[Backinwellies]

New to sheep and with an empty medicine cupboard ... where do you start?

What essentials are there in your cupboard? (or fridge)

[Blinkers]

PenStrep and Tetroxy LA,  syringes, needles and Teramycin Spray for starters 

[Hillview Farm]

Blue spray (from vet) i've got accesse to metacam (pain killer) betamox which is an antiobotic.

Needles and syringes. Fly prevention and treatment. Wormers. Hibi scrub

[twizzel]

Pen&Strep, purple/blue spray, hibiscrub, cotton wool and needles. Crovect for fly strike treatment and Combinex wormer.

[Foobar]

Stockholm Tar (spray if poss, or i put some in a squeezie bottle with a dropper nozzle) (good fly deterrent on base of horns, and general minor wound sealer)
Purple Foot Spray (as in the antiseptic one)
Sodium Bicarb (bloat)
Sudocream (orf, fly irritation)
Iodine Spray (for anything and everything, handy for disinfecting foot clippers etc too)
Bactocyde (orf)
Needles, 21,20,19,18g, half, 5/8th, 1" in length  also 16g
Footbath solution (goldenhoof)
Hoof clippers
Dagging shears
Fly prevention stuff (crovect, clik etc)
Wormers
Flukicides
Dosing gun
Syringes
Marker sticks/spray
Halters
Disinfectant (defra approved)


No vet meds really, I would get them as and when actually needed.  Handy ones though are a general long acting antibiotic, orbenin eye cream, antibiotic foot spray for foot rot (blue).

[Fleecewife]

Plus boxes of latex gloves.......
 
 
......and a medicine record book

[in the hills]

What's the difference between the purple spray (we have a can given to us by the person we bought our Soay from, says for feet and only needed to use it once so far) and blue spay? Can you use purple spray for minor cuts elsewhere than feet?


I did ask our vets if they would let me have some antibiotics to keep in the cupboard prior to lambing but they weren't keen and said that the ewe (if one needed any) would be okay waiting until the surgery was open. Is that the case generally .... it does seem that most on here have some at hand?

[Foobar]

I don't have any antibiotics to hand   And I wouldn't want to be pumping them into my sheep anyway unless they absolutely needed them.


The colour of the sprays isn't the defining element of them, you would have to read the label .  There are antibacterial/antiseptic type foot sprays that you can get at the agri merchant / shops etc.  And there are antibiotic sprays that you can *only* get from the vet.  You can probably get both in both colours, depending on the make.

[Fleecewife]

We do keep both IV Terramycin and Ultrapen in store.  We have found that if a sheep, especially a lamb, develops a problem, often dealing with it immediately will save its life, whereas waiting til the vet is open can lead to losing the animal.   Problems have a horrible tendency to occur just when the surgery has closed for a Bank Holiday w/e         I am very sparing in my use of antibiotics, but if an animal needs them then they get them here.  Why leave the animal suffering for longer than absolutely necessary? One occasion when speed is of the essence is with pneumonia - injecting with antibiotics as soon as you have diagnosed the problem will make all the difference between life and death, as well as preventing long term problems if the animal has survived but ill for a longer time than necessary.

[steve_pr]

On top of all the other suggestions some Calcijet might be useful, although we have never used ours. We found the vets were OK about antibiotics after they had visited us the first time - now we have betamox on hand, and it is a real life saver.  One old hand local put it this way "You don't know what it is, the sheep doesn't know what it is (other than it looks like a good way of killing itself!), I don't know what it is, so why pay the vet to tell you they don't know what it is and charge you to give it an antibiotic when you can do it yourself (and the sooner the better). The bl*&dy thing will either die or get better, and it doesn't matter who presses the plunger on the syringe!"


Now I'm well appreciative of the skills of our vets, but he has a point!  When things get really bad then the vet will prescribe us stronger antibiotics to be dosed over several days.  We had one older ewe who was limping, turned her over to check her feet and found one quarter of her udder the size of a small football, crusted and going black and hard as anything - the dreaded mastitis.  Not knowing what to do we tried to relieve the pressure by milking her and started extruding what can only be described as green.yellow cottage cheese! As my OH di her thing on the teat and I held the ewe up it started spraying further and further as things eased - several feet in the end!!! We called the vet and she got us a full course (and confirmed we had pretty much done the right thing). I am pleased to say (and honestly amazed) to say that ewe is now fully recovered although she has probably lost that quarter, but we were retiring her to lawn mowing duties this season anyway.  So vets have their uses, but never be without the betamox (or penstrep - any single dose antibiotic that your vet will trust you with). Injecting sooner rather than later definitely helps. We were also advised to give a single dose of antibiotics to any ewe when you had intervened during lambing, which seems reasonable.


But I second the notion of lots of latex/nitrile inspection gloves. Keeping sheep seems to involve a lot of poo of one type or another!

[FiB]

What's the difference between the purple spray (we have a can given to us by the person we bought our Soay from, says for feet and only needed to use it once so far) and blue spay? Can you use purple spray for minor cuts elsewhere than feet?


I did ask our vets if they would let me have some antibiotics to keep in the cupboard prior to lambing but they weren't keen and said that the ewe (if one needed any) would be okay waiting until the surgery was open. Is that the case generally .... it does seem that most on here have some at hand?

its funny - alamycin (antibiotic injection which lasts 3 days and so is called 'long acting' - thats not long in my book!!!) is the ONLY thing I keep in!  We lost 2 to suspected pneumonia (both Post Mortemed, both only diagnosed by probability of teh fact that I used covexin, rather than Heptovac p) and then had cause to used the remaining alamycin when one went down and stayed down - we wheelbarrowed her into shed gave her a shot straight away and she was back in the field the next day - I was convinced she was a gonner and would have been if we'd waited for a vet call out.  I do get in other stuff according to vet recomendations etc - but I recon if a sheep is down (outside of lambing of course, which is a whole differnt medicine chest and thread!!) about the only thing I have at my quick disposal is AB.  But I too am anti routine use and would be very 'last resort' in use.  Went to the vet today with a long list of questions , one of which was Orf (which is a virus and therefore untreatable), and was advised to spray liberally with teramycin spray.  No wonder there is a problem with resistance.  I have some, but will need to see evidence of secondary (bacterial ) infection and some problem before I use it.  It is a minefield.  Thank goodness for TAS!

[Marches Farmer]

If you're new to the job then your vet may well want to assess what type of livestock keeper you turn out to be before trusting you with POMs.  We've found that, if you observe your sheep very carefulyl on a daily basis, and therefore catch problems very early on, most things respond to a jab of Alamycin LA. 

[17AndCounting]

This is a very interesting and informative thread.

We have some of the basics (from the agri store) but are missing some of the other items - can anyone recommend a good comprehensive online store? Does anyone use one they always buy from without a problem? Have already used one that looked good to get bottle teats but they were so long sending them I ended up having to buy some more elsewhere.

[Foobar]

These are the ones I use the most, and provide the best value for money:Mole Valley Farmers (http://www.molevalleyfarmers.com)
Fane Valley Stores (http://www.fanevalleystores.com/)   (comes from Ireland, but very prompt and lovely customer service)
Hyperdrug (http://www.hyperdrug.co.uk)