[SuffolkK]

Suffolk x Charolais lamb now 7 weeks old. Last weekend, passed huge tapeworm right in front of me, just as I was about to worm and vitamin drench all the lambs and ewes. All now wormed and vit drenched and this particular lamb seems to be having difficulty standing. It is on it's knees, pushes itself up, arched back walks a few steps and then the back legs seem to give way. No heat in the legs, hoofs are all clear, looks really healthy, not scouring?!? I gave it a shot of antibiotic yesterday and am thinking maybe it needs another wormer. Am off to have a chat with the vet at lunchtime, but was wondering if anybody had any idea's what could be going on.

[Foobar]

What wormer did you give it?

[SuffolkK]

Cydectin Triclamox

[shep53]

You are describing a lamb in pain/discomfort , why ?? maybe the passing of the tapeworm ?? if it doesn't seem to recover fairly quickly then maybe take to a vet . As an aside CYDECTIN TRICLAMOX does not kill tapes and triclabendazole is not the best product at this time of year , try to keep away from combined products

[SallyintNorth]

Is it possibly swayback?  (And unrelated to tapeworm or drenching.)

As a general rule, we are told that the tapeworm which has the sheep as its terminal host (so that you see segments in the poo) doesn't do any harm to the sheep, although I guess it does compete for nutrients to an extent. 

It used to be the case that most general wormers did not therefore address this worm, as there was not believed to be any economic impact of the worm. 

However it is scary to see a pile of tapeworm segments in your sheep's poo!  And you feel you want to do something about it!  So now several wormers have been tested and are licensed as effective against tapeworm - but if you do the research you will see that only in extreme infestation is the tapeworm really causing the sheep any problem.

The tapeworm which affects sheep and which does have a marked economic impact is the tapeworm which has the sheep as the intermediate host and the canid as the terminal host.  You do not see segments in the sheep's poo with this one, you see only condemned meat at the abattoir.  (The dog excretes the segments, the sheep eat the eggs from blades of grass.)  There is nothing you can do to the sheep to prevent this.  Control is by preventing unwormed dogs from defaecating where your sheep graze.


:bookmark: sheep tapeworm