[Tilly]

Thankyou Felder for posting info. on schmallenberg.
Sorry to hear of your losses  - have you many more to lamb?

Thanks, feldar; I really appreciate the way you and others experiencing this terrible disease have kept us informed.

As to avoiding lambing next year...  I am hoping that the virus does its rounds early(ish) in the summer, infecting all the ewes when they are not in lamb (and when this year's lambs can tolerate mum's milk going off for a couple of days, coupled with having a temperature themselves.)  All sheep will then be immune and there should be no impact on next year's lambing. 

Or have I misunderstood it?

SallyintNorth- That is how i`m thinking at the moment. I hope the infected midges come early over summer and the ewes get immune before getting in lamb again.
Tilly

[Haylo-peapod]

Thanks so much for this feldar, what a terrible ordeal you and others are going through. Particularly sorry to hear about the ewes that died as they did not cleanse properly. Do the vets have any suggestions on whether anything can be done to assist them with the cleansing? Like everyone else I am really grateful for the insight you have given us into this terrible disease as it is always good to be as fully informed as possible.

[Bramblecot]

Thanks Feldar, very helpful.  Not nice to see but I would rather see this on the page than unepectedly find it in the field  .  As you say, large commercial flocks must be losing so many lambs without apparent explanation.  It must be playing havoc with their planning.

[feldar]

The ewes that died didn't show any signs of being ill initially. They suddenly went down hill rapidly they looked pregnant and they were in the last stages of pregnancy. Admittedly one ewe was fairly old and having her last set of lambs but the other one was a young ewe.
We noticed the frist ewe suddenly looked weak and wobbly one evening when i went to feed them and when i caught her up she collapsed off her feet. Thinking it was twin lamb disease ( before we knew we had Schmallenberg) we drenched her and injected vitamins and treated for twin lamb. She did not improve so we called our vet who prescribed a strong course of antibiotics and a steroid. 3 days later she was still hanging on but getting steadily worse so we repeated everything. 3 days after she was so bad my hubby shot her, she was lingering on to a bad death so we called it for her.
The following week we had another ewe go exactly the same way, we shot her too. Our vet offered a PM but by then we had had the first deformed lambs born so we kind of put two and two together.
Since then we have had the two other ewes abort naturally so they cleaned ok and those two pictured lambs which luckily the ewe managed to clean properly.
We have finished lambing now so we can relax for this year
Just to add once we shot the ewes they smelt very bad very quickly, really smelt of infection. you don't normally get that in a fresh dead animal