Well we've just re-fixed a prolapse today.
We always use sugar to shrink the thing before popping it back in and usually find that a spoon does the trick to keep it in place. I prefer the spoon because they can lamb through it - it will pop out and the lamb(s) will pass no bother, whereas with other solutions - sewing, pins - you must be on hand when they lamb and take out the stitching.
The one we did yesterday managed to pop her spoon and prolapsed again today, so now she's pinned.
Yes, I know I will get a warm arm when I push it back in, and like jaykay have to think that is a positive thing as it means the ewe is now feeling more comfortable - and, importantly, I've got it back in right.
And yes, we always give them a shot of antibiotic.
This ewe could well be carrying twins but isn't fat, condition score 2.5+. She's a 3-crop texel-out-of-a-mule, due to lamb from 9th March. The tup was a charollais so I wouldn't expect huge lambs. And no, her tail is not docked too short, it covers her modesty plus a bit.
Like most commercial farmers, BH will have this girl away after she's reared her lamb(s) (hoping that all goes well with the birth, but it more often does than not with prolapses.) However, I am told by another farmer that there is no evidence that a ewe which prolapses one year will do it again, and she keeps on her ewes which prolapse, logs their numbers, and says that none of them has ever done it again.
We get one or two, maybe three, prolapses a year lambing 220 - 300 commercial ewes, so I guess that's about 1%. On the moorland farm we got maybe 2% in the mules and hardly any at all in the Swales.