[Megan the sheep lady]

I recently had my 4 week old lamb castrated by my vet friend. However when I got home later that day I noticed she had caught one of his nipples in the band. I called to ask if I should try to remove the nipple from the band or not since I was unsure. It had been about 5-6 hrs since he had been banded and I was worried it may cause some kind of toxic shock or sepsis. She said not to worry about it and to go ahead. I was able to roll the nipple out of the band but still leave it in place for the testicles. It was pretty swollen at the time and sensitive to touch but I thought that was normal considering things.

That was last week, fast forward to now. His nipple is still pretty swollen though a bit less so than the first few days. It doesn't seem to be as tender. However it has developed a hard almost scabby layer over it and has darkened a bit (his nipple was black in color to begin with but now it's darker) I'm really worried it may have become gangrenous. Does anyone have experience with something similar?

I'm taking him in tomorrow, but if it is gangrene does anyone know what anesthesia the vet should use for lambs in case she needs to remove it (she is not a livestock vet) Also what antibiotic medication is safe for lambs? I'm so worried about him. I feel terrible, but I was worried I may cause him long term harm by leaving the nipple in the band, but now I may have caused a different problem all together.

He's eating and drinking fine, and has good energy. He doesn't seem to have a fever either. I'm just so worried about him getting a septic infection. I attached pictures, one of his good nipple and one of his questionable nipple.

[Backinwellies]

Seriously hoping you not in UK!  To band after 7 days old is illegal in UK .... for very good reasons .... and would hope no 'vet friend' would do this ..... especially as they obviously didnt know what they were doing anyway!

Any vet who is not competent to deal with livestock should be no where near your lamb .... and asking on here what your vet should use drugs wise is totally irresponsible.  Book in to a proper livestock vet and get the poor lamb seen to properly please.

[Penninehillbilly]

.... and asking on here what your vet should use drugs wise is totally irresponsible.  Book in to a proper livestock vet and get the poor lamb seen to properly please.

Maybe not that irresponsible BiW,  at least OP is asking advice, hopefully will take heed of your comments   

[Megan the sheep lady]

No I'm in the US I had him castrated at a later age because he is going to be a pet and it is recommended to castrate later here because of urinary crystals. We used proper pain medication (Meloxicam and lidocaine) and my friend is helping me because there are no livestock vets in my area. It is legal here to castrate after 7 days. The livestock vet that we consulted recommended 6 to 8 weeks for castration but we worried that would be to old. Please don't cast judgement when you don't know the situation.

I am doing the best I can with the tools I have available. All 8 bottle babies I have this year are rescues and would have died if I didn't take them on.

Ps she does have some experience with livestock but it is not her specialty. I only asked here because I wanted to get more opinions on anesthesia used on lambs because I'm unsure even the livestock vet here will have experience with that when we call. People don't tend to help food animals where I'm from. If a lamb doesn't make it on the farm then they're not going to invest extra money in it. It's just the reality of the food industry.

[Fleecewife]

Pretty much the same here [member=215659]Megan the sheep lady[/member] where spending on livestock animals is concerned.  Someone will come down on my head for saying that but it is broadly true, that you don't spend more on the animal than it's worth if rearing animals is your livelihood.  Many of us on here keep our animals as a hobby, but others need the income from them.
It's interesting the different rules and regs in different countries.  Here with some tiny sheep like Soays we are still supposed to stick to the 7 day rule for ringing when in fact it's bad welfare to do it so early on such tiny lads where the ring is too big.  Fortunately I don't breed Soays any more but in the past I have been prepared to argue the welfare case had I been brought up about it.


Sorry I don't know anything about anaesthetising lambs, particularly the meds used.  I think only a vet would have a good idea about it.


The nipple looks to me as if a small area is necrotic and that there is some localised infection.  Were he mine he would be on antibiotics and possibly painkillers. It could need to be debrided at some point but a vet would do that once the infection is cleared up.


Whereabouts in the States are you, that there are no large animal vets around?
Incidentally as far as I know if a lamb is castrated later than the first week then another method than a rubber ring should be used, Burdizzo or surgery, wherever in the world you are but that could just be me.

[Womble]

Talking of anaesthetising lambs, there is now an injection specifically intended for lamb castration, combined with a device for applying the ring. It's called NumNuts. Because, of course it is.


It's not licensed in the UK yet, unfortunately - something to do with it being a combination of the drug and a medical device makes it hard to get a license for here.


I think it will be cost-prohibitive for smallholders anyway. However, I thought it was worth a quick mention whilst we were on the subject.

[Megan the sheep lady]

After having him looked at my vet wasn't to concerned. She said there might be some small amount of necrotic tissue but she didn't think so and even if there was dead tissue, she said debriding it would only cause more opportunity for further infection and problems. However she did think he has some infection and he was running a temp of 103.9 °f (but he was also pretty stressed from the car ride and being away from his buddies, so it's hard to tell since stress can raise body temp) she's decided to put him on Nuflor (florfenicol) and we will watch the area closely. We're just trying to find the medication now. In California feed stores are no longer able to carry injectable antibiotics by law.

Does anyone have experience with this medication? If so did you use it to treat lambs or adult sheep? I know it can be used in sheep but what about lambs? (he's 5 weeks now) also I know it's indicated for treatment of respiratory infections. Has anyone used it to treat other things? (It is labeled a broad spectrum antibiotic and some websites say it can treat pink eye, foot rot, mastitis, abortion, and pneumonia...) Is there a better mediation to use?

I'm in California where beef and dairy are king. There are some equine vets in my area but they only treat horses and cattle. The nearest vet I could find to treat sheep was about 1.5 hours away. A 3 hr round trip is a lot of stress for a little lamb so we decided to avoid that and consult with them instead. It would have also cost around 200$ to get this one lamb castrated since they charge by the hour regardless of how many animals you bring...He was banded separately because he was too sick to do so at the time the others were and he was to young anyway according to the livestock veterinarian.

Also just to put the info out there; all my other lambs that were banded are doing fine, and were up and eating/running around about 15 mins after. It is possible to band lambs older and from what the livestock veterinarian told me it's highly recommend to do so in order to avoid a lifelong increased risk of urinary crystals that happens when you castrate sheep and goats to young. You just need to have proper pain management since castration hurts at ANY age. Meloxicam is safe and commonly prescribed to sheep for pain.

Just thought I'd put the info out there since it was really hard for me to find. Most everything I read online is geared towards raising animals for meat production. This way of raising animals is fine for short term production needs but doesn't consider long term effects; say how will this effect the animal 12 years from now.

And yes each country has its own practices and regulations. Banding can happen here in the USA after 7 days but it's not recommended unless for hobbyist with pain meds according to the livestock vet. But mulesing which is legal in Australia is unheard of here, and so is dipping sheep which is currently legal and happens in the UK.

I'm not the moral police 🚨 to say which is right and which is wrong. I'm just doing the best I can to help the animals in my care.

[Womble]

OK, so a couple of things - 103.9F is just below 40 degC, so that's on the upper limit of what I'd consider normal. (Does anybody want to confirm / deny that? Truthfully I've always been more worried about low temperatures in lambs than high ones!)

{castration is} highly recommend to do so in order to avoid a lifelong increased risk of urinary crystals that happens when you castrate sheep and goats to young

That's a new one to me. We're careful of what we feed male sheep full stop, to avoid urinary crystals, but I don't know about any link between castration and crystal formation, nor age at castration. Out of interest, can you tell any more about where you got the information from?

P.S. Not many people dip in the UK any more (thankfully - the dip was horrid stuff).

[Megan the sheep lady]

Ok🙏 good to know I was wondering if I should be concerned or not about his temp! I still plan to keep checking him morning and night but it's good to know 103.9 isn't something to be super concerned about. This is all super new to me. These animals have been kind of shoved my way with no warning due to the situation so Im trying to learn everything as fast as I can.

The livestock vet gave me that recommendation of castrating at 6-8 weeks. I guess they had seen quite a few deaths from it so they do things this way. People tend to feed show pellets and cob here which can make problems worse. But there's also a lot of articles online that talk about urinary crystals in pet sheep and goats and a lot of research has been done on it.

Here's a quote from the university of Michigan about it in goats "Young wethers (castrated males) are especially susceptible to Urinary Calculi. Castration stops both testosterone production and the growth of the urethra. Solid particles cannot pass through a urethra that has not been given the opportunity to grow to its normal diameter. The chance of contracting Urinary Calculi in male show animals can be reduced by delaying castration as long as possible -- giving the diameter of the urethra time to grow."

And a link to the article:
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/urinary_calculi_in_sheep_and_goats#:~:text=Urinary%20Calculi%2C%20a%20urinary%2Dtract,and%20does%20kill%20animals%20quickly.

[Penninehillbilly]

Thanks for all the info Megan, interesting.
As a goat keeper I have read about early castration possibly causing urinary calculi, but we have to abide by the law, I couldn't even find the darned bits on some lambs last year, local farmer struggled as well, and that was up to the time limit.

[Backinwellies]

Banding at 6-8 weeks still seems pretty brutal to me ..... I've no idea how you would hold one that age to do it.  Here you can use bloodless castrators after 7 days if that is what you prefer.  But after 8 weeks it is a vet job as requires anaesthetic.   2 years ago I had 2 lambs  which I couldnt ring (Too small) so took then to vet to do   at about 3 months.   I happiliy use bloodless castrators on calves at about 6 weeks.

[Megan the sheep lady]

Yeah I thought 6-8 weeks was too long as well. That's why we decided to go ahead at 4 weeks. If God forbid I ever have to do this in the future I'm definitely going to try to use a different method. The banding worked well for all the other lambs and honestly if his nipple hadn't gotten caught it would've worked well for the last lamb too. Everyone has dropped their testes, has great energy, are growing well, and with the medication didn't seem to have pain other than the initial 15 mins or so. But boy went it went wrong, it went wrong. Way to stressful 😰

Also update the lamb is doing well. His nipple is not infected and the damaged tissue has started to slough off like a little scab. He should heal up nicely.

[Penninehillbilly]

Thanks for update Megan, good to know all is well.