Abortions in sheep

[BELOWAVERAGE]

So, our results are finally back. Everything negative except for one liver culture that was positive for Listeria.

Vet concludes that Listeria is our cause but can't understand why the ewes look so well. Although a bit of trawling round the internet throws up this....

Listeria abortion

Articles on sheep health and cattle health

www.flockandherd.net.au

.............which says aborting ewes show no other symptoms.

They've been eating totally mould and soil free haylage.....
View attachment 937996
.............the only source of soil contact we can think of is with very wet, heavy land on a nature reserve they were grazing just before they came home. They get what water they want mainly from scrapes, ponds and lakes that are frequented by a lot of wildfowl..........

Could duck and goose sh!t carry Listeria??? Vet didn't know.

I'd have thought Salmonella would be the main danger there??

Looks like it's just another one of 'those things' you always seem to get with sheep

I think geese are a problem, son decided to fatten 50 for Christmas one year, they grazed with daughters ewes and a lot of those aborted/were empty.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

I've been told geese can be a problem as well.
We lost a young tup last year which I had PM'd. Was told it was listeria which had probably infected him through his gums as he was cutting new teeth which had caused an open sore.

 

[manhill]

He rang me when he pulled up, I opened all the gates on the yard, sheep in a 6x6 hurdle pen in the centre passage way... lambs layed out on the floor in front of the pen, I went and bedded the sheep up and left them too it... he scrubbed up and had 2 students with him all scrubbed up and wore masks, put all there gloves and masks ect in a corn bag I left for them and then rang me once he was back in his car ready to leave

Good, very professional.

 

[yellowbelly]

I think geese are a problem, son decided to fatten 50 for Christmas one year, they grazed with daughters ewes and a lot of those aborted/were empty.

I've been told geese can be a problem as well.
We lost a young tup last year which I had PM'd. Was told it was listeria which had probably infected him through his gums as he was cutting new teeth which had caused an open sore.

Thanks guys. Another trawl through Google comes up with this..........

Bacteria
One of the harmful diseases that Canada Geese can carry are parasites. These come in the form of chlamydiosis, e-coli, listeria, pasteurella multocida and salmonella. There are three ways these birds shed these bacteria:

• Faeces
• Nasal discharge
• Biting

Because e-coli is so closely correlated to temperature, the likelihood of its presence is much higher during the warmer months rather than in the cold. These bacteria usually manifest themselves in humans through pneumonia or a wound. The risk of contracting any of these diseases, however, is low unless you deal directly with the faeces of geese.


All but one of ours that aborted were shearlings that would have been cutting their teeth in the presence of a lot of wild geese.

 

[livestock 1]

Thanks guys. Another trawl through Google comes up with this..........

Bacteria
One of the harmful diseases that Canada Geese can carry are parasites. These come in the form of chlamydiosis, e-coli, listeria, pasteurella multocida and salmonella. There are three ways these birds shed these bacteria:

• Faeces
• Nasal discharge
• Biting

Because e-coli is so closely correlated to temperature, the likelihood of its presence is much higher during the warmer months rather than in the cold. These bacteria usually manifest themselves in humans through pneumonia or a wound. The risk of contracting any of these diseases, however, is low unless you deal directly with the faeces of geese.


All but one of ours that aborted were shearlings that would have been cutting their teeth in the presence of a lot of wild geese.

Chlamydia- Campylobacter abortion
Salmonella- abortion
and listeria
You’ve just jogged my mind with this as when I had Campylobacter 10 birds were blamed by vet
One of the years I had it I fed some grain beet to ewes and I often wondered if there was any seagull shyte in the brewers grains
Not fed any to ewes since
Probably nothing to do with it but you do wonder

 

[neilo]

Chlamydia- Campylobacter abortion
Salmonella- abortion
and listeria
You’ve just jogged my mind with this as when I had Campylobacter 10 birds were blamed by vet
One of the years I had it I fed some grain beet to ewes and I often wondered if there was any seagull shyte in the brewers grains
Not fed any to ewes since
Probably nothing to do with it but you do wonder

When we last had a proper Campy storm, it was in a bunch of ewes strip grazing stubble turnips, completely surrounded by electric netting. There were no troughs, no ring feeders, no feed licks and no on-floor concentrate feeding. My vet and I concluded it must have come in from birds turning over sheep muck on the ground, as there was no other way it could have arrived from outside.

On geese, we have many hundreds here, grazing the stubbles, but also the grass fields round the lakes. One of those fields always has a mob of 3-350 ewes tupping on it through November & December. I’ve never been too worried about campy or listeria from them, but salmonella (which kills ewes as well as causing abortions) has always been a concern.
On the plus side, we’re pretty sure they, and the ducks, must be hoovering up mud snails, as it’s perfect fluke habitat by the lakes yet we seem to stay clear these days.

 

[livestock 1]

When we last had a proper Campy storm, it was in a bunch of ewes strip grazing stubble turnips, completely surrounded by electric netting. There were no troughs, no ring feeders, no feed licks and no on-floor concentrate feeding. My vet and I concluded it must have come in from birds turning over sheep muck on the ground, as there was no other way it could have arrived from outside.

On geese, we have many hundreds here, grazing the stubbles, but also the grass fields round the lakes. One of those fields always has a mob of 3-350 ewes tupping on it through November & December. I’ve never been too worried about campy or listeria from them, but salmonella (which kills ewes as well as causing abortions) has always been a concern.
On the plus side, we’re pretty sure they, and the ducks, must be hoovering up mud snails, as it’s perfect fluke habitat by the lakes yet we seem to stay clear these days.

Campy is a good ewe killer too. The chlamydia one.
Birds yes I remember birds being mentioned when we’ve had it. We had it one of the crappy years I’m guessing 2011 might have been 2010 though, we were feeding ewe rolls to a batch of ewes and they didn’t seem overly keen on them. They would eat most of it then leave it, come back after an hour or three and eat the rest, by then the birds ( mainly crows and seagulls) would have been in amongst it eating it and shyteing in amongst it. I had a bit of a ding dong with the rep about this got no real sense he said the cake was fine and no one else has had any similar trouble. I think he concluded that the problem was the batch of ewes I was feeding was too big so basically I was fobbed off.
We later found out that the barley that was going into the feed was basically shyte after the wet summer and had no feed value and they wouldn’t eat it.

 

[Farmer_Joe]

ive had a few die of listerias with bought in silage,

never bought any in since (thankfully) symptoms exactly as livestock 1 says, and gets in through a cut in mouth.

rarely get em back right, vet recommends alamycin which did f**k all i agree with pen and strep as soon as spotted and for a few days after.

its a nasty thing to see.

 

[livestock 1]

ive had a few die of listerias with bought in silage,

never bought any in since (thankfully) symptoms exactly as livestock 1 says, and gets in through a cut in mouth.

rarely get em back right, vet recommends alamycin which did fudge all i agree with pen and strep as soon as spotted and for a few days after.

its a nasty thing to see.

The problem is here it’s been that cold for that long. Anything 4 degrees or under and it’s vigorous. December was cold and all of January was fairly cold here. Sheep don’t eat silage maybe the way we would like them to. I feed very little of it on the ground but if you do it invariably gets wet then they don’t eat it for a couple of days or more but for some unknown reason they are happy to go back to it later even if there’s fresh silage out. When you feed in rings they can still manage to get clarts onto the bales and there’s the odd one who gets into the ring and carry’s clarts onto the bales and shytes on it.
It will warm up soon hopefully

 

[Mc115reed]

ive had a few die of listerias with bought in silage,

never bought any in since (thankfully) symptoms exactly as livestock 1 says, and gets in through a cut in mouth.

rarely get em back right, vet recommends alamycin which did fudge all i agree with pen and strep as soon as spotted and for a few days after.

its a nasty thing to see.

Biggest point worth noting is keep the pen and strep going for atleast a week after they come right! I had a ewe with it and I left her in the field just kept injecting on day 4 I couldn’t catch her and she looked right again, day 7 I came back and she was in the corner of the field looking like she’d done a line of coke

 

[Kernowkid]

Latest on our abortion storm.
Day after I jabbed 80% Had about 11 or 12 slip. Two trebles, 3 doubles and about 6 or 7 singles. From various fields and sheds. Was a very tough day. The lambs that weren’t dead on arrival were very week and all went in the heater. Had a very long night of stomach tubing and putting lambs to suck.
Thought my luck was changing when had a lively double, then spotted one had a ballooned stomach full of water that I had to bang on the head. Think that was one of lowest I can think of farm wise. Finally to get something lively after all that death and have to kill it. Horrible.
Went to bed expecting carnage in the morning and all my project lambs to have croaked it.
Fast forward 24 hours, so 48 from the point of jabbing with alamycin and it’s a different story, all the projects going well except one.
In the lambing Shed lost 1 lamb off a double today and that’s it. Everything born including trebles have been lively and with plenty of get up and go.
Did have a double slip out field but that was in the batch I hadn’t jabbed yet(did them today!)
To early to say with certainty but so far I’m bloody glad I got 52 bottles of penicillin on Sunday!
Me and the old man have had a good day today!

 

[twizzel]

So first results back from my aborted ewe- mzn stain of placenta was positive which is indication of enzo. What’s stumped us is where it’s come from. Last year we blood tested a mix of healthy lambed ewes and the couple that had dead or mummified lambs - all neg for enzo. I decided to vaccinate for enzo as I was doing toxo so thought just as well do both. No ewes bought in since 2018. Vet is going to ask lab to run the next step of tests for toxo as lambs more indicative of this (mummified), but if it is enzo, can I still keep my own replacements? Ewe can go cull, as did last years couple of ewes that had dead or mummified lambs and clear blood tests.

 

[yellowbelly]

So first results back from my aborted ewe- mzn stain of placenta was positive which is indication of enzo. What’s stumped us is where it’s come from. Last year we blood tested a mix of healthy lambed ewes and the couple that had dead or mummified lambs - all neg for enzo. I decided to vaccinate for enzo as I was doing toxo so thought just as well do both. No ewes bought in since 2018. Vet is going to ask lab to run the next step of tests for toxo as lambs more indicative of this (mummified), but if it is enzo, can I still keep my own replacements? Ewe can go cull, as did last years couple of ewes that had dead or mummified lambs and clear blood tests.

Call me a cynic, if you like, but speaking as somebody who has, over the years, had vets test for abortion agents on numerous occasions, it does seem that a lot of the time the results are very inconclusive.

You usually just end up with a big bill and not much idea of what to do next year.

I just wonder how reliable some of these lab tests really are.

 

[twizzel]

Call me a cynic, if you like, but speaking as somebody who has, over the years, had vets test for abortion agents on numerous occasions, it does seem that a lot of the time the results are very inconclusive.

You usually just end up with a big bill and not much idea of what to do next year.

I just wonder how reliable some of these lab tests really are.

I guess I’ll just carry on vaccinating and keep replacements as usual but cull hard vet did say it could be other bacteria causing a false positive so just have to see what other tests show.

 

[Kernowkid]

So had a call from the vets this arvo. They’ve confirmed it is enzo. Took the samples to them on Sunday so a fairy quick turnaround and conclusive result.
Massive thanks to all who those who have posted on these abortion threads. Huge amount of useful stories and advice.
If I’d have waited for the results as the vet wanted instead of jabbing the lot I’d have lost 4 days plus another 48hrs for the penicillin to kick in and god only knows how many lambs would of been bagged up.
Lost a couple ewes today with dead lambs inside them but think they were affected before the jab kicked in. Think we’re coming out the other side now.
Again cheers chaps

 

[Mc115reed]

So had a call from the vets this arvo. They’ve confirmed it is enzo. Took the samples to them on Sunday so a fairy quick turnaround and conclusive result.
Massive thanks to all who those who have posted on these abortion threads. Huge amount of useful stories and advice.
If I’d have waited for the results as the vet wanted instead of jabbing the lot I’d have lost 4 days plus another 48hrs for the penicillin to kick in and god only knows how many lambs would of been bagged up.
Lost a couple ewes today with dead lambs inside them but think they were affected before the jab kicked in. Think we’re coming out the other side now.
Again cheers chaps

Heartbreaking stuff hope things improve for you [emoji1303]