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« 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!