[Nelson International]

I noticed that one of my ewes (in lamb to twins) was standing apart from the rest of the sheep last night, and then this morning she didn’t come for cake/hay when I brought it up (really unusual).

She’s not due to lamb for another 4 weeks, but this got me thinking about twin lamb. I gave her a dose of twin lamb drench and have now given the sheep access to a red crystalix bucket. I would have said I thought she was in reasonable condition and she’d shown no signs of being out of sorts until last night.

A couple of questions:
 - I’m planning on giving her the other half of the drench this evening. Am I ok to pen her up in an area say 2-3 hurdles square for a day or two? It would make it much easier to monitor her feeding, but I don’t want to stress her further.
 - other than more hay/drench/water, is there anything else & should be thinking of?
 - if she perks up again, should I continue to give her twin lamb, or would it be better to up the cake rations and leave the lick out?

Thanks in advance.
 -

[twizzel]

She should respond to the drench within a few hours, but you could give her some calcium as a one off as well. I'd repeat the drench for a day or so, just to top up energy levels but leave her graze with the others as stress can set it off again, so I'd not pen her up on her own. Give them ad lib access to the energy lick, no need to keep giving her a drench once she's back to normal.


I had a ewe with triplets go down with twin lamb this year for the first time ever- I had been in bed with the flu for a few days and whilst the sheep were fed watered and bedded down inside, their energy bucket had run out. OH noticed she had started to twitch... a couple of drenches of propylene glycol each end of the day and she was back to normal and lambed 3 or 4 days later 

[Sbom]

Give 60ml calcium under the skin over 3/4 sites and continue drench. Keep with others and monitor.
I had one who I had to inject 3 times over 5 days and also had Ketosaid. She thankfully kept grazing but was definitely off colour. She had triplets two days ago, at least a week early. Thankfully is now all good

[Nelson International]

Just to close this out - I gave the ewe a few of doses of lamb lucozade, but she was still not really proactive in coming for feed, so after a bit of consultation, I brought her and another ewe in to the shed early so that I could better monitor her and how much she was eating. All seems to have worked out fine: she had twins over the weekend, is full of milk and everyone seems ok, so I think I caught it before she’d lost too much condition. I think for next year I know to be a bit faster in upping the rations as the business end approaches, and to make sure everyone’s getting their share.

[Possum]

Glad it worked out well. Thanks for letting us know.