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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 / 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 / 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 / Asthma???

« on: November 19, 2015, 11:39:42 am »

Ok, so I have two ewes who sound like they have asthma. They aren't too bad, but after they run back to the barn for supper, they are kind of wheezy, and every now and then they cough a little bit. Most of the rest of the time they are fine, just with the occasional wheeze or cough. Do sheep get asthma? Or could this be pneumonia or something like that? I guess I just want to know if this is something I should be worried about, or if I should just let it go.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Feeding a wether

« on: October 15, 2015, 11:35:08 am »

So my little brother got his market lamb given back to him at our Jr. Fair sale. We decided to keep him as company for our ram. What does he have to eat and for how long? I've never raised a sheep that wasn't expected to do anything. Will he be fine on grass, or should I feed him with the ewe lambs, or what? He is a Hampshire lamb, he was born in February, and he weighs 100lb.
(I'm sorry for all the questions.  Fair always gives me new things to think about.)

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Lancing

« on: October 04, 2015, 12:29:20 pm »

I have a ewe with a lump in her udder. I did not notice it till we had her sheared for fair. The person who sheared her suggested we get the fair vet to look at her, which we did. She (the vet) said it is definitely not mastitis, because the lump is walled off from the udder. She said she would have it lanced and see what comes out. She said if it's pus, we want to drain it completely and give her antibiotics, if it's blood then to ice it and give her antinflammatory's, and if it's anything else we will probably need to get rid of her. She did not want to do it at fair, so she suggested we do it later.
My question is, is this something I can do myself, or should I take her to the vet? If I can do it myself, how do I and what do I need to be cautious of? Thanks!

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / How do I figure percent protein in feed?

« on: September 22, 2015, 05:14:18 pm »

I had somebody give me their feed mix ratios, and it costs a little less than our lamb grower if we do it with corn, and just a little more if we do it with oats. I am trying to compare it to the lamb grower. She said her lambs grow really fast on it, but I just want a little more information. How do I figure out the percent protein of a feed if I have the percent protein of the ingredients? Here is the mix. I added the protein % for the corn and oats, from off another site, but I can't find anything that tells me how to figure the complete percent protein.
400 lb cracked corn- 10%
100 lb oats- 13% (Or you can replace this with corn)
50 lb lamb 34% supplement
40 lb Soybean meal - 46%
20 lb Liquid Molasses

If somebody can explain how to figure the overall percent protein, I'd really appreciate it!
Thanks!

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Looking to buy a Dorset ram

« on: July 21, 2015, 10:42:54 am »

I am looking to buy a Dorset ram, and I can't spend much more than $500 dollars. It would need to be either within reasonable driving distance (within a couple hours of Zanesville or Cambridge, OH) or else be able to get a ride.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Lambs with diarrhea

« on: June 19, 2015, 06:33:28 pm »

I have three lambs that have had diarrhea since shortly after I got them. I have tried taking them off grain, worming them, and treating them for coccidiosous. They were wormed right before I got them with fenbendazole, and I have wormed them once since with fenbendazole. I just bought privermectin becuase I have wormed with fendbendazole for awhile now. I got the lambs April 2nd. I am going to worm them tomorrow with the privermectin, they are off grain, and I am treating them gain for coccidiosous. I don't know what else to do. Does anybody else know what might be causing this?? For those of you that don't know, my lambs are all on pasture after their month seclusion. These were on pasture since we got them, because I had enough pastures to separate them. My fair is the second week of September and the biggest lamb weighs 90 lb, and the smaller ones weigh around 75 lb. I don't think I need to be worried about weight gain, because the smallest weighed 45 when we got him, and our minimum weight is 90 or 95 lbs. But I really want to get the diarrhea cleared up anyways. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be really glad!! Thanks!!