[Jacob-list] pepto-bismol for sheep

[Linda]

I took a fecal sample from my ewe, Olivia, to the vet today.  Olivia has been dealing with persistent diarrhea that nothing seems to help. I do my own fecal egg counts and couldn't find any evidence of coccidia or other parasites, but thought the vet might find something I'd missed. He didn't, so we are treating for bacterial scours. I about fell over when he handed me four pills, each about the size of a puppy and told me to stick them down her throat! I've always shied away from learning to use a balling gun as it looks like you could do some serious damage with one. The option was wrestling the pills down her throat with my hand or just facing the balling gun. After I got over the fear of putting the gun too deep and Dave saying "are you sure you aren't going to choke her?" (the vet said it's hard to get it too deep, so just relax), it was surprisingly easy. 

During the conversation, I told the vet that I'd tried Pepto-bismol with no effect for a few days and just was able to find kaolin-pectin this morning, which is my first choice for diarrhea, but hard to find these days. Kaopectate is no longer kaolin-pectin - it's the same as Pepto-dismal now.  Dr. Lent cautioned strongly against using bismuth preparations for sheep. He said that sheep nutrition relies so much on absorption and bismuth works by coating the digestive system linings, thus greatly limiting absorption. You might cure the diarrhea, but could possibly induce a nutritional problem. Perhaps limiting absorption is a good thing if you are using it as a treatment for poisoning? I don't know, as I didn't think to ask him. He recommends a kaolin-pectin treatment over a bismuth treatment for diarrhea.

If anyone has suggestions for a cause for her scours, I'd like to hear. 
She is not ill. She eats, drinks, and chews her cud. She is not losing weight. She has been locked in for the last week, eating only hay. She has Martha for company and Martha is pelleting normally. Our sheep get their water from one of our creeks, so protozoa of some type are a possibility, although she is the only one out of 22 sheep with scours, and the vet didn't see any evidence.  The creek is fed by the spring where we get our water, although we get the water directly where the spring comes out of the ground and not after running above ground for 1000 feet or so. She has not been exposed to any weeds that might cause scours.  I'm hoping the pills will take care of it. 

Linda


 
www.patchworkfibers.com
Registered Jacob Sheep, Angora Rabbits, Handspun Yarn
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/jacob-list/attachments/20080822/a0d9bad2/attachment.html>