[Fleecewife]

On another thread we have been discussing how old some sheep can live. The breed we keep, Hebrideans, tend to be long-lived and can last well into their mid teens.  When sheep are young we all look at their front teeth to make sure they are 'on the pad' or to check the age of the animal, or to see whether they have become broken mouthed - ie started to lose their teeth. I have mentioned how, if you have the facilities you may wish to nurse an animal through the 'broken mouthed' stage and she will then go on for a few years more with a little extra feeding.
But sheep have more teeth than just those at the front of the mouth, which are used for plucking grass - they have molars with which they chew their fodder (and your fingers if you are careless when examining them  )  Once a sheep becomes very old, she can start to lose her molars, and yet few people think to check these back teeth.   A sign of a problem might be swelling in the jaw line which would indicate a tooth abscess, or maybe that that molar is loosening, or you would observe the sheep dropping a lot of half-chewed cud.  We had an elderly ewe - 11 which isn't that old for a Heb - who had started to lose her front teeth at about 6, so we had stopped breeding from her but kept her on for fleece and as a pet.  The other day I noticed that she was standing with freshly plucked grass hanging from either side of her mouth.  Strange I thought.  The next day I noticed her standing with her mouth slightly open and I knew it was time to have a good look, or rather for OH to have a good look    Unfortunately she had lost one molar and another was coming out, preventing her from closing her mouth and from chewing. There is nothing which could realistically be done for her so she has now gone to that happy pasture somewhere between here and the Knackers incinerator   .
Without molars a sheep really cannot survive.  When we select new stock we should always run our hands over the jaws just to check that the molars are in line and that there is no pain on pressure, which would be a sign of abscess.  But hardly anyone does that...

[Dougal]

Most commercial sheep don't live long enough for their molars to wear out. 6 crop is a good age for a commercial ewe and given the difficulties in checking those teeth quickly when you have over a 1000 to do most places won't bother. Perhaps it is worth considering when you intend keeping the sheep much longer in life as you are? Food for thought.

[Fleecewife]

Yes I agree that it's only really relevant to the long-lived breeds.  More and more sheep of these breeds are being kept but molars are rarely if ever mentioned in sheep care discussions, for the reason you point out.  So I just felt like pointing out their existence and possible problems   

[SallyintNorth]

Molars can be an issue with Blue-faced Leicesters and I have seen the problem in Swaledales.

BFL tups can regurgitate long sausages of half-digested cud because their molars aren't up to chewing it down completely.  They lose condition and waste food.  So running hands along the jaw as FW describes is part of the annual MoT for them.  The vet can file the teeth if it's a valuable tup and he would otherwise be good for another season or two.

[Dougal]

I was always taught to always cull out 'cud spillers'. Sheep that showed the green staining on their lower jaw, especially in rams because it was felt that they would pass the condition on to their lambs. That would have gone some way to culling out continued problems in the breeds of tooth abnormalities. Perhaps with the continued demise of the dedicated shepherd towards the more general stockman in farming is contributing to tooth problems coming back in more commercial breeds?

[SallyintNorth]

That's a good point, Dougal, and I don't know the answer.  I can say, however, that the vet didn't seem to think the condition was particularly hereditary and we never saw the problem in the mule ewes that we retained.  But some other teeth problems are believed to be hereditary (under- and over-shot jaws, for instance) so it's possible the cud-spitting problem has an hereditary component too.

[mmu]

We sometimes get a lamb with a green stained lower jaw, but would that be caused by teeth in one so young?  Don't know it they would pass it on as they have gone for meat.  So far we haven't had it happen in ay ewe lambs that we have kept.

[Rosemary]

Excellent tip, fleecewife. I will note that down for future reference 

[Dougal]

Often cud spillers are just sheep with poor chewing action, eat with their mouths open if you like. You don't really want them because when they spill the cud they are losing the best of teh nutrition from thier diet.