[Remy]

I have a Herdwick ewe who is one of my favourites and has always been a very attentive and exceptional mum.  This year she's had one ewe lamb and I saw the lamb busy suckling.  However after a few days it looked thin so I caught the ewe and inspected her to find she has one side of her udder swollen and hot, although milk was coming out of the other.  The inside of the udder feels hard on the side of the blind teat - no milk or any fluid is coming out.  I gave her an AB jab and after a couple of days the udder didn't feel quite as hot or swollen but there is still nothing coming out of that teat and there is still hard matter inside it.  I've tried massaging etc to no avail.  The lamb now seems to be thriving and is suckling from the other side.


I know people will tell me to cull the ewe but my question is can she carry on breeding with just one working teat, or will there likely be further complications from the blocked teat?  I assume I will have to wait and see!  She doesn't appear to be in much discomfort and even lets the lamb try to suckle from the bad side.

[SallyintNorth]

She may lose the quarter - it sloughs off, very smelly  - or may retain it, maybe lumpy and hard or may feel ok.  It may even produce something next year - but assume it'll be blind or produce watery useless stuff. 

If the other quarter isn't affected, there's no reason she can't go on and rear a lamb next year.  If she has twins, then you will likely need to remove one, or at the very least, top them up.

Personally, I haven't seen a ewe suffer complications, apart from lack of milk, from mastitis the previous year.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

I had one ewe which had a really big bag, very milky, she only had singles for years and her bag looked fine, one year she had twins and we noticed one of them not looking well, we took it off and found only one side was working. We let her rear the one lamb and then culled her the end of the year. I would say if it is only the one side and you can get her to dry up or get the mastitis out, then if the other side is milky and fine I would say let her rear the lamb and then cull at the end of the season. Otherwise the next breeding season she could have twins or trips and only rear the one. Plus she could be passing on weak bags, if she has one, to her offspring, so yes cull at the end of the season or now if she can't rear the lamb, depends how much weight she has on.

[Helen Wiltshire Horn]

We had a couple of cases of mastitis a few years ago which was, I think, caused by orf in lambs.  I landed up culling one as she had a lot of scar tissue but one other ewe has gone on and successfully raised lambs for the past two years, despite having a lumpy and lop-sided udder.  I treated with anti-b as soon as I found it and presumed that I might have to supplement lambs. No black tissue or sloughing though.  The ewe that was affected and which I still have successfully raised our first set of triplets this year! 
Helen

[Marches Farmer]

A recent study showed that even if mastitis appears to disperse over the summer it will flare up again the following lactation.  Whether the ewe has just a single using the remaining teat or not it may be worth considering the discomfort it must cause her to have a hard, hot half udder for many weeks.  No, they don't show it, but as a prey animal they're hard-wired not to.

[SallyintNorth]

That's interesting, MF.  Do you have a link for that study?