[egglady]

we moved our shetland flock yesterday - fairly straightforward and they are settled in their new field now.  when i went to feed them tonight one of the ewes has a huge lump on the side of her neck - about the size of a ping pong ball.  She seems well enough and was eating along with the rest of them.  I'm wondering if anyone has any idea what it might be.  We have a beehive fairly close so is it likely to be a reaction to a beesting?

[pikilily]

that sounds like a logical thought
Emma

[Anke]

My bee hives are in a corner of the sheep field, and the lambs run right in front of them (fenced off of course). Not seen any stings or similar on the ewes or lambs, also have horses coming past on other side of the fence, again, no one has ever mentioned any probems.

You don't have barbed wire or something the ewes could have been caught on?

However if she is fine, I would just keep an eye on it, if its a bee sting it will start to itch in a day or son, so she might start to scratch and rub the area.

PS. Also lots of queen wasps around at the moment, and I have been stung by a bumble bee earlier this month (from somewhere in her leg), and it was worse than a bee sting (as I get those all the time!)

[Moleskins]

I keep bees and so get stung. They rarely come up as a lump as such, a general slight swelling maybe. Thats on humans.
I had a lamb which I was convinced had been stung, but by a bumble bee, please don't jump to conclusions and blame honeybees, they don't sting for the fun of it. If you see a queen wasp and kill it you're doing away with a whole nest at one go, no queen, no nest.

[Anke]

Bumble bees are more likely to be on the grass than are honey bees!

[Freddiesfarm]

You  can also see lumps like that from both the blue tongue vaccine and heptavac on occassions - they normally go down after a while.

[Fleecewife]

Caseous lymphadenitis causes big lumps on the side of the neck.  The vet can culture any pus from inside the lump.  If it's that treatment is expensive and the prognosis isn't good. 

[egglady]

moleskins, the nearby bees are ours so I'm not complaining about the bees - i just wondered.
Freddiesfarm - no recent vacinnations, so unlikely to be that.
Anke - no barbed wire - we also have horses and wouldnt have it near them - seen too many terrible injuries over the years.....
This morning it looks like the top has come off it - so guessing it is irritating her....will keep an eye - reluctant to get the vet at this stage
Fleecewife - that is scary!  would theselumps come up in the space of a few hours do you know?

[Fleecewife]

It is scary yes, but hopefully there is another explanation.  We have only had one sheep with it and I don't know how quickly it came up.  We ended up having him destroyed after the vets did their best.
Now that the top has come off, what is it like inside?  Caseous lymphadenitis is characterised by cheesy (hence the caseous bit) pus - thick, not runny. Try squeezing - aagh ! If you can get something out you can take that along to the vet for culture, which is far cheaper than calling them out.  Hope it's not that.

[Helen87]

Just a thought, but I have seen a lump appear and be very irritating, the head was too hard to squeeze, so I lanced it..amongst some goo I found a large fat maggot inside. The area was clean so not fly strike...but it wasn't ping pong ball sized. Once the maggot was removed and the area doused with antiseptic there were no further problems.

[egglady]

thanks for all the advice and help.  hubby thinks it looks a bit smaller tonight so willl check it again in the morning and decide our course of action from there - and let oyu all know of course!

[Calvadnack]

We've just had our Shetlands sheared today and one of them had a lump that the shearer caught before he noticed.  Inside it was full of pus, but no worm (that is really yeuk!) and we've just cleaned out the hole and sprayed with anticeptic.  It's only without their wooly jumpers that these things get seen!  At least none of them had beasties or maggots.

[egglady]

ee-yueck!