Messages

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Weak yearling ewe

« on: May 10, 2017, 12:45:21 pm »

Thank you!

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Weak yearling ewe

« on: April 11, 2017, 03:19:59 pm »

How much calcium gluconate did you use? We had a ewe and a lamb act just like that, and our vets had no clue either. We took them to two different vets, and neither one was able to help. I'd like to know in case our other sheep have the same problems later on. Thanks!

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Four month old lamb that can't stand

« on: January 09, 2017, 07:00:21 pm »

Ok.

Well, I can tell you what the vet did, but he didn't say much. I'm kind of disgusted with the whole thing, actually. I was unable to go because my college classes were starting today, and I couldn't miss them. But from what my sister and mom told me, he gave us no idea of what might be wrong at all. He gave her Excede, BoSe, Cydectin, and a liter plus some of lactated ringer, subq. He gave her a full liter bag, plus some left over from something else. (Is that even right?? I know in the vet clinic I've shadowed in, they would never, ever do that... If a bag of medication wasn't finished, it was either sent home with the animal's owner, if needed, or thrown away.) I don't know what the lactated ringer is, but I'm looking it up. Mom thought the vet said it was because the lamb was dehydrated, but my sister said he said the lactated ringer was to prevent dehydration. I know she'd been drinking a TON of water Friday and Saturday, but I don't know how much she drank yesterday. Anyhow, he also said to give her nutridrench and pepto-bismol at home.

So basically, I get the idea the vet just hit her with everything he could think of, but he didn't do any kind of tests. I had kind of expected him to at least test her selenium. So we don't really know anything more than we knew yesterday, and since they got the lamb home from the vet, she has been WAY worse. She looks basically dead, her temperature is down to 99.7, and she can't even hold her head up. Before, she just knelt/sat, or whatever you call it, but could hold her head up and everything. Now, she lays however you put her, and doesn't even try to move. If you put her on her knees, though, her head just drops to the side. If she lays on her side, she just stretches it out in front of her. So I guess that's another question- if she's still around tomorrow, is it better to have her on her side, or her knees, or does it matter? She doesn't seem to care.

Thanks for your input!

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Four month old lamb that can't stand

« on: January 08, 2017, 01:04:00 pm »

I have a four month old lamb who has sore mouth pretty bad. She has been acting a little droopy since Thursday, and her temperature was down to 100. We figured she just wasn't eating enough and was having trouble keeping warm in the cold. So we stuck her in a cage in the heated mudroom, and gave her warm water and nutridrench. She's been eating a little grain and a little hay, and we give her milk replacer powder on her grain. Her temperature came back up, but she's still been droopy. Today, though, she can't even stand up. I don't know what's wrong- I've had plenty of sheep with soremouth, and none of them ever had anything like this.

She's never grown great, and I would guess that she weighs around 45-50 lbs. She was eating about 1 lb of grain a day, split in two feedings, before she got sick, which was as much as she would eat. She also got a good sized handful of hay each day. Since she got sick, she has only eaten a little bit of grain, so we gave her all the hay she wants. She's taken since Friday to finsh the last handful, though, and has hardly eaten grain either.

We're planning to take her to the vet tomorrow, but is there anything I should/can do now?

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Help! Sick ewe

« on: September 08, 2016, 04:46:22 pm »

I have a four year old ewe, and she has been kind of droopy lately; she hasn't really been very interested in her ewe grain, but she's always been ready to clean up feed pans after the sheep who get show lamb feed, until today. Today, I brought her grain, and, after some consideration, she half stood up, and dragged herself over with her front legs, leaving her back legs lying sideways on the ground. I helped her up, and she walked over to the pan, but she was kind o wobbly, and unstable. She wasn't limping exactly, but she has this funny little shuffling walk, and she walks around as little as possible. Her ankles are all swollen up, but they've done that before; in fact, she has exactly done this many times before, except that she never dragged herself along on the ground like that, and I don't remember her becoming this disinterested in food. She didn't even eat any of her grain- she just sniffed at it and went back and laid down again. I also noticed that, although she has pelleted manure, it is all mucousy, and has strings of blood in it. I've never seen her do that before. I don't know how long this has been going on- I'm a full-time college student, and my sister has been doing chores. She told me the ewe was acting droopy, and uninterested in grain, and her ankles were swollen, but she's done all of that so many times before, it didn't really worry me, until I went out to see her today. She seems worse than I've ever seen her before, and the dragging herself along got me pretty worried. I was planning on taking her to fair next week, but obviously, if she isn't better, that won't work. She's been my showmanship ewe all of her life, so I'd really like it if she could go, but more than that, I want her to get better. Does anyone have any suggestions? What is wrong with her, and what can I do about it?

She could be pregnant as the ram has gotten into her pen several times this summer. Sometimes, it looks like her udder is growing, but sometimes I'm not sure if it just hasn't shrunk since her last babies in January. So I'm assuming she's pregnant, but I don't have a due date- if she got pregnant the first time the ram got in her pen, she'd be due in two weeks. Otherwise, I really don't know. Her grain consumption has been very varied- she had been up to about 4 1/2 pounds daily, last I heard, but today she ate virtually nothing, and my sister said she hasn't been eating much the last few days either. She's in a small pasture with two market lambs, who get fed separately. She weighs around 175lbs, last we weighed her. She has all her wool on, but we're rough shearing her tonight/tomorrow, and were planning on slick shearing her Saturday. If she's not getting better though, we won't.  She's had footrot up into her ankles before, so we're treating her with the medicine the vet gave us last time. However, there's no footrot in the hoofs that I can see, and I poked her feet gently all over and there's no tender spots on or between her hooves.

If anybody has any suggestions, I'd really like them.

Thanks!

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Lambs Eating Shavings

« on: July 24, 2016, 03:16:32 pm »

Lee, we use straw at our fair, and nobody has ever said anything. At the Ohio State Fair, there are more than one group of pens bedded with straw each year, including a couple of the people who bring the largest groups of sheep. Nobody ever cares, and straw is SO much easier to contain.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Water Toxicity?

« on: February 25, 2016, 01:03:06 pm »

My sister is doing most of the mixing, but she said she's sure she's mixing it correctly. We are using Land O'Lakes milk replacer and it says to mix one cup of milk replacer with 1 1/2 pints of water.

I have heard about the nipple buckets, but we only have the one bottle baby so far. We only have three ewes left to lamb this year, and  we don't know if we'll keep the sheep another year. So I'm kind of hesitant to buy more sheep stuff unless I need to.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Water Toxicity?

« on: February 24, 2016, 07:24:15 am »

The lamb is eight days old, and we are feeding her 10oz of milk every three hours during the day, and every 4 1/2 hours at night. It's WAY more than the bag says, but she eats it and begs for more. She will usually drink several ounces of wager each feeding as well. She has access to water from a pan, but she doesn't seem to drink it. About two hours from her last feeding, she'll come looking for a bottle, and drink another three to four ounces of water.

We have given her some grain, and she kind of nibbles at it, but doesn't really eat much. I still haven't figured out a way to keep the dog from eating it, so she doesn't have it 24/7, but she has free access at night, and a couple times a day. While we do chores, I put her in the creep feeder with the other lambs, hoping that if she sees them eating, she'll realize that she's actually supposed to eat the grain.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Water Toxicity?

« on: February 23, 2016, 04:19:52 am »

Can sheep get water toxicity?? We've been giving our bottle lamb warm water between feedings, because she's always hungry, but mom said human babies can get water toxicity if they drink too much water. Will this be a problem with a bottle lamb?

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Bottle Baby

« on: February 22, 2016, 07:13:06 am »

Thanks!!

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Bottle Baby

« on: February 20, 2016, 06:39:58 am »

OK, thank you!! I will switch her to completely milk replacer.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Bottle Baby

« on: February 18, 2016, 06:30:47 pm »

OK, so I'm bottle feeding a three-day old lamb. I gave her colustrum replacer the first two days, and am in the process of switching her to milk replacer. Today she's had diarrhea all day, but in the morning it was kind if reddish, and now it's bright yellow, like baby poop. Is this good, bad or OK? What should her poop look like?

Also, is there anything in particular I should know about bottlefeeding? Any specific problems to look for?

Right now, we are feeding her every two to three hours. We are mixing the milk replacer with the colustrum, to switch her over. I didn't figure it would be smart to switch all of a sudden.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Just venting about ear tags

« on: February 15, 2016, 12:22:56 pm »

I'm not from Texas, but we have to get our market lambs tagged in June to show at our county fair in September. We've rarely had a problem with the lambs pulling the tags out, but have had many irritated or infected tags. We eventually just called the sheep committee chairman, and got permission to take the tags out of all the lambs that had problems. We just told them the tag numbers, and the committee re-tagged them when we got to fair. I don't know if that would work at a Texas major, but if you are having a lot of problems, you might call and see.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Asthma???

« on: November 26, 2015, 07:39:25 am »

Alright. I already did the Ivomec, but I will give them some LA200 too. I was just making sure it was nothing I needed to worry about. Thanks everyone!!

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Asthma???

« on: November 24, 2015, 09:09:44 am »

Ok. These ewes certainly don't have problems being thin. They need less grain than any of the other ewes to stay very well conditioned. They have grown perfectly fine. I even had people at fair who were very surprised to hear that the yearling had lambed already. They thought she was way too big. The judge told me she was a little bit over conditioned, and I have't fed her any grain since I weaned her lamb in May. Except for a few random handfuls she managed to steal or beg for. :-)
Emsoff, I had thought about barn cough, but it is more wheezing than coughing. They cough a little bit, but not much.