[Orinoco]

Hi, we are new to sheep, we have just 5 Ouessant,

One of the ewes was limping on Sunday so we cleaned her foot, and blue sprayed it, it has helped but we would like to try and diagnose the problem as part of our learning process.

The heel of the foot was were the heat came from, but we couldn't find anything else in her foot etc. We bathed it in cold water which may itself have helped, just in case it was the start of a problem walking in long wet grass we cut the whole paddock with the strimmer and ride on mower leaving a small area of longer grass (actually with all the raking and wheelbarrow work we were cream crackered so didn't finish), the sheep seem to love the extended space and she does seem to have stopped limping.

Any ideas?

Ta

K

[Herdygirl]

Hi
 
did you trim any overlong hoof?  sometimes it over grows and they can get infection under it.  tip her up and have a good look, scraping out any muck that might be there. sheep need a pedicure at least once a year.
 
if she is anything like our lovely girls, she will pass the limp along.... they seem to take it in turns!

[Alicenz]

Hi there, there are a few things that can cause limping. I regularly trim my sheeps hooves as they quickly get too long and full of muck on the soft ground if they are left untrimmed.  If their nails grow too long and go under the foot this leaves them open to feet problems and must be awful to walk on. So keeping the nail cut evenly is a good practice.

Then i have a problem with scald which apparently is a bacteria that gets into the pasture, and tends to infect sheep feet more after wet weather.  I have three sheep out of my flock that i regularly treat for this.  Scald causes what looks like a paper cut between the two parts of the hoof, it looks very sore and can become inflamed and infected. Often it heals up on its own with drier ground but i always treat it, as it is very sore. A good spray with tetravet spray (which is blue and i assume when you say blue spray that is what you mean)generally fixes it, occassionally you have to do it over a few days, and if the ground is wet for a long period I sometimes put the animal indoors for it to heal.

The paddock can be cleared of the bacteria by removing infected animals from it i think it is for two weeks. Scald will move around the flock so one day everyone will be fine and then the next some not and so on.   Left without treatment can make a sheep very lame, it will sit around and totter along when it does walk. Awful to see.    Interestingly the sheep i have most problems with their feet with have pink hooves.

Then there is foot rot which i know very little about, I expect it is when the interior of the hoof rots.This is a serious infection but pretty rare I think.

[kanisha]

Ouessants especially black ones are very hardy sheep they are known to be pretty resistant to foot problems in general. This breed was the only local breed to survive on thin cliff top  and marginal shoreline grazing but with strong atlantic winds and torrential downpour. Brittany isn't green for nothing! They can cope with plenty.  Do not over trim their feet this is probably the biggest cause of foot problems.

Do not be tempted to continually trim but let the feet establish their own balance and then only trim if necessary i trim mine twice a year and check around four times a year or when one is being handled.

This isn't a soft footed downland breed but a hardy primitive fleet of foot

[thenovice]

It may not have been the foot, perhaps a bruise or sprain? I would be puzzled too, as has been said before they should be really hardy. If a sheep keeps getting foot trouble, cull it. Its a lot less hassle and cheaper in the long run. I would rest the pasture for longer if you can

[Orinoco]

Hi

The foot problems seemed to clear up after a clean and spray, did limp intermittently for a couple of days but seems fine now, looking back I would say it was a sprain or other minor muscle injury.

She is back to her pushy noisey self.

K