[Jacob-list] Down ewe (Donnangelo, Nick)

[Rebecca M. Trussell]

Digest Vol 73, Issue 32: Topic 3 (no subject) (Donnangelo, Nick):

(Original post is copied below.)

Nick,

I am sorry about the loss of your ewe. 

Some of the many possibilities:

--lack of access to fresh water

--heat stress
http://www.sheepandgoat.com/articles/heatstress.html
http://www.sheepmagazine.com/issues/27/27-4/Laurie_Ball-Gisch.html
http://kinne.net/heatstrs.htm (table, for goats but applies to all ruminants)

--early morning overgrazing of toxic plants in pasture (check pasture)
http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-0975/ANR-0975.pdf

--contamination in dry feed (inspect for molds or other)

--internal parasites (test other sheep in flock) 
http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/410/410-027/410-027.html

All of these issues are discussed here:
http://www.sheepandgoat.com/poison.html

--Acidosis from overfeeding or accidental access to quantities of concentrated feed
http://www.tvsp.org/acidosis.html

I hope you will be able to pinpoint the cause. 

Good luck with your Jacobs,

Rebecca 


Message-ID:
<20259D87F4D8DA47B9C207C1A1AC5CD40EA306006A at IMCMBX4.MITRE.ORG>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Fellow shepherds:

Went out this morning to take care of the horses, donkeys and sheep and saw our beautiful 18 month old ewe lying in the field by herself. On closer inspection I discovered that she had died. No sign of struggle or thrashing, no wounds, no nasal discharge, some loose stools directly under her tail. There was still some heat left, RM had set in, but her rumen appeared somewhat bloated, not sure if that is a significant finding probably hours after she died.

We have had an extremely healthy flock. Local vet could not handle a necropsy; needed to transport her to Warrenton (about an hour away); since work schedule would not permit today and I had no way to store her to transport tomorrow so had my helper bury her.

Weather has been terrible, but I sheared them late this year. Any theories, suggestions, ideas??
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/jacob-list/attachments/20100721/66a3de6f/attachment.htm>