Sheep Chat Thread

[bloonskiller911]

Quote:
I'M SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR EWE!! I just started with sheep this year. we have 10 cross breed ewes. I have not had any problems with my ewes, knock on wood, except for one getting a small abscess that I was able to take care of. good luck with your ewe and keep us posted. so glad to see this thread!!

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: Gut pain? My first few bets would be either pain in the guts, or legs/hooves/spine, or toxicity. Lucy, my lamb, has bashed her spine and this makes her stiff on the hind legs with alternate looseness at the ankles. I felt the trembling in her back and gave her black pepper, curry and cayenne toast and she's fine now. (Specific black pepper since it's an anti-spasmodic/epileptic/seizure medicine, the curry for the turmeric which assists healing of inflammation and trapped nerves, and the cayenne for the inflammation and to boost circulation).

When Lucy was quite poisoned from eating who-knows-which-toxic-ornamental-plant-it-was-this-time, she was quiet, would walk a little then stop, still drank, didn't 'graze' like usual. I gave her activated charcoal until she recovered. This has happened multiple times now, and she's only about 6 months old. Personally if I were you I would give your ewe a good drench of charcoal powder in water asap. Even if her hooves need doing. It won't hurt. My best bet is that she's toxified, and even if that's possibly not the issue but you don't know for sure what it, I would treat with activated charcoal immediately because other problems can be treated slowly but if it is toxicity it will likely kill sooner rather than later. If it's not toxicity, well, a good detox of a gentle nature like charcoal is always beneficial. Damaras are toxic weed eaters but here we only have the most toxic ornamental sorts that nothing gets away with consuming. Most recently she ate Spider Lily. Before that she ate Crucifix Orchid. Frequently it's Golden Hedges. Also frequently she eats a number of fancy ground cover plants which do not exist in paddocks or her natural environment. She is cunning and quick to spot opportunity. I strongly advise all keepers of children or animals to keep activated carbon/charcoal tablets/capsules/powder on hand at all times.

I also knew one ewe dying from slow bloating (not mine; I talked to the owner multiple times but he liked the idea that she was 'just old' --- one of the most overused excuses for ill health out there --- so wouldn't treat her); this ewe got to the point where she was only able to walk a few steps before she had to stop. I moved away after that so I don't know what happened, but it took months and she was definitely suffering. People think bloating's only acute but I've seen both sorts. Charcoal also helps with gas and killing bacteria that lead to overproduction of it.

Best wishes. I hope she's ok.

 

[Penny Hen]

Question................I posted this on Backyard Hers as well but wanted to post here as well.

For the last few days, I have noticed that one of my Kathadin Ewe's is acting "spaced out". She is wandering around as if she is lost. I will sometimes find her in the back of the pen staring at the post. She is not keeping up with the rest of the group when they go out to graze. She is left behind and I have to walk her out of the pen. The others will come back to get her to take her out and bring her to where they are and she will sometimes follow them. She is still eating and drinking but does not graze like the others. She will walk a little and then she will stop. Yesterday she sat down on the ground after walking a few steps. I allowed her to rest a bit before trying to get her up. She got up and walked a bit then sat back down. I finally got her back in the pen but it took about 45 minutes. She is NOT herself. It almost seems like she is going blind but she is not really running into anything. She is cautious in how and where she steps. I looked up her "symptoms" online and the closest thing that I could find was that she has worms. I have the FAMACHA chart and compared eye color but it doesn't appear that she has worms based on the color. I went ahead and started her on Levasole Sheep Wormer Boluses last night, just in case. I will try to separate her to collect poop to look at it under the microscope. I really need to get fresh poop, so I'm not sure if this will even be do-able.

Has anyone ever experienced this before? What do you all think this should be?

Do you have nightshade growing in your fields? Or jimson weed? Do you have cherry trees? I think she has some kind of poisoning. You need to take her off the field and feed her hay and dose her with activated charcoal in kayro syrup. If it is cherry poisoning then the kayro syrup will counteract the cyanide. If it is jimson or nightshade the charcoal will help absorb the poisons. Jimson will cause permanent damage and animals poisoned by this have flashbacks like acid trips. Nightshade if it doesn't kill the animal can make them unthrifty. Good luck.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Question................I posted this on Backyard Hers as well but wanted to post here as well.


For the last few days, I have noticed that one of my Kathadin Ewe's is acting "spaced out". She is wandering around as if she is lost. I will sometimes find her in the back of the pen staring at the post. She is not keeping up with the rest of the group when they go out to graze. She is left behind and I have to walk her out of the pen. The others will come back to get her to take her out and bring her to where they are and she will sometimes follow them. She is still eating and drinking but does not graze like the others. She will walk a little and then she will stop. Yesterday she sat down on the ground after walking a few steps. I allowed her to rest a bit before trying to get her up. She got up and walked a bit then sat back down. I finally got her back in the pen but it took about 45 minutes. She is NOT herself. It almost seems like she is going blind but she is not really running into anything. She is cautious in how and where she steps. I looked up her "symptoms" online and the closest thing that I could find was that she has worms. I have the FAMACHA chart and compared eye color but it doesn't appear that she has worms based on the color. I went ahead and started her on Levasole Sheep Wormer Boluses last night, just in case. I will try to separate her to collect poop to look at it under the microscope. I really need to get fresh poop, so I'm not sure if this will even be do-able.


Has anyone ever experienced this before? What do you all think this should be?

I'M SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR EWE!! I just started with sheep this year. we have 10 cross breed ewes. I have not had any problems with my ewes, knock on wood, except for one getting a small abscess that I was able to take care of. good luck with your ewe and keep us posted. so glad to see this thread!!

Thank you. Learn all you can about sheep. Not sure if you are a member of BackyardHers (sister to BYC), but you may want to sign up and read, read, read, and learn, learn learn.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Has anyone ever experienced this before? What do you all think this should be?

Gut pain? My first few bets would be either pain in the guts, or legs/hooves/spine, or toxicity. Lucy, my lamb, has bashed her spine and this makes her stiff on the hind legs with alternate looseness at the ankles. I felt the trembling in her back and gave her black pepper, curry and cayenne toast and she's fine now. (Specific black pepper since it's an anti-spasmodic/epileptic/seizure medicine, the curry for the turmeric which assists healing of inflammation and trapped nerves, and the cayenne for the inflammation and to boost circulation). When Lucy was quite poisoned from eating who-knows-which-toxic-ornamental-plant-it-was-this-time, she was quiet, would walk a little then stop, still drank, didn't 'graze' like usual. I gave her activated charcoal until she recovered. This has happened multiple times now, and she's only about 6 months old. Personally if I were you I would give your ewe a good drench of charcoal powder in water asap. Even if her hooves need doing. It won't hurt. My best bet is that she's toxified, and even if that's possibly not the issue but you don't know for sure what it, I would treat with activated charcoal immediately because other problems can be treated slowly but if it is toxicity it will likely kill sooner rather than later. If it's not toxicity, well, a good detox of a gentle nature like charcoal is always beneficial. Damaras are toxic weed eaters but here we only have the most toxic ornamental sorts that nothing gets away with consuming. Most recently she ate Spider Lily. Before that she ate Crucifix Orchid. Frequently it's Golden Hedges. Also frequently she eats a number of fancy ground cover plants which do not exist in paddocks or her natural environment. She is cunning and quick to spot opportunity. I strongly advise all keepers of children or animals to keep activated carbon/charcoal tablets/capsules/powder on hand at all times. I also knew one ewe dying from slow bloating (not mine; I talked to the owner multiple times but he liked the idea that she was 'just old' --- one of the most overused excuses for ill health out there --- so wouldn't treat her); this ewe got to the point where she was only able to walk a few steps before she had to stop. I moved away after that so I don't know what happened, but it took months and she was definitely suffering. People think bloating's only acute but I've seen both sorts. Charcoal also helps with gas and killing bacteria that lead to overproduction of it. Best wishes. I hope she's ok.

VERY good information!!!! EVERYTHING that you had discussed sounds like VERY strong possibilities. I would go as far to say you are right in your diagnosis. I would definitely agree with either and combo of both problems. After reading your posts, I IMMEDIATELY set out to find activated charcoal. I went to 5 stores before I finally found the activated charcoal at our local Walgreens. I purchased a bottle of 100 capsules for $19.00. WalMart didn't have it but said they could order it for me and it would be here today but I couldn't wait on that. Time was of the essence. So, I get back home and the first thing that I did before even going inside the house was go to the sheep pen and look for her. I saw all of the sheep BUT her. I panicked and slowly went in the pen to look for her. She was nowhere to be found. My first thought was that she was dead. I stopped and prepared myself to find her dead. I walked around the shed and she was laying down next to the shed. Flies were all around her mouth and eyes. It looked like the Grim Reaper calling her to the grave. I just knew that she was a goner but I knew that I couldn't let that stop me. I knew that I had to do whatever it took to get her up and going. I ran inside to get the charcoal mixture together but then I had no idea what the water ratio was. It took me a while to research online on how much water to mix the charcoal with. I could not find anything and I started getting nervous because my next thought was that I was about to kill her because I wouldn't be able to cut the charcoal with the appropriate dosage and she would overdose. So, I mixed it with about 1/4 cup of water and (2) 250 mg tabs of activated charcoal (opened the tabs and put the charcoal powder in a cup). I didn't have a dosing syringe but I did have a VERY large 2 oz syringe that worked just fine. So, I drew up the 2 oz charcoal/water mixture and went out. By the time I went back out to the sheep pen, I noticed that she was up and standing around . That was good sign. So as I got myself together, and turned back around, she was sitting down again. I went over to her and drenched her with no problems. She didn't fight me at all. So, then it was a waiting game. I then proceeded to complete my other chores and bottle fed the 2 lamb. I kept an eye on her and there was no change. I took a rectal temp and it was 102.6, which was normal. While getting the temp, I noticed that she had a few fecal pellets stuck to her rear and I picked a few of them off, so that I could take to the vet. It was only 3 small pellets and I wasn't sure if that would be enough. I will continue to try to get a fecal sample to take to the vet. So, I went back out last night and there was no change. The mosquitoes were eating her up and she was not brushing them off. So, I went inside and mixed up a natural remedy solution for mosquitoes. I put it in a spray bottle and went back out and sprayed her. I didn't want the mosquitoes to eat her alive last night because I knew that she needed her rest and didn't need to suffer from bites. After spraying her, there were no more mosquitoes. So, I left her to get some rest. Woke up this morning to go bottle feed the lamb and dose her again. As I was walking to the sheep pen, I was praying that she was still alive but was prepared for the worst. When I got to the sheep pen, I was shocked to see that she was up and was drinking water. I exhaled. A sigh of relief came all over me. I could breath again. She stayed at the water trough and drank for several minutes. As I bottle fed the babies, I waited for her to finish drinking. After she drank the water, she went over to the salt block and licked on it. After that she walked back over to the water trough and drank more water. This is the 1st time since this weekend that I have seen her THAT active. I was so happy. So, I knew that the activated charcoal HAD to be working. I then grabbed the syringe and walked over to her. I placed myself in a position to dose her again. As I was about to dose her, she started fighting me and didn't want the dose. I said, "HALLELUJAH"!!!! Fighting me was a GREAT SIGN that she was feeling better. She had the strength to try to get away from me. Before she didn't have any strength at all. Before I think that I could have performed an eye ball removal surgery on her with no anesthesia and she would have let me do it because she was so weak. But not anymore. So, I was able to dose her again with 2 oz. So, now it's a waiting game. I"m not sure if 2 oz is enough. What is the appropriate charcoal/water dosage? Should it be more. And how often should I give this and for how many days? Any help would be appreciated. So, I am feeling soooooooooo much better today and I think that she is as well and I am very hopeful that she may pull through. Oh, I forgot to add that I did trim her hooves last night as she was laying down. Did the best that I could with the position that she was laying down in. Will try to finish trimming. And yes, her hooves did need trimming, so she could have been in pain as well. Thank you for the detailed information that you have offered to me and contributed to this thread. I would have never guessed of the possibilities. Your expertise is helping my girl out. I feel confident that she will be ok. You know sometimes, we have situations or problems with our animals and sometimes we don't know what to do or where to go to get help. We also won't post our problems because we may think that it's minor and our animals will be ok or we think that others will laugh at our problem. A good example is the example that you gave about the older man who had the ewe who was dying from bloat. And for everyone on this thread............... Because of whatever reasons, we sometimes may not seek out the solution to a problem. I know my family and friends sometimes joke with me and laugh and think I'm crazy for observing and monitoring my animal's behaviors for anything out of the ordinary but I do. And this is one reason why I look at every single animal that I have and I watch for any behavior that I am not use to seeing. If I have an animal that is sitting in the same spot for more than a certain period of time and is not moving, the that calls for alarm for me and I need to find out what's going on with that animal. If I would have shrugged this "wandering sheep behavior" off as my sheep just "wanting to be alone", I know that she would have died. So, I say this to say that pay close attention to your animals and observe any unusual behaviors. Our animals can't tell us what's wrong with them, so it's up to us to notice and to try to figure it out and help them. So, if you all have any problems or issues with your sheep or any other animal, as "trivial" as you think it may be, PLEASE post the problem. You may never know, someone else may have or have had that same problem with their animal and can help and save your animal. There will NEVER be a dumb or silly question when it comes to the health and welfare of our animals. No one will ridicule you or think you are crazy for being concerned with what other "non-animal owners" think is crazy or being paranoid about our animal's behaviors. It's our job as responsible owners to seek out help when we need it. So, I will keep everyone updated. I hope that my question/problem and chooks4life's advice will help the next person who may have a "wandering" sheep who exhibits this same problem. Thanks to everyone who commented and offered suggestions and questions. Much appreciated. Keep your fingers crossed and send my girl some good vibes that she pulls through this.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Question................I posted this on Backyard Hers as well but wanted to post here as well.


For the last few days, I have noticed that one of my Kathadin Ewe's is acting "spaced out". She is wandering around as if she is lost. I will sometimes find her in the back of the pen staring at the post. She is not keeping up with the rest of the group when they go out to graze. She is left behind and I have to walk her out of the pen. The others will come back to get her to take her out and bring her to where they are and she will sometimes follow them. She is still eating and drinking but does not graze like the others. She will walk a little and then she will stop. Yesterday she sat down on the ground after walking a few steps. I allowed her to rest a bit before trying to get her up. She got up and walked a bit then sat back down. I finally got her back in the pen but it took about 45 minutes. She is NOT herself. It almost seems like she is going blind but she is not really running into anything. She is cautious in how and where she steps. I looked up her "symptoms" online and the closest thing that I could find was that she has worms. I have the FAMACHA chart and compared eye color but it doesn't appear that she has worms based on the color. I went ahead and started her on Levasole Sheep Wormer Boluses last night, just in case. I will try to separate her to collect poop to look at it under the microscope. I really need to get fresh poop, so I'm not sure if this will even be do-able.


Has anyone ever experienced this before? What do you all think this should be?

Do you have nightshade growing in your fields? Or jimson weed? Do you have cherry trees? I think she has some kind of poisoning. You need to take her off the field and feed her hay and dose her with activated charcoal in kayro syrup. If it is cherry poisoning then the kayro syrup will counteract the cyanide. If it is jimson or nightshade the charcoal will help absorb the poisons. Jimson will cause permanent damage and animals poisoned by this have flashbacks like acid trips. Nightshade if it doesn't kill the animal can make them unthrifty. Good luck.

To be honest with you, I'm not an expert on plants at all. I don't know the difference from one plant to the next, so I'm not sure what is growing where. But you better believe that I am about to learn after this incident. Thank you for the suggestion about the charcoal/kayro syrup mixture. I dosed her with charcoal yesterday evening. She is doing better. I will print out your notes and place this in my medical book about the different plants so that I can study and find pics of what they look like. I will also get some kayro syrup and keep on hand. Thank you!

 

[kuntrygirl]

chooks4life & Penny Hen, I hope that you all don't mind but I copied and pasted both of your responses on BackyardHerds. There was someone else over there who commented on my post because she was experiencing the same problem with one of her sheep. I thought that this would be helpful to her.

Thanks.

 

[kuntrygirl]

I have been researching this morning on a exact amount of charcoal to give and amount of water to give. I was not able to find anything however, I was able to find dosage instructions for humans. So, I called my regular vet to see what he suggests. Well, when I called and told the receptionist what I wanted, she told me to hold on. A few minutes later, the other vet (youngster that just graduated from Vet School) got on the phone and asked me what did I need. I explained that I needed to know the dosage amount of activated charcoal and water to give to a sheep that has been possibly poisoned by eating poisonous plants or something else poisonous. I explained that I had a sheep that wasn't feeling well and that she was "down" and could be experiencing symptoms from ingesting poisonous plants. Well to my surprise (and I almost fell out of my chair when she said this), she said that if the sheep was down then it was "too late" to do anything for it. "Too Late" meaning that it was going to die and there was no use trying to give it charcoal at this point. I was like, "Oh Really"? She said that you have to give the charcoal when you see the sheep eating the poisonous plant. I was like, "Oh Really"? (in my sarcastic voice). She was confident in her replies that I didn't waste my breath telling her that the "down sheep" was now a "up sheep" and was up within 12 hours after the initial dose of activated charcoal and water mixture and walking around, drinking water and licking on her salt block. I didn't even burst the young whipper snapper's bubble and Vet Med School Text Book Training to tell her any better. My main goal was to extract the information that I needed from her and that was dosage amount. And besides, the older vet who I have been bringing my animals to for 10 years is the one that I deal with anyway. He is more realistic and understands farm animals obviously better than her and always listens to my crazy yet accurate medical diagnosis and will sell me what I tell him I need for my farm animals and never questions my diagnosis (not sure if that's good or bad but have I never been wrong with diagnosis). It wasn't worth the time and effort and argument to tell this young girl anything. So I told her a guesstimate of how much the ewe weighed and how many MG the capsules were (260 mg per tab). She calculated the weight and mg and told me that I need to give the ewe 4 of the 260 mg which is 1040 mg. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure if I should trust her calculations. I may have to call a different vet's office for a second opinion. But anyway, that's what she said and she said that I should mix that in 8 ounces of water.

If anyone has any other suggestions about dosage, please let me know.

Thanks

ETA: I found this.

http://www.buyactivatedcharcoal.com/animal_poisoning

Activated charcoal is a powerful antidote and detoxicant for a broad range of poisoning in animals. The ASPCA National Animal Poison Control Center recommends activated charcoal as the treatment of choice for many poisons.

Here are the recommendations on how to manage a poison emergency posted by the Animal Poison Control Center

The recommended dose of activated charcoal for all species of animals is 1-3 gm of charcoal per 1 kg body weight.

Repeated doses of activated charcoal every four to eight hours at half the original dose may be indicated when there is a possibility of reabsorption of poisons filtered out by the liver.
Activated charcoal can be given orally with a large syringe or with a stomach tube. Activated charcoal should not be given to animals that have ingested caustic materials. It should be noted, that those substances that are only slightly adsorbed by charcoal in humans, are likewise poorly adsorbed in your pets.

This is the same info that another vet's office told me when I called for a 2nd opinion. They said it should be mixed with 3-5 cc's of water per 1 - 3 gm of charcoal.

**A website that sells charocal lists this as a dosage.

http://www.buyactivatedcharcoal.com/product/animals/vetdtox

Dosage for poisoning: 0.75 g per kg body-weight.
Approx. 1 Tablespoon per 30lbs body-weight

 

[Penny Hen]

By the way about cherry poisoning. Fresh leaves are ok to eat. Dried leaves are ok to eat. Wilted leaves are poisonous and have cyanide in them. Now the only sheep I have ever lost to cherry leaves was a lamb who pounced on a cluster of leaves that blew down out of the tree during a drought. I saw it fall from the tree and I saw her eat it and couldn't get to the pen in time to stop her. Normally that would not have been a problem because it was fresh but because of the extreme drought the cyanide was already formed in the leaves. I tried charcoal but it was not successful. If I had had the $75 dollars that it would have cost to buy a cyanide kit from an emergency room I could have got a vet to prescribe it but I was broke. It took me a week of research on the internet to find that the quick remedy is karo syrup. It will even reach the cyanide that is already in the blood system. The Charcoal can only go after what is in the stomach and gut. Still that is 15 years and only one loss. I did not want to do like some people and go and cut down every cherry on my property. I just make sure that during dry period that they are not kept near the cherry trees. Plum trees and several others of the same genus can do the same thing as cherry.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Thanks for the info Penny Hen. Sorry to hear about your sheep. I wasn't aware about the emergency kit that you talked about. Wow. So much to know and learn.