[wallyward]

Hi
New member here. Just thought people may be interested in the following copied from a thread on nother forum:

Knowledge and information about the disease is beginning to evolve.
It MAY NOT be as bad for the sheep industry as has been hyped up by the media. However for some individuals it has been a very distressing and costly in extra time involved in lambing sheep with deformed lambs and the consequential loss in production.

I would qualify anything I say with the caveat that there is still much not known.

What is interesting is that so far almost everyone in my area who has lambed in February has seen instances of the effect of the disease. The numbers of lambs affected ranges from 2% - 20%.
However there may be some room for optimism for those lambing in March, providing the sheep have remained in the same geographical area since tupping.
Flocks that have started lambing in the last few days do not appear to be infected, or if they were it was outside of the critical time.

The critical time for an ewe is between 28 and 56 days of pregnancy, on testing work done so far on calves the virus is relatively short lived before they develop antibodies, up to 5 days.

I believe in this area we had a massive influx of European Midges that arrived in September and proceeded to infect all of the animals. (There is anecdotal evidence of some unexplained deaths in livestock around that time which was put down to Pasturella!)

However while I am trying to be upbeat about this area, I have some less good news for others.
My neighbour who has been particularly badly affected during February has also a March lambing flock, these were away wintered in Dorset and he was hoping that they would not be infected in the same way as those in East Sussex. Unfortunately they have the same problems with a very high number of deformities at the present time.
He sent off material to the VLA and on speaking to them about where the sheep were wintered as to whether they wanted the Holding number, the reply was "do not bother it is everywhere"!

Another reason to be optimistic was in another flock that was all run together last Autumn, they saw no problems in the first week of lambing, very high deformities in the second week and none in the third. This would seem to back up the science.

The problems caused by this virus would appear to be solely down to timing and when it passes through the ewes or cows. There is also some evidence that areas with a low number of Midges have also escaped.

I should qualify that in calving cows it is still too early to know the effects and consequences as it will be late March onwards if the scientists are correct about the timing.

There is no doubt that the infected Midges moved northwards and westwards, how far and at what time they got there we still have to wait and see. All talk of banning movements of livestock especially into Scotland was a little irrelevant!

The other "good" news is that after an animal has been infected it appears to have antibodies and will not get the disease again, how long this will last is not yet known.
It may be better to ensure all animals are infected this summer when not first pregnant to ensure they are immune in the future. Someone suggested that this would be like having Measles parties! 
     
regards

[pikilily]

So is there a way of ensuring the ewes get infected over the summer? 

Not to make light of the dreadful situation for those with affected lambs , but, where is one supposed to send the invites for the midges to come to the party!! 

I really feel for those farmers and smallholders who are having to deal with this.....I just dont think i would have the stomach for breaking legs etc.  My lambing  (four ewes) starts in a few weeks time...fingers crossed it all goes well.
Emma T 

[Rich/Jan]

Hi OH had to break a lambs leg early this morning as it was impossible for the ewe to deliver it.  It was curled up in a ball with the back presented.  It was dead.  OH at least saved the ewe.  Blood tests being taken by vet and Laboratory testing the carcass on Monday.  We have had 50lambs so far OK but another 20ish ewes still to lamb.  The earlier ewes seem to have had no problem so we think it was the later ewes that were affected by the midges.

[SallyintNorth]

I really feel for all of you who are affected by this dreadful disease.  We did have a very warm snap in October / November up here, so at the moment I don't think we can be certain we will escape it this lambing season.  And as to cattle, we have to just wait and see.

Reading about people having to break fused and deformed limbs in order to remove dead lambs to save their ewes is heartbreaking. 

I just wanted to post this excerpt from the latest 'Schmallenberg virus Information for Farmers and Vets' leaflet from AHVLA.

Malformations affecting lambs exposed to the virus in pregnancy may lead to lambing difficulties. Excessive force must not be used during lambing as this may risk injury to both the ewe and lamb. Farmers should contact their veterinary surgeon in these cases which cannot be delivered naturally.  Embryotomy (dissection and removal of a foetus that cannot be delivered naturally) should only be carried out on dead foetuses. It should never be used to remove a live animal.

You can find all of the information put out by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency here:
http://vla.defra.gov.uk/science/sci_schmallenberg.htm
They are updating the information frequently at the moment.

[jaykay]

Don't think there's any suggestion it's moved this far north Sally. I suppose we should hope it does over the summer.

[Rich/Jan]

Our near neighbour here in France (Dept 16 Charente) has so far lost 100 lambs.  He has a flock of 800.  The vet told us this when he arrived to blood test our ewe.  Much worse than has been reported here in France.

[Moleskins]

Assuming you need to break a lambs leg in order to remove it from the ewe, how do you do it one handed ?
As I assume you will have one hand inside the ewe.

[SallyintNorth]

Don't think there's any suggestion it's moved this far north Sally. I suppose we should hope it does over the summer.

I think we won't know, jaykay, until all the ruminants have produced who were in the first third of their gestation when the midges were last active - they're mapping the spread by monitoring cases, not by testing midges. 

A lot of stock would have moved about the country in August / September (tup sales for one) and tups from down south could easily have unknowingly brought the infection with them and infected the local midges.  In a normal year (whatever one of those is now!), that would have been too late in the season for there to have been any spread into the local ruminant population.  But last October / November, we had a really warm snap, warmer than the summer had been, and there were midges about.  Our ewes were with the tup then and will start lambing next week...  Cattle who were in their first third at that time will be calving from April.

So whilst I know that, thankfully, it is extremely unlikely that we will see any deformities or abortions due to SMV this spring, I do think we can't be certain that we won't until we get past Easter.

And yes, from a sheep point of view, let's then hope they get infected in the summer, get immune then, and consequently don't suffer these effects from exposure during subsequent pregnancies.

Sadly, from a cattle point of view, infective midges in the summer could mean deformed calves and caesarians for cattle calving from December 2012 through June 2013... 

[ellisr]

We have it but thank goodness we aren't getting the lambs that have to have limbs broken to get them out. Our lambs have no motor control apparently it is a deformity in the cerebellum. It is heart breaking to watch them die we fought with the first one for 5 days and he was happy then just keeled over and died, the second one lasted 4 hours and then just stopped breathing. Another thing we have noticed is the affected lambs are singles but smaller

[kanisha]

Hi Ellisr sorry to hear there is another person having to go through this where abouts in the UK are you? I'm  curious to know when your ewes went to the tup? sorry for the all the questions I am trying to convinvce myself I'm worrying for nothing! I'm not sure thats possible.

[ellisr]

We're in somerset and the tup goes to the ewes at the end of september and just stays in, the early lamb we had from the ewe that got in with the rams in september is fine but our march lambs are very hit and miss and we have 4 left to lamb.
We use spot on instead of pour on which was thought to prevent the midges biting but obviously that isn't necessarily true.
I think with all lambing this year it is buckle down and expect the worst

[feldar]

Hi Ellisr
We had one of a twin like that got it through to about 5 days old then it keeled over we were bottle feeding it because it was a bit slow in the brain dept but it did die. the other twin was born fine.
On the plus side after our awful Schmallenberg lambing ( in another thread) Yesterday we had 3 sets of twins all strong up and fine so it's very hit and miss. I'm hoping they will find a vaccine so we can do the lot next year and have done with it.
It's not so much the bad lambings thats awful it's the stress of not knowing whose infected and whose not.

[bazzais]

This thread and other threads on this virus are so heartbreaking to read.

I dont know how I would cope with yet another problem on top everything else.  My heart goes out to anyone effected, especially to anyone whos flock is their bread and butter - every loss is hitting them in the pocket and the sustainability of their farms as well as the loss of another animal.

I hope its not as bad as its been hyped up to be - so so hope thats he case.

Baz

[kanisha]

Hi Ellisr, thanks for the info again just curious to know if your ewes were covered by spot on at the time the tup went in. As it happens my ewes were treated with a pour on the day the ram went in as there were still masses of midges and it was so warm I was thinking about BTV clutching at straws.....

[ellisr]

They were done mid September to last until end of October (fly season)