Four month old lamb that can't stand

[Betania]

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?

[EmsoffLambs]

I would probably give her a dose of antibiotics, B complex and BoSe.

[PCrome]

She has no reserves to cope with being sick and being cold at the same time, because she's got something wrong with her that's kept her from thriving for the last four months. She will more than likely be a problem that solves itself. If she's still alive this morning, I would strongly consider humane euthanasia, as in my experience the ones that fail to thrive never turn around.

[EmsoffLambs]

Phil may very well be right, but I can understand not wanting to give up on them. Any update from the vet?

[Betania]

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!

[PCrome]

There is no test for SBI- that's Something Bad Inside, and that's what she's got. Don't be mad at your vet. The lamb was really sick for a long time before he saw it. He saw a crashed, desperately ill animal, hydrated it, gave it a long acting antibiotic, a parasite treatment, and a dose of the most commonly deficient mineral. There's not much else to do. He doesn't have a Bat-computer, where he can put in a drop of blood and have all the answers in two seconds.This lamb has no reserves. Hauling her was just enough stress to put her in the negative, and now she has nothing left to metabolize to produce energy for normal life. The best thing for you to do is have a necropsy done when she dies and be there to watch it. It's a tremendous learning opportunity.

These deals suck. We've all had them, and the best we can do is learn what we can from them. Hang in there.

[EmsoffLambs]

Phil is correct. A four month old lamb that weighs 50 lbs, hasn't eaten in days, can't stand and can't maintain its body temperature is a dying lamb. There was little really that the vet could do to save it. Everything he did was a last ditch effort which not surprisingly didn't work. The lamb is dying. Make it comfortable. That's all you can do. Unfortunately this is the hard part about raising livestock. We ALL deal with it. It's hard not to take it personally. My husband has to remind me all the time that if you have livestock you are going to have dead stock. It just happens unfortunately. It's not your fault. It's not the vet's fault. Hang in their and prepare yourself for the worst. I doubt it will survive until morning.

[EmsoffLambs]

Oh, and lactated ringers are to treat/prevent dehydration. Basically electrolytes and water that go right into the blood. As far as giving you half a bag, maybe it was the half that was left over from treating the lamb? Maybe it was all he had? Surprisingly for what it is, lactated ringer is not cheap, so thank your vet for not making you buy two full bags. I have purchased partial bottles of medications from our vet. Usually it's all they have in stock or I won't use a full bottle before it expires.