[Womble]

This is a new one on me, and I can't find anything in any of the books either.

I'm just back from a week away, and noticed that our shearling tup was looking really out of sorts. He was standing hunched and hollow looking. He also had his tongue hanging out, and was drooling.

When I caught him to check him over, I noticed that his mouth and throat were totally stuffed full of impacted and dried out cud:


This was a lumpy mass, so it seems he wasn't able to either burp it up or swallow it down.

The thing is, I can't find this one in any of my sheep books, and google only seems to want to tell me about horses (where the cause is apparently not drinking enough, or having sore teeth which prevents them from chewing properly before swallowing).

He's a compliant wee soul,  so I managed to get my hand right inside his mouth and cleaned everything out as best I could, hopefully including his throat.

He then drank over a litre of water, and I gave him some twin lamb drench, some vegetable oil and a little bit of lamb creep porridge. He's now making all the right gurgly noises, but isn't yet interested in grass.

So, any ideas as to what's caused this, what the treatment is, and what I should look out for over the next 48 hours or so?

Cheers! 

[Fleecewife]

My first thought was molars.  In older sheep sometimes an abscess in a molar, or one which is coming out can cause difficulties with chewing.  We all know about the sequence of eruption of the front teeth, but I for one know very little about the molars.  I wonder if an erupting new molar has caused him to be too uncomfortable to chew properly.  Nor do I know if a sheep swallows after a certain length of time spent chewing the cud, or if they wait until it's ready to go down. If he just kept on swallowing when he'd masticated (word of the day) for a certain length of time, that would explain the blocked mouth and throat.  Not being able to swallow could be the cause of thirst, as opposed to thirst being the cause of the cud being too thick to swallow.
He may well need to be tempted to get eating again by offering him tasty treats such as willow leaves and young cow parsley, or something crunchy such as digestive biscuits, which provide a bit of sugar, some fibre and a good amount of crunch.  You could add some sugar, honey or glucose to his drinking water, or syringe it over the back of his tongue, from the side of his mouth.
Otherwise, I've not seen this either, but maybe the grass is too long.

[SallyintNorth]

On the moorland farm we had a Blue-faced Leicester tup we called Spitter.  So yes, I’ve seen this.  Yes it could be teeth or it could be an abscess or something that’s stopping him either chewing effectively, or swallowing effectively.

Check for rumen sounds and the ‘rumen wave’; if everything’s right that end, suspect blockage or teeth.  If the rumen seems taut and/or isn’t gurgling and moving, then the old yoghurt, bicarb and ginger drench should sort that out. 

I have seen it since Spitter, just a few times with a few different sheep, and it has mostly seemed to come right on its own.  So could be greed, over-long grass, or a short-lived problem in the mouth or gullet.

As you’ve been away, is it possible he’s had things to eat he shouldn’t?  And / or been short of water?

[Black Sheep]

Would it be possible to exclude over-long grass as a cause by dissecting the bits of cud and looking at the length. A bit grim but that's nothing new for smallholding :-)

You can probably feel along the gumlines to see if there are any areas of heat, swelling or tenderness that would indicate a molar problem.

I wonder if another cause might be some kind of obstruction or swelling in his throat. Maybe something more twiggy or thorny snagged on the way down or even something weird like a wasp or bee sting.

[Womble]

Update:

Vet has been. Managed to get a tube down into his rumen, so at least it looks as though there's no further blockage. Nothing obvious to see or feel around his mouth either.

He's also had:

Buscopane (to help get gut going again)Metacam (anti-inflammatory and pain relief)Alamycin LA, Vitamin B1 (not totally sure why, but I wasn't about to question!)Cattle "off-feed" drink. Basically compost heap starter, from what I can gather!

So now we wait!

P.S. Black Sheep - no evidence of over-long grass in what I pulled out yesterday. It was a bit dry, but that could just have been because it was stuck for a few days. Likewise Sally, he's definitely only had grass over the past week, and shouldn't have run out of water, though I can't be totally sure.

[kanisha]

On the point of erupting molars ...a search a while ago for a problem with one of my sheep revealed that much like humans sheep have molars that errupt later on up to 18 months and turn ( in some way) before errupting . This suitably exolained the hard swelling on my sheeps jaw and it did subsequently reduce without further incidence.

[shep53]

Seen it a couple of times , one this year only did it once and then full recovery , not a clue ??   Cud spillers tend to be older , have 2 at the moment   3crop , 4 crop ewes and over a long period