[tommytink]

Curious as to experiences with scoury lambs. I’ve read there can be various reasons, not just parasites. I had one lamb pooping very loose, the yellow poop when it was younger, but it then cleared up. An older lamb had watery poop but again next day, or the day after, she was clean again. So assume change in intake, when they start nibbling grass or similar, or maybe a change in the ewe’s milk, could cause a change in their guts which could lead to scours? Or what about a change of field? Just interested as am sure people can’t be doing FECs all the time at the first sign of a lamb having the trots?? Or maybe they do?!

[twizzel]

If you know your ground, then you can get away without doing a FEC. My lambs are just starting to scour, it’s textbook time for cocci and the field they’re in has a history of it. But if I didn’t know what the issue was, I’d do an egg count. No point worming them if cocci is the issue or vice versa.

[Anke]

If the lambs are younger than 3 weeks and they have diarrhoea than cannot be cocci, but likely an infection (due to lack of colostrum). Cocci have an incubation time of three weeks, so you are most likely to see it in lambs 5 weeks and older, if there is a history of them in the specific field they are in. If bad, then you can have recurrence in just over three weeks time. In goat kids at least, there is some resistance to Veccoxan, so I have been using Baycox (in their milk as they are bottled). I have never had to treat my lambs for it.


If you suspect cocci, getting a sample tested is not much use, as only a few specific species of Coccidia cause disease, and lambs (and goat kids) can have really high counts without any disease. So quick treatment if you suspect coccidiosis is often best, as they can go down with it very quickly.


If you have small numbers of lambs/kids to treat, Baycox is the cheaper option, as it lasts for years...

[Megan the sheep lady]

Lamb scours...bain of my existence. I had 8 bottle babies this year which was a dive into the deep end for someone with limited experience with sheep.

Scours can be a lot of things but typically not parasites to my knowledge until they are older. I had my lambs scour when they were adjusting to the milk replacer. I had one lamb with persistent scours for 10 days for no apparent reason. He was fine on milk replacer for two weeks and then out of the blue diarrhea for 10 days. It was so strange he was fine, lots of energy, huge appetite...but diarrhea. By day 4, I was really concerned so I took in a fecal sample and had him looked over. Nothing, clean as a whistle. No fever either perfect 102.5°f temp

So I gave him electrolytes, vitamin b, selenium, and probiotics. Didn't help really, but he didn't get worse and neither did the diarrhea. Finally by day 7 it started to clump up and day 10 it was solid again. He had even gained quite a bit of weight during his diarrhea phase.

Then I started thinking about the milk replacer. All my lambs were on the same brand and the same bag for the whole bottle feeding duration. But he was the only one with problems. The bag I used that week was close to expiring (a month and a half left of shelf life, so still good) The only thing I could think is that maybe the replacer had lost some of it's nutritional value and because he was so young compared to the others he was the only one having a harder time handling the lower quality milk.

He's fine now, still the smallest but full of energy and personality. But I think the rule of thumb for me from now on is to only buy bags that are at least 4 months off the expiration date just to be on the safe side.

Also I did notice a difference in poop when I moved my lambs from the barn to their pasture pen but it was for the better and didn't cause diarrhea. It actually made their poop more pelleted and less sticky.

[Anke]

Good point re milk replacer - both the quality of the product in general and how it possibly deteriorates over time. Before I had my goats to supplement any bottle lambs (very rare with Shetlands) I used to make up the milk replacer a  bit thinner/less concentrated than it says on the bag to avoid it beong too rich for the lambs.