[ty capel flock]

I've had a friend's Jacob at my place for a few months now for tupping.  I had noticed a few weeks ago that she was loosing her wool on her shoulders and told my friend.  She said this was normal - and that the ewe was hot and rubbing her fleece with her horns. (?)

Got her in for scanning the other day and noticed that it looked quite red in places and the wool was falling out down her sides too.  Told my friend again and she still felt that it was OK.  It's not scab - I checked that with the scanner who said it wasn't.  Mine are all OK - they are Dartmoors.  But I remain concerned about this ewe.  She is now totally bald over her shoulders and it continues to fall out down her sides in a broad band - and there is wool all over my field!!  I have had a quick look on the internet but didn't really come up with anything.

Anyone got any ideas as to what it could be.  My friend said that her other Jacob does lose hers too......

 

[SallyintNorth]

Unless it's clipping time and they're in full fleece in hot weather, or indoors, I can't see why a Jacob would be hot at this time of year? 

Is she only itchy on her shoulders or does she rub her bum on fences, etc, too?

I presume none of your own sheep are showing any symptoms?

Even so, if she were at my spot I'd be thinking about dosing with meds for biting lice and sucking lice.  Sadly you have to do both if you don't know which she's got, there aren't any chemicals (that I know of) which do both.  But if you hit both types of lice you'll get every other beastie that can make them itch too.  You can try getting a vet to inspect a wool-and-skin scraping, but in my experience they can often find nothing.

My first Christmas 'oop Narth'  I spent dosing our hoggs with Dectomax.  They were so miserable we didn't think we could bear to leave it another day, much to the disgust of the other occupants of the household...    Sadly the Dectomax didn't work, turned out we had the other kind of lice, so Crovect on the skin sorted them later on.  By then we had to do all the sheep on the farm - a big job, took several days to gather and dose them all.

[ty capel flock]

Thanks!  I'll try a bit of Crovect on her.  She has been rubbing on fence posts too but only her sides not her bum.  I've never come across this before on any of mine - just hope it hasn't spread if it is lice.  My other sheep are all OK but I'll give them a spray too before she goes home - which hopefully is tomorrow. 

[Gunnermark]

Are they being fed hay from a each above it could be hay irritating her on her shoulders. I used to keep Jacobs and put it down to that.

[Pasture Farm]

I had exactly the same thing a couple of years ago with a Jacob Ewe, She was one of 7 none of the others showed any signs but this one Ewe was as you descibe. I could see nothing with the naked eye, I treat her with spot on and she was fine. Strangly i never actually saw her scratching herself with her horns or against anything 

[Dougal]

I've known ewes that were pretty lean that once they began to thrive again they lost their wool. Caused by the wool stopping growing when they are in poor condition and this causes a break point in the fibres. This is the typical time of year for lice though. Usually you notice wool pull (little tails of wool down from the shoulders and through the ribs) before they actually start losing clumps of wool  with lice. Has it happened with the ewe before in previous years? maybe she does it regular but never with you before?

[Pasture Farm]

Ah    Mine was very thin she was just finishing twins and had given them everything, never knew it could cause this breaking in the wool.

[cooper956]

if it is lice you will have to teat any sheep its been together with some lambs i bought have turned up with lice and they are  being a bugger to shift used spot on on them all and now trying crovect on the ones still itching shame its not the time to dip as im sure that would sort them out. you need to see if you can see any lice on ours i looked round where the wool had come off in the bottom of the  remaining woll and under the crusty bits was woryed it was scab but after asking about soon found the lice little white things very small but you can see them  they have a brownist head end theses are young lice i havent seen full grown ones they are all brown if you can see theses its lice if you carnt see anything it could be scab as the scab mite is too small to see

[feldar]

We have a Llanwenog ewe who looses her wool every year during and after lambing she begins to shed 1 month from lambing and looses the whole fleece by the time they are weaned. None of our other ewes do this only her. The only other time our sheep shed like this is when they've had a long course of antibiotics for an infection, i think the increased temperature of a slight infection is enough to activate them to shed.
I would imagine if a lot of grain was fed to a ewe, that may increase temperature as well, this is a " heating food"