[Beeducked]

Having a nasty time with one very unlucky little lamb.

She has had a stormy time and been inside following hypothermia and seemed to be making slow progress since she came in on Wednesday. Main problem has been keeping her temp up and I gave her some antibiotics incase sepsis was part of the problem (oxytetracycline im on weds).
Over the last 24 hours has gone off her feet and has started losing a bit of fleece from over some of her joints mainly in her front legs which seem infected although not swollen so fairly sure she has joint ill although never seen it before. She has had a further dose of antibiotics and still has her head up, suckles from the bottle but can't/won't stand.


My question is what is her prognosis in people's experience? If she survives this infection is she likely to have any decent quality of life or am i better getting her euthanised?

[shep53]

Take to vet for a diagnosis

[Beeducked]

Going tomorrow. Just wondering what other people's experiences are.

[shep53]

Joint ill tends to appear a few weeks after birth and often 1 swollen joint ,  your description sounds a lot more

[Beeducked]

Certainly is if that's what usually happens.   
The books say often multiple joints which is why I was thinking that. That's why real life experiences are useful to hear too, thank you.


Going to the vet tomorrow with her and the kid with entropion, was planning on taking the cat too but getting a bit much!

[Old Shep]

Glad you're going to the vet.  Sounds like joint ill to me and if so they more than likely make a full recovery, but maybe lost a bit of growth.  That bad weather last week has caused a flurry of joint ill - we have 7 currently and never had more than 1 year before now.  Let us know what the vet says.

[Hevxxx99]

I had a pet lamb with crook last year. She was reluctant to stand when she arrived and got gradually worse.  She drank well and was always bright.  The books say give them two lots of ABs after which there isn't much hope.  She got them and a lot of TLC and encouagement.  After the second round of antibiotics, there was no rapid improvement, but after a time she got more willing to stand and potter about and eventually got over it completely.

We still have her - she's a bit smaller than others her age, but I don't know if that was her condition or her genetics.  She's perfectly healthy and troublesome now.

Don't give up!

[shep53]

As usual varies from lamb to lamb  you can have a limp with minor swelling ,  a swollen joint (  ankle   knee shoulder    hip  ) some times more than one leg , through to pus filled joints that are permanently damaged

[Hellybee]

We had one joint I'll, I remember the lamb being prescribed synolux x

[Beeducked]

Vet thought it was but that she was too bad and had failed to respond to antibiotics so she was euthanised. More upset than I thought I would be but she had been doing so well initially but never seemed to be right. Such a let down after 6 days of ups and downs.

[pharnorth]

What a shame. Thank you for sharing it all helps the rest of us spot symptoms and understand.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

I am so sorry to hear that beeducked. You did your best and everything can only get better from now on this year has been really horrific for everyone, I hope we have a nice summer

[firther]

hi there, a couple of years ago we had a 20 lambs with it and 1 were quite bad. vet advised betamox la and on bad 1 to repeat after a couple of days. cured them up in no time i'm glad to say. Its expensive stuff but does the trick

[twizzel]

Had a pet lamb with bad joint ill this year, 10 days of synulox fixed it but 4 days later it came back again (obviously some infection resided even though she was sound). Another 2 weeks of synulox and touch wood she's been fine since and now out in the garden sound as a pound. Her joint looks ok too but hard to tell if it has left any permanent damage.

[Marches Farmer]

Lambs with joint ill, even if they appear to recover, never seem to turn out good doers.  If multiple joints are affected it must be extremely painful.