[andywalt]

This was the term used in cattle when not all the placenta comes away and some is retained inside the womb, with cattle the vet comes about 5 days later, washes her out and put up pecorise, sorry cant spell that one !! 

same has happened to my first ewe at lambing but the vet has advised with sheep its just anti biotics, so they will leave me some at the surgery !!

another lesson learned


any comments??

[Fleecewife]

Yes.  If ours haven't cleansed (same word used for sheep) we would give a long acting anti-biotic the following day and repeat every three days until she cleanses.  We have never had one where she doesn't eventually cleanse, and have never had any further problems using this regime.

[andywalt]

thats great, thanks very much

fewwww i had forgot what it smelt like, very ripe.....

[Fleecewife]

Definitely in need of antibiotics then 

[andywalt]

she had one jab from the vet I will pick up the anti biotic tomorrow along with a sharps box,( aww very posh) with an assortment of needles and syringes.


andy

[daddymatty82]

sharps box lol whats them needles all over car bent ones straight ones rusty ones. least ya getting hands on now not very hard to lamb is it? 1st time i done it was when i was in primary school i rode my bike down to feed my pony i think i was 8 yrs old at time  went past the lambing shed of the farm i kept pony at and saw a struggling ewe went knocked the owner and noone was in no farm hands about either so went back and sorted it out now i know it was breach but then i had no idea i just pulled my hardest and with blood and gunk all over me i went home after marking lamb and ewe with spray paint. mum asked what the hell happend went back to farm in car showed her and she explained what it was etc found owner told her and i got a big bag of sweets for that day .

[Bright Raven]

What a great story Daddymatty! I am hanging on to all the lambing threads because with luck we have one Ewe due in the next month.

[morri2]

Daddymatty, I'm impressed!!  I couldn't imagine my eight year old (just turned nine) doing that.  Amazing. 

[OhLaLa]

andywalt, how did you know not all the placenta had come away and was retained?

Am due to undergo first lambing..........

[andywalt]

basically you can see stringy pieces of placenta hanging from her rear end which turns into a putrid smell, she will need antibiotics straight away as she can go down hill with internal infection, as our vet ended up delivering the twins ( and it took the vet well over an hour to untangle them and pull them out) she gave her a dose of antibotics and arranged for me to collect another bottle from the surgery if needed. the ewe was under the weather not surprised with what she had gone through and today the 3rd day she has perked up, eating her nuts and hay and chewing cud. as she was under the weather she wasnt producing much milk at all, so i made sure the twins found the teats and at the same time supplimented them with some powered milk in a bottle, just 100ml each twice aday.
the ewe now has dropped her milk and producing more so no need as they are doing fine, getting milk and starting to jump around the pen.


andy

[Fleecewife]

Hi Andy.  Has she cleansed yet or are you still waiting? It's good she has perked up, so the AntiBs have obviously kicked in.  Good job 

[andywalt]

she did drop her after birth so yes she did but was not complete as how she looked at the back end and the terrable smell, with cattle we used to get the vet in after 4-5 days when she is very ripe and he used to wash her out and put up pesories and it was sorted, I wasnt sure about sheep but the vet said just antibiotics and make sure there no more bleeding. I expect she was in pain too as she was being messed about for 2.5 hours. but now lookes very perky and chewing her cud and eating up her nuts.

[Fleecewife]

Oh now that has reminded me that you can use pessaries in sheep too, although probably too late for your ewe to need them.  Years ago (in 2000 I think) we had a Gotland ewe who had triplets but one was long-dead before she lambed, so pretty messy inside as you can imagine.  The vet gave us Synulox 500mg tablets - great big things meant as pills for calves - to insert as pessaries.  They were used in addition to the antiBs.  Sometimes if the ewe has been through a lot of internal manipulation, she might also need steroids - we used them a couple of years ago in a first time lamber Soay who had an enORMous single lamb which came head only and was of course totally stuck - only my hands were small enough to get in there, but I had big bruises from the tight squeeze, so obviously she did too, and she kept trying to push for a few days after she had lambed, a sign of continuing pain and tissue damage.  The steroids settled that.

[waterhouse]

I hope I never need to use that advice but I'm very happy there's someone able to give it.  Thank you.

Our lovely vet (and she IS lovely) is way under half my age and I think in her first job.  However it does mean we get the info up to date and fresh from her Royal Vet College notes.  And she likes sheep.

[andywalt]

Very interesting, i remember synalux when i used to work with a dairy herd years ago !!