Last Wednesday I was looking at my tiny flock ( 3 coloured ryeland ewes and a bottle- reared welsh mountain wether), and noticed one of the ryelands had raised wool over her shoulders. When I checked her, an area of wool, about three inches wide running across her shoulders and towards each front leg, just peeled away in my hands!! some skin was attached to the wool in places but the skin on the ewe was clean and dry. There were two hairline cracks in the skin which I sprayed with antiseptic spray. They are in the field next to the house and I see them several times a day from varous windows in the house so, I knew she had been acting totally normally over the past weeks. I called the vet out and she spent ages inspecting the skin and the wool, There were no signs of lice or flees. No oozing, redness or scabs. She took several skin scrapings, which showed that it was not scab, thank goodness. The ewes temperature was a tiny bit low , breath sounds a tiny bit rough but no indication of infecton. She is up to date with Heptovac P plus. The vet suspects that it is a homonal/ endocrine problem, from something that has happened in the past few months. The ewe did have a day about two months ago when she was definately out of sorts. I thought at the time she had been struck, but could find no evidence of eggs or maggots on her , so just treated her anyway and gave her a dose of multimitamins. The vet has left me 3ml of zuprevo injectable, in case she goes downhill, but so far she is eating/ drinking normally and runs down the field to me with the others if I go into the field. Has anyone out their had any experience of something like this?
Topic: stress related wool loss? (Read 3645 times)
