[tommytink]

This may be a similar post to the one about the Shetlands but I’m not very knowledgeable about rooing and what sheep it can affect.

I have a Badger Face ewe and over the last few days I’ve been finding chunks of her wool on the ground. She has wool hanging off of her. I’ve attached a pic showing how the wool is found. This was quite a large patch but shows the wool is intact and not rubbed. It hasn’t left bare skin, it’s like her darker, kempy, underwool.

I had to treat for sheep scab at the beginning of last year and this doesn’t seem the same. That wool was rubbed out and left bare skin and sores on the worst affected. None of the other sheep are losing wool. None of them are itching any more than what I’d consider normal. When I’ve attempted to catch her I’ve come away with two handfuls of wool, so it is literally like the wool is sitting on the top of her underwool waiting to fall off.

Can anyone shed any light? Again, she doesn’t appear to be itchy, rubbing, or agitated in any way.

[SallyintNorth]

This can happen at this time of year when the sheep has had some stress which has caused a break in the staple.  Often it will be a ewe who aborted, or who had a tough lambing, or had mastitis or something.  As the wool grows, it breaks off at the weak point in the staple.

Harmless and she will probably have a perfectly normal fleece next year.

[wildandwooly]

I was just thinking wool break. Has she been under any stress recently or something changed? If there's new wool growing underneath and no evidence of anything like lice or scab etc and she seems fine in herself I wouldn't worry. As far as I know Badger Face sheep don't roo but wool break can happen in any sheep.

[eryl]

agree with sally - sounds like stress.

[tommytink]

She did have a difficult lambing. She didn’t take last year but this year she had a single tup lamb. I saw her in the field but wasn’t sure how long she’d been at it. I was just about to intervene when he came out and she just flopped down. I ran over and his back legs were still inside and he had a fat head and tongue so I think she may have been trying to get him out a while. He came out and the afterbirth at the same time, so this also makes me think she’d been pushing hard. Just glad she didn’t push the whole lot out. Think she was pretty shell-shocked - she had a jab of a combi antibiotic and anti inflammatory and a couple of days later I have her another of painkiller as she looked swollen round her lady parts. She’s been a lovely Mum though. That was 19th March and she stayed here till 10th April when they all moved to a brand new field she hadn’t been to before. The first chunks I noticed had come out on 16th. So maybe a combination of things. I don’t know how long it would take for the wool to get to breaking point?

Anyway, sorry for the story and thanks for the opinions. I’ll keep my eye on her.

[twizzel]

I’ve got a ewe that slips most of her wool every year after lambing. She looks a mess until the shearer comes and tidied her up     but she’s perfectly healthy and rears a super set of twins each year. This year she seems to be hanging onto her wool though, for the first time in 4 years 

[tommytink]

I’ve read very little about wool slip. Homework for later! I think whenever wool is coming out you automatically think of lice or scab, but I know when they had scab their wool wasn’t coming out so easily that it just fell off! Every day’s a school day with sheep.