Ring womb

[Bosephus]

Anyone out there had multiple ewes in one year with ring womb if so any ideas nutrition or other I might need to change or add to solve this issue

[EmsoffLambs]

My guess, as long as there is no disease/abortion issue, would be a calcium deficiency. Even if you are feeding "enough" calcium, if your ration is high in phosphorus this can cause a calcium deficiency. The total ration needs to be at least 2:1 calcium:phosphorus. I believe I've also read that selenium deficiency can cause this problem as well.

[Bosephus]

I am using 30 pounds of feed grade limestone per ton and pipestone vitamin e selenium at 5 pounds per ton my main ingredient is whole barley that is what we grow here so that you is why I use it and 5 pounds ammonia something for urinary calculus

[Bigiron59]

 As Crystal comments , I believe your issue is nutritional, unless you have a genetic component.( ewes affected all out of one ram) . To make any other fees recommendation, you would need to send in a sample of your ewe grain ration and sample of the roughage being fed. For nutritional analysis. Then you would need to look at total nutritional breakdown of total ration.
Only way to make any kind of guess. What else are you feeding,how much ect.
Until you can provide that, it's hard to make any recommendations.
That being said, I would mix a bag of feed lime ,with a bag of iodized salt and put out free choice.

[Bosephus]

Thanks for your help I will try and put everything together and get to a nutritionist

[Honey Tree]

Just curious as to if were you able to deliver all of the lambs alive? 

[EmsoffLambs]

How many have you had? Just a couple other considerations...

If the lambs are not properly aligned so that the feet enter the birth canal and put pressure on the cervix, such as in the case of a breech birth, the cervix can fail to dilate. Normally the reflexes of a live lamb will cause it to align properly. However, if the lamb is dead, it will often not line up properly and the ewe will fail to dilate fully. In the case of ringwomb, it can sometimes be difficult to tell if the lamb was dead before labor began, which cause the ringwomb, or if the ringwomb occured first, prolonging delivery leading to a dead lamb. I personally have had the first scenario occur but not the second. If there was any red or browning discharge before or during labor, or if the lambs were not full term, I would suspect some kind of infectious abortion agent causing your problems. If the lambs were full term and healthy, then I would look to nutrition.

[Bosephus]

I am leaning on nutrition both cases the lambs were alive we still lost them the amniotic fluid was clear or as clear as usual we had to c section one ewe and I was a bit long in deciding we had a problem so they were super weak and we lost them the second ewe we were able to message the cervix for about an hour until it was dilated enough to get them threw they were feet and nose first on both second ewe both lambs lungs were full of fluid and I tried everything till I lost pulse to clear them never got them to breath they tried at first but were full I got close to a half pint out of both of them even tried blowing air in just couldn't get them to go

[Bigiron59]

What and how much are you feeding?
You said using Pipevet product and 30 lbs per ton of lime in barley .
How much per ewe Lee day.
How big are the ewes?
Body condition score?
If these are 200 lb ewes getting 1/4 pound a day of grain mix in late gestation and living on sagebrush and snowbanks, you will have a problem.
To little info to offer any real solution

[Bosephus]

They are getting 1.5 pounds of grain and as mutch good quality grass hay as they want we have no grass this time of year I have free choice selenium vitamin e iodine salt out for them and fresh waters changed 2 times a day

[Bosephus]

Body condition my guess would be 5 they are not fat but not skinny either we try to keep them as close to right in the middle as possible

[Don Drewry]

A few years ago I tried to find research on ring womb.  At that time, it seemed most of the research suggested it was more a genetic based issue that nutrition.  When I had Polypay's we fed a corn/oat + soymeal + limestone and other minerals as a grain.  Soymeal was varied with quality of forage.  Some years we had a lot ring womb.  Mostly in first time lambers, but not always.  We haven't had a case in years.  I'm not sure what has caused the change.  We don't have the Poly's any more and I'm not sure I've ever seen it in our wether style sheep.  We give the wether style sheep more protein than the Polys.  Rarely did I have a positive outcome when I had this.

[EmsoffLambs]

Interesting, Don. I have mostly dealt with it with aborting ewes with dead lambs that don't align properly. I don't recall ever having it occur with live lambs. In all cases I have been able to successfully dilate the ewes manually, though it is fatiguing. It is frustrating, no doubt. It may be worth contacting Pipestone vet clinic and see what they have to say. Keep us posted.

[Bosephus]

From you guys big iron ,Don,Chrystal perspective what protein vs other minerals is your target numbers for ewes last trimester vs the rest of the year I have raised sheep for 30 years in very small numbers more commercial style just started breeding more club style 5 years ago and things seam to be a little different I'm not quite up with it I think you all seam to have a great grasp of what needs to be

[Bosephus]

I just got off the phone with pipestone the gentleman I spoke with asked me what my situation was and I told him ring womb he then asked if I vaccinate with claim dis and vibrio which I had never heard of so I replied no he said that was my problem I made sure to tell him they were all full gestation situations and he insisted it was still the problem but not to vaccinate at this time pull all my remaining ewes in and give them 5cc per hundred pounds body weight sub q la200