[Lockdownlambs]

Help needed!
Ewe expecting twins start of April has been unwell for a couple of days. Initially we thought it was due to very sore footrot in one foot. And her not wanting to walk. Although it became apparent that there was something else going on. Anyway long story but we took her to vet who wasn’t sure but suspected twin lamb disease. Gave her loads of injections, vitamins , calcium, 2 antibiotics one for foot and one for pneumonia and the glucose drench. She has picked up a bit and is eating more. The vet is concerned that she is a bit too fat and this could be an issue. My question is if and hopefully she gets over this, how can we keep her well for the rest of pregnancy, can she come down with this again? How can we keep her energy up without over feeding ? We have kept her in tonight as bad weather is forecast and she is eating her hay much better tonight so I’m hoping the medicines are working but just concerned about the next 6 weeks 😕
Thanks in advance for any ideas or guidance given

[SallyintNorth]

Fat pregnant ewes is an issue, yeah.

As the lambs grow, they make more demands on her system, and take up more space.  So she both needs more input and cannot eat as much hay (due reduced space in the rumen to process it.) 

So I would say first off, she needs glucose / molasses in a form she likes eating, so that her sugar levels don't plummet again.  A pre-lamber licky bucket is a convenient way to deliver this.

You can't be trying to get weight off her in the final trimester, and it's essential she gets enough nutrients to support the lambs' final growth spurt, laying down her milk supplies, and being in good shape for the ardours of birthing.  So if she is struggling to get what she needs from hay, she needs other feed of some sort.  She will be needing protein by this stage, so a ewe ration or a feed lick for lambers would probably be the best option. 

Fingers crossed she has a successful lambing, they usually come right as rain once the lambs are born.

For other years, try to manage the condition of your ewes before tupping and / or in the weeks immediately after tupping.  They can get a little skinny (gently, not with drastic starvation), like CS 2 - 2.5, which leaves room to feed them well from about half way, and have them on increasing input for the last month.  Sugar in some form available from 6-8 weeks before, a good mineral drench (chelated minerals) at tupping or shortly after, and that pre-lamber bucket.

[Lockdownlambs]

Thanks for the reply. Pleased to say she is up and at it again today and looking much better. So do you think the pre-lamber lick will be enough to keep her from having another crisis? Obviously won’t be reducing her intake, I suppose it’s just getting the balance right. Keeping her and lambs healthy.

[twizzel]

It depends really, I had a ewe go down with twin lamb 2 weeks before her due date, despite having lifeline buckets available. She too was sore on a foot. I kept her going with silage, propylene glycol, coarse mix and on days when she didn’t want to eat much at all I picked her some grass. She had triplets on board and lambed this week, though we lost one of them as it was a difficult lambing.


6 weeks is a long time to nurse her through though, so if she carries on getting worse or keeps having repeat episodes, sometimes the best thing to do is abort the lambs.


If you do get her to lambing, be prepared to top up the lambs with colostrum as quite often twin lamb ewes don’t have the best quantity/quality colostrum.

[Lockdownlambs]

Thank you so much. Just back from checking her and she is so much better 😁 here’s hoping it stays that way, I hate to see them unwell

[twizzel]

Great news. Fingers crossed! 

[PipKelpy]

Twin lamb disease is a creeper, if you don't know about it, it'll get you.

I remember Seppy, lovely Dorset Down ewe I had, 2nd lambing with me, going checking on them one November morning (so a month off from lambing) Sun was up, they were all lying down, chewing their cuds, she looked at me. Offered her a tic tac (used to carry them all the time) didn't want it, I didn't think much of it.

When I went back out a few hours later, she hadn't moved. I told mum and we went over in the tractor, noise of which didnt get her up. Drench, sugar lumps etc, no good, she died a few hours later. Mum asked me where she was when I checked her the night before I told her i thought the same place, it never even occurred to me (I'd only had sheep 18 months so still no idea etc)

2010 (could have been 2009) one or those winters when the whole country was frozen, Henrietta (a scrappy Manx X) went off into a corner to die (as they do) so I got her in, immediately and told her "not bloody likely!" and looked after her for the last month. She perked up (she wasn't roughing it In the snow!) and spat out 2 lovely boys (typical!), washed them, fed them, I don't know who cried the most 2 days later, them or me, when I found her dead in the pen!

Bloody sheep! They do say sheep try to find various ways to die!I

.........

I will also add, the saying "you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink" also relates to ewes and licks.

Mine have had prelamber buckets and superlyx with fish AND liquid molasses. Unless Mary got their first, molasses were gone, ewes went head to head.

The prelamber buckets, they barely touched, though they did attack the superlyx. Just cos it's there, DON'T mean they'll take it.

I have now, put the prelamber buckets that they didnt finish, on the field, they are more keen on them now AFTER lambing than what they were before!

[SallyintNorth]

We used to have many more TLD-like problems pre-lambing up north, where winter conditions could be quite brutal, then we tried magnesium licks, as well as the pre-lamber molasses licks.

The ewes didn't take much from the mag buckets, didn't seem to enjoy them like the other licks, but they did take some, and the incidence of "metabolic disturbances of pregnancy" plummeted.  So it was worth putting the magnesium lick buckets out each winter, even though most of the contents were not touched.