The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: devonlad on March 13, 2014, 01:36:42 pm
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one of our ewes, a Gimmer has begun scouring badly in the past 24 hours. she has been limping slightly for a few days but as she is completely scatty and hates being handled we had decided not to cause any distress so close to lambing- 1 week. and just monitor it to make sure it didn't get worse. the scouring however is a worry - close to being brown water and I feel inclined to give her some abs- any issues re abs so close to giving birth
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Has she been wormed recently? Might be worth getting a FEC? (you could do this without having to catch her) and maybe checking her temperature etc?
If she's scatty, get the whole group in in order to examine her.
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Is it definitely faeces? She isn't aborting the fluids of a dead lamb? Smell? Is she well otherwise?
I would have thought, scatty or not you have to get in to examine her closer.
Some of mine have looser, but very green faeces right now, but I put that down to the new grass.
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Like the above I would be checking in case of dead lamb.
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thanks for all replies. first thing to say is that its definitely faeces. have dropped a pot in at the vet so hopefully that will tell us something. worming wise she will be due- we tend to only worm twice a year ( and fluke more often) one of which is after they've lambed when they get a full mot including flukicide. although ( with the exception of her) the sheep are very tame we try not to handle them too much in the latter stages other than heptavac which we did a month or so ago. a few have slightly sore feet but we try to leave them alone till after unless it gets too bad. we did move them all up to our top field near the barn at the weekend and the grass is a bit fresher which may account for some of it. they are all a bit "loose" but she is rather more so. in herself she is not apparently unwell- very pregnant but no more uncomfortable than any of the others- grazing, drinking and eating her handful of nuts each morning. tomorrow night we are bringing a couple in who are due on Saturday as we keep them in at night to avoid the bloody badgers- so will grab her then and have a closer look. usually we're not too phased by the occasional runny bum but it is so close to birthing and typically she;s our token nutter- any of the others we could easily have a closer look but although shes closely related to several, her mum and 2 full sisters are also in the flock she has always been a wild one