The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: twizzel on June 03, 2013, 03:16:36 pm
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Had a lamb come in this morning short of breath and making a rasping noise- it was very much like his airway was half closed and every time he breathed in he rasped. Foaming at mouth with a bit of blood- not sure if the blood was a red herring and whether he bit his tounge coughing. Whole family had a different diagnosis- I thought it was an allergic reaction, OH's dad thought pneumonia, OH's sister thought he was just hot. Rang the vet with symptoms and he diagnosed an upper respiratory infection and has dispensed a course of treatment for him. He said it could be clostridial but highly unlikely given his age. He's in and eating, pretty alert- we had a job to catch him to jab him!
Has anyone had anything like this before? He's been out in the same field since he was 8 weeks, he's now 4 1/2 months. Was fine at 9pm last night, by 8am this morning was not looking smart. Eating now but still coughing, hopefully the injection will kick in soon, but can't think what has caused it and whether it is contagious?
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Difficulty breathing, foaming at mouth and blood could be a sign of poisoning. Seems odd that it is just the one lamb affected though and I suspect that you have already checked for any poisonous plants around your grazing areas.
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Yep grazing is all fine as is water source. He was out with 17 other lambs and 12 calves which is why we were a bit stumped. I too thought he had eaten something and had an adverse reaction but couldn't find anything suspicious... the only way I can describe his breathing was it was exactly the same as someone having an asthma or anaphylactic attack, very strange.
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I had a ram with an upper resp infection - can be congenital in texels, but my vet said he had heard of cases where they had eaten a wasp or similar...
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That's interesting because this lamb is a Texel x... he does seem better this afternoon but still coughing and rattling in his airways so keeping him in (plus it's easier to catch him than out in the field!) very strange never seen anything like it before.
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We had a ewe get something similar suddenly with really noisy and difficult breathing and I put it down to a reaction to a bee or wasp sting, very worrying at the time but fortunately it did resolve fairly quickly. Don't recall any blood though.
This year we have had a lamb come up with some large throat swellings which is causing him to breath noisily and foam if he is over active, he has been treated with antibiotics, antinflammatories etc, but has left the vet stumped, it is now been 3 weeks or so. Was hoping he would grow out of it, I am wondering if he had some kind of throat injury/haemorrhage to cause the large swellings.
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It's strange isn't it? He is a lot better today, not as hollow on his flanks and heart rate isn't as high as yesterday but still not 100%. I too wondered if it was a bee or wasp sting but couldn't see any obvious swelling. We'll carry on the course of treatment prescribed by the vet anyhow and see how he is on Thursday night (as I am at a county show Thurs fri and sat this week, trust the sheep to get ill when I'm away from the farm all day!)