dorset who had presented me with 6 legs and no heads :o
Up on a bale was the only way I could get that tangle sorted ::) The live lamb and mum were fine the one presented as 4 legs had been dead a whiles (days) but at least he came out :-\
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BH culls anyone that's prolapsed, end of.
However on the moorland farm we kept records and had no repeat offenders. Not one. No special treatment, just recorded ear tag numbers of ewes who prolapsed and never had a duplicate. (BH still culls 'em - the cull ewes is one of the income streams, and that's the harsh reality :( of farming as a business.)
I dont think of it as being particularly harsh - its a positive thing "who shall I keep?" as opposed to "who shall I get rid of?". For every ewe you cull for whatever offence, there is a ewe lamb from better genetics to replace her.
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BH culls anyone that's prolapsed, end of.
However on the moorland farm we kept records and had no repeat offenders. Not one. No special treatment, just recorded ear tag numbers of ewes who prolapsed and never had a duplicate. (BH still culls 'em - the cull ewes is one of the income streams, and that's the harsh reality :( of farming as a business.)
I should clarify, the types of prolapses that seemed to not repeat were pre-lambing; the kind you shrink with sugar and hold back with a spoon or harness.
I would cull any ewes prolapsing post-lambing.
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Me too. I once saw a ewe with a ventral abdominal hernia trailing around a Welsh hillside - not on my watch!
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After another call to a different vet I managed to gently pull out the placenta and it stank. He was quite specific about how much pressure to use and assured me I couldn't harm the ewe as she would deal with whatever was left if it broke off. Supposedly only horses die of retained placenta.
At least she can go out now.
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:thumbsup: another sheep problem overcome . Interestingly i looked into pulling a retained placenta causing a prolapse and the only mention i found was that it may possibly happen in a mare
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following an abortion and a retained placenta the vets advise was to give a hormone inj it wasn't oxytocin but another and to gently pull the placenta I was able to remove a large percentage of it with a gentle slow pressure. It was likenend to the same kind of tension that the water bag gives to help remove a placenta naturally. Happy to the say the ewe was fine.
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We always give antibiotics to ewes trailing their placenta overlong.
Clearly a little pressure doesn't cause problems as most of them do it to themselves, tripping over it or getting it caught on something!
Nonetheless we always get the vet, and to cows too, if it doesn't come away. Next time I'm going to ask the vet whether it would be safe to have a try ourselves before calling them.