[moony]

We have a 5/6 yr old hebridean ewe that up until yesterday was doing fine. For some reason now she can stand fine on her back legs but will not stand unless held up on her front legs. She will straighten them to the fetlock if lifted up at her front end but seems reluctant or almost incapable of straightening below the fetlock. She is scooting about a bit on her belly, rather than her knees which is what I would have expected her to be doing. She is bright enough, eating & drinking but is a bit on the thin side. She has been with a tup so might be in lamb due late April time. Anyone any ideas what it could be? Where she is, up on our allotment pasture, I can't get her in until later tonight at the earliest.

[Fleecewife]

For an in-lamb ewe it's always worth assuming first off that it's a metabolic problem.   I would give Calciject immediately, plus some glucose mix given orally (a large syringe works well for this, given slowly though)
Then, if she doesn't respond to that, start looking at other possibilities.
If you can catch her up to look at the legs, then you can administer the Calciject.  If it is metabolic then she could be dead by this evening, so the sooner the better.
Good luck with her.

[Hellybee]

Get in some netted collate multi lamb too. Good luck x

[Pedwardine]

I had a ewe last year who went down for a couple of weeks. It was Ketosis/Twin Lamb Disease. Kept her in a pen with the contact of all the other sheep still around her in the lambing barn. No strength in her legs at all and for a worrying period she went blind.  We had to help her with standing to wee regularly and she let us know when she wanted water, as she was aware where in her pen it was located. She'd spin around on her tummy and baa at us to hold it up to her, bless her. We fed her hard feed directly under her nose and she let us know when she'd had enough. Hay was always in the same corner too. As long as all was where it should be she managed, with a little help from us when needed. We thought Calcium Deficiency initially and gave her two doses of Calciject over a few days with no real improvement. Thought two doses was the limit on that front and tried Liquid Life Aid. Vet advised Multilamb Rapid would benefit far more readily so we administered that every day and steroids every other in the last week as she was imminently due and the vet thought it would help her expel and ease the burden on her system. Dear Darcie still went over term, the little tike, and needed a great deal of assistance with lambing. Her ram lamb was a right big un! She really wanted to suckle the twins so we milked her and fed them the best stuff. It took her a while to get back on her feet but she did it and the lambs thrived in her motherly care.

[Hellybee]

Little story, baz was asked to check a poorly friends sheep on tack next door recently, cos he couldnt get ip that day, so up he went then came back down to tell me that one of ewes was down, so we rang our friend, and said we ll give her some twin lamb drench in the meantime, when he got the ewe she wa still lookng pretty flat, he rung us that evening saying what the bloody ell did you give that ewe, she s jumped out her paddock and we can't catch the bloody thing, great stuff Multilamb rapid, a must for the lambing box x

[darkbrowneggs]

I read somewhere ( maybe even on here) that as the ewe comes up to lambing a hormone enters the system to make the tendons stretch in order  to let the lamb(s) out, and with a heavy pregnancy the leg tendons sometimes cannot support the weight of the ewe.  It stuck in my mind as an interesting piece of information.

[moony]

Hopefully that bit of information regarding tendons is true. Still no change with her sadly. Not deteriorated in anyway. Still eating well and drinking a lot. Tried everything we can think of. Hoping she is going to lamb soon, although I would imagine there is a fair chance they may be dead, and then we can see if thats the issue. Almost as if they are pressing on a nerve somewhere. We have had some monster sized lambs this year so it is most likely something to do with that. If she still doesn't improve we may have to look at dispatching her unfortunately, which would be a real shame as apart from that she is in perfect health. Trouble is she has been down a week now and the longer she is down the less chance we feel that she will get back up, I actually thought she would be dead by now.

[shygirl]

did you ask a vet? doesn't sound too good so  for you.

[Sbom]

I would get a jab to induce lambing.

[SallyintNorth]

Did you give her calcium? 

[kanisha]

Have you considered after everything else a shot of painkiller to see if its possible to ease her back onto her feet, if shes eating and drinking it suggests she is feeling well in herself and if metabolic problems can be ruled out / treated then what is there to lose?

[Sbom]

How did she get on?

[moony]

She was doing well until yesterday, still down but eating and drinking. Had everything over the last week that we have lying around - plenty of calciject, twin lamb drenches, electrolytes, molasses, mineral drenches, antibiotics etc. but nothing made a difference. Yesterday wouldn't eat anything and was groaning. Knew she was going to give birth in next few hours so we continued drenching and injecting in the hope that she would have enough to get through giving birth with assistance but she didn't. Had 2 large lambs cut out of her, almost tied in a knot, both dead and while she was extremely smelly inside it didn't appear that they had been dead for an extended period of time.

[Marches Farmer]

Bad luck.  Has the ewe survived?  Sometimes they don't, if their lambs die they just turn their face to the wall anyway.  We've had this happen a couple of times and, on the other hand, had one that you could smell as you walked round the corner of the lambing shed, but she had live twins and decided to live (although with daily a/bs for a week).

[ZaktheLad]

Sorry to hear about this sad outcome - I hope the ewe survives