Author Topic: pregnant ewe-not right (Read 5010 times)

bbell · « **on:** February 06, 2015, 06:47:50 pm »

Looking for some opinions here, I'm not sure what to think on this girl!

She is due in three weeks. Today she is not eating, grinding teeth a bit, and not chewing cud
She still wants to be with the flock but is laying down alot and its obvious she has some tummy pain (stretching a lot)
She seems fine and active when I get her up
Does not look bloated and ive heard a few burps.
She is urinating normal, but her Stool is a little soft
Only change is some corn has been added to their ration, but it has been over 12 hours since her last grain feeding and she just started showing signs this morning.

Any ideas??

Sbom · « **Reply #1 on:** February 06, 2015, 07:00:50 pm »

Could be twin lamb, I'd give her calcium straight away and see if this helps, it'll do her no harm.

mkmallory · « **Reply #2 on:** February 07, 2015, 02:41:51 am »

Ditto the above reply, we are novice shepards (so take this for what it's worth), but had a similar situation about a week ago. We treated our ewe for pregnancy toxemia (used corn syrup and electrolytes upon advice of sheeps prior owner) and hypocalcemia ( used calcium gluconate given SQ). Only regret is not catching it sooner (and over feeding during the first few months of pregnancy as we apparently did).

Welshcob · « **Reply #3 on:** February 07, 2015, 01:18:13 pm »

Hiya, I think she needs some drugs asap. Could be pregnancy toxaemia (especially if she has twins/triplets or more) since she is not too far from lambing, but could also be she's gorged on the newly introduced corn and now she has acidosis. The rumen pH drops and makes them really sick. Either way she's really not well, she really needs stuff now.
Your vet should be coming to examine her or at least be able to dispense painkillers, antacids and other meds to drench her with + Calcium for under the skin or even in the vein if she's too bad. Don't wait, it is quite serious.

Crbecky10 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 07, 2015, 07:50:41 pm »

She doesn't sound like she needs calcium if she's 'laying down a lot'. If she had hypocalcaemia I'd expect her to go down and have a not want to be getting back up again. If she has tummy pain she might have eaten too much and sickened herself. If she was straining as if lambing, she might be aborting?

bbell · « **Reply #5 on:** February 07, 2015, 09:28:18 pm »

Update!!!

Thank you everyone for the replies! It has been a rough day/night and we almost lost her a few times. She is not out of the woods yet...but she took her first few bites of alphalpha this morning on her own

we are over the moon excited that'd just MAYBE Ruth and her lambs might pull through. I even seen lamb movement this a.m.

I think whatever it was we caught it early. I guess that is one of the benefits of knowing your ewes personalities so well! You can tell when someone is acting odd.

We started with treating for grain overload since her rumen was not working. We drenched with yogurt,oil and baking powder.After the third drench she let out a giant foamy burp into my husbands face! Her rumen was back to work!

Our next obstacle was that toxemia and hypocalcemia set in very fast with her being off of food for so long, the vet was doubtful that we could do much at that point. But we wanted to try! We drenched with propylene glycol, oral calcium/magnesium and electrolytes a few times and dewormed her just to cover our bases. 4 hours after her last drench she is eating on her own and is definitely more bright eyed!. Wow that is scary stuff and sheep sure escalate quickly.
We sure learnt a lot!