2017 Lambing

2/25/2017

Lambing season was interesting this year. We had a ewe late gestation with a swollen utter. It did not appear as  mastitis but we treated as such with antibiotics. Upon further discussion with some trusted sheep advisers, we considered it to be edema of the utter. Essentially, the cells in the utter retain water. The utter became over sized and the area around the teats became very puffy and swollen but the teat itself was not. A thumb test, pressing the thumb into the swollen area, would create an indentation that remained visible for a few seconds.  The other symptom was swelling of the vulva. They claim this is caused by poor nutrition but she was the only one that showed symptoms and we had not changed our feeding system  as compared to previous lambing seasons.

She lambed. First one came out breached. It was half out when I checked on the sheep in the morning. I pulled the baby and thought it was dead. I rubbed its side a bit with hay and then saw faint chest movements. Cleared out her air ways by holding her upside down and and then as she began to breath, put a piece of straw in her nose to get her to snort. She then began breathing on her own.

Next issue is she could not stand. Her legs would not support her weight. after an hour I decided to tube her to get some colostrum in her then put her in the jug under some heat. She struggled to get up. I helped her up but no luck in her standing. Her twin came along and did just fine. I had to leave for a while and she was up and moving when I came back. She was not nursing at first and took a bottle but soon decided the mom was a much better source of milk. Which is good. A shot of pen g was also administered to ward off pneumonia. Her breathing as a little raspy for a while.

Fortunately, the ewe had milk and is doing well with both lambs.