[Coximus]

I will try and get a pic tomorrow;

I have a lamb with a strange greyish / scaly looking rash thats appeared over the last day or so, and the lamb appears lethargic at first glance, however behaves normally and is impossible to catch (even more so in the dark being black) so I will have to bring the flock in tomorrow to get it, anyone have any idea what it may be?
It may be grey due to skin colour as the sheep is 3/4 hebridean.

[Coximus]

pic from this eve[

[larrylamb]

Hi I think it could be orf do not touch it get orf cream you get what looks like lollie pop sticks with the cream to put the cream on it will clear up in about a week Do Not touch you can get orf not good.

[Marches Farmer]

If it's orf and he's still suckling you also need to watch the ewe's udder as he can pass the infection on to her.  Watch he doesn't rub it so the wound attracts flies.

[Coximus]

Confirmed as orf - isolated lamb and mother, who as of yet has no sign.

Put all 40 from that field through and found 6 with suspect marks around nose, all tiny, from just some crustiness to 2-3mm sized soreness - tbh 2 look more like scratching from their habit of eating hawthorne. Vet coming out tomorrow to treat. Anoying as vet recons everyone gets it "sooner or later if you buy and sell sheep or move them around" I suppose grazing on larger farms nearby where over 2000 animals a year can pass through makes it inevitable.

Reminded to get them sprayed for strike again as apparently this makes them smell like a 5 course banquet to blowfly and in this weather not a chance I want to take. Noticed this lamb getting pestered alot by flies today, landing etc but no eggs etc so the clik is working,

[SallyintNorth]

Orf is a virus that is in the environment on some farms.  It enters through broken skin.  So lambs nibbling on thorn bushes creates its opportunity.  Lambs eating thistles results in orf lesions on lips and noses on other farms.

It's a virus so there's no real cure (or if your vet has one and it works, please share the info!!)  Keeping them from getting secondary infection is important and about the only thing you can do, really - we use antiseptic spray and/or dunk their faces in a solution of Daz.  (Don't ask me why, but Daz does seem to be every bit as good as purple spray for preventing secondary infection in cases of orf.  It was a vet told us about it.)

Yes it's important to try to prevent lambs passing the infection onto their mothers.  Mostly the mothers will have good immunity, plus shouldn't have broken skin around the udder, but if they are under the weather for other reasons, and/or short of milk, then the lambs' pestering can result in abrasions to the teats, so the virus can enter... and mastitis usually follows.  So care for the mothers well

If you find it's an annual problem on your farm you can vaccinate the lambs using Scabivax.  We don't vaccinate homebred ewes as they have immunity.

Be aware also that orf is a zoonosis and can infect you.  If you have broken skin it can get in, and cause lesions ranging from itchy annoying pustular things that eventually go away to arm-filling, joint-infecting poisons that require hospitalisation.  So if you haven't had it before, wear gloves

[Coximus]

ta sally - The vet was of the opinion that the biggest risk now is strike, and that the land they are on is now infected - thus its "a fact of life now", unless i take the field out and rent it off for arable for 2-3 years.

Apparently in an orf outbreak, your preventatives are not really effective, as their is often enough exposed and raw fleshy areas to attract the flies and they will just keep coming, that and it can weep further exacerbating the situation.

Then theirs the whole range of septic and bacterial infections due to the silly things scratching ad fence posts.

My neighbours words " Well, come what may your gonna use alot of crovect" Turns out he's had it for a few years and each year it affects 10-15% less than the year before in homebred stock, but always gets the brought in stock - recons they get it from hay feeders as the transmission vector. His experience is that about half of orf'd sheep get struck, even with an extra preventative spray as the wounds can weep reducing its effectiveness and providing a perfect feeding area.

gloves always with me, apart from todays muck up - wearing shorts!

[Kimbo]

Be careful Coximus that you don't catch Orf yourself. It will be a long time before I forget the photos posted early this year by one of our esteemed members ( I will spare him the publicity!) who caught it.

[SallyintNorth]

I am totally bemused as to why your neighbour isn't using Scabivax on his lambs and any bought-in sheep.  Particularly as he's clearly getting problems with strike on top of orf.  (We've not had this complication, thank goodness.)

Make no mistake, even without strike, orf costs you money.  Lambs are sore and don't eat as well as they should, you may need to keep them on longer to wait for the lesions to heal up too as you can't put very orfy lambs in a ring, and every now and again orfy lambs will give a ewe mastitis.

Scabivax is, in our experience, extremely effective when used correctly.  (I wanted to write 100% effective but didn't want to tempt fate!) 

The only thing to be aware of is that using Scabivax puts orf virus in the atmosphere, so if you have a batch through the pens to Scabivax them, then you need to Scabivax the batch that comes through the pens after them too, or they'll pick it up from the pens.  You can also carry it on your clothing - ask me how I know  , says she whose lovely clean healthy pet lambs got orf after the helper fed them immediately after working in the pens where they were Scabovaxxing...

[Coximus]

I assume he had the same advice I had - which is through field management try and run the disease off the farm - and avoid scabivaxing where possible as like you say, it brings it on farm and once you have it, and vaccinate, you will never get rid of it.

His plan has been to lock a new 10-20 acres of land up each year for silage and hay, and keep it stock free for 3-4 years, then release it back to Clean only stock, and over 7-10 years the whole farm will be cleaned - he only buys in texel rams, and the odd store lamb if he has spare feed, and his homebred stock are getting it less and less.

Been in a valley bottom the air is often humid round here so flies tend to get an upperhand is the animal is already ill / wounded.
I will look into scabivax again this weekend, that said currently isolating all stock with it, and have put the hay feeder I suspect spreads it on the bonfire (steel so itl survive) and will sterilze it in my fav way

Sadly I dont have 200 acres to rotate through!

[Porterlauren]

Salt buckets / licks  Dries out the sores. Also purple spray does a decent enough job and also acts to cover it a bit from the flies. I had it last year, there are far worse things to have. Just a bugger on suckling lambs due to it getting onto ewes teat.

[Coximus]

That and the joy of at 11am noticing a lamb looking distressed, and yep bloody flies, and its No 55 which was bloody sprayed last week - yawn.

Sheep - why cant they be like grass in a gravel drive and just not die.