Dropping dead after heptavac!

[GrannyAching]

Heptavaced my lambs this am. As far as I was concerned they were all big and healthy, ran in with the ewes and behaved normally. The vaccinating was stress free as our sheep are nearly all really easy to handle and all the shots were definitely subcutaneous. Went to feed this evening and one lamb didn't come down, she looked a bit dopey so I went to check, thinking she might just have been hard asleep. Well she wasn't, managed to catch her, her heart was racing like crazy ,picked her up to carry her down to the yard and she basically dropped dead. My question is, does this mean she was probably ill this morning and I didn't spot it or can they have a bad reaction to the vaccine? So flaming cheesed off!

 

[andybk]

we used to have issues with this over a few years ,enough to notice it was after vaxing and seemed to affect creep fed lambs worst usually singles or best do'ers , symptoms like red gut , stretching uncomfortable stomach , i even rang company about it , they were very helpful and offered a pm on any dead lambs , we changed to ovivac p the year after and we dont creep feed any more , havnet had any issues since ,( i did wonder about injected air bubbles in the wrong place)
Its interesting we always get droopy lambs ears for a few hours after treatment maybe stress of gathering / vax tipped some over the edge , who knows , but funny it stopped .(touch wood)
I would ring up and make a friendly enquiry

 

[GrannyAching]

Thanks, I'll be glad to think it's not rubbish shepherding! My lambs are creep fed. I had 30 live lambs of 13 ewes this year (not planned) and it's been a cr@p year for grass and I have been feeding the ewes but I always offer creep feed as I think it helps at weaning. Annoyingly I looked at ovivac because of having to buy the big bottle for the few extra lambs but decided against it because I wanted to keep nearly all the ewe lambs (including this one) to double up the flock. I might phone. (If they offer pm it would save paying the kennels!)

 

[andybk]

if your on the phone ask them why they dont do 250ml bottles of ovivac p (only heptvac p ) ? its either 100ml or 500ml irritating having small bottles about

 

[GrannyAching]

Decided no one would want to pm the lamb by this am and no point anyway after 12 hours IMO. I will keep notes on this lamb and make sure I know where to find your post @andybk so I can quote if I have the same problem again should I continue using heptavac next year in the lambs. Right now I'm seriously thinking of not bothering with anything! I used the kennels for disposal - £7+time on top of heptavac about £80 for the two bottles, starting to find it hard to justify on the "you only need to lose one for it to pay for itself" argument. The main argument for continuing is that, if I bring home bred ewes into the flock, they'd need two injections so I'd end up buying a bottle for the second dose just for a very few animals. I just don't remember losing that many animals (if any) with pneumonia etc before we started using it when we had a much bigger flock. We started because our neighbour, who's a real skinflint swore by it when we began with this "pet" flock.

 

[andybk]

dont , not do anything , at least use covexin 8 , pulpy kidney is a real risk in any stock , and is a very cheap shot ( pence) , compared to ovivac ,

 

[bovine]

I would urge caution about doing nothing. In a smaller flock losses hit you harder.

You're never going to make significant money off <50 animals, so do your level best you can with them. Cutting corners is not the way forwards.

 

[GrannyAching]

You're never going to make significant money off <50 animals, so do your level best you can with them. Cutting corners is not the way forwards.

I have no illusions about making money of the flock. The aim is to get at least as much income from them as I get from renting out roughly the same amount of land as they occupy all be it for quite a lot more work. At the same time I am absolutely determined they will be looked after well (unlike some of the ones round here) so abhor cutting the wrong corners. (eg my neighbour heptavacs once and runs each bottle until it's empty regardless of how long it's open! - nuts I know.) I'm not going to do anything in a hurry and will definitely be giving the second dose this year. I'm already planning a planning visit with the vet so we can go through a "better worming" plan as things are going to be very tight this year even if I shift lambs early into the store market.

I appreciate the inputs. Enjoying the forum even if it's mostly !

 

[TALDLONKTUP2]

Father used to inject the lambs and always seems to lose the odd one or two, which kind defeats the point of the exercise. Myself, I'd never dream of injecting a slaughter lamb, they shouldn't need it, and you also run the risk of abscesses, just covexin 8 to the ewe before lambing and the same to keeper gimmer lambs in September. I think you can faff about with medicines too much with sheep, I reckon they're much more prone to stress then is recognised and it's best just to leave alone (saves on labour costs too). If one needs catching a nut bag and stick is a lot better than causing all kinds of crap with a dog

 

[GrannyAching]

So @bovine, can I go back to my original question, was this lamb in your opinion, more likely ill and I didn't spot it for whatever reason or is there an accepted, all be it very occasional "reaction" to the vaccine which has nothing to do with the health status of the lamb?

 

[Andrew1983]

We lost a few lambs this year in the days and weeks after they got heptovac, I stuck one into the lab and it came back as pulpy kidney. So we did another 2 goes of heptovac, this stopped it. I had forgotten to do the ewes pre lambing so blaming that.

 

[saitek1989]

I did the same thing and have had lambs during of pulpy kidney it seems to be the main culpret about here any time a lamb dies

 

[GrannyAching]

Interesting but I can just vaccinate against that especially as it seems sudden death is the main symptom.

 

[andybk]

Interesting but I can just vaccinate against that especially as it seems sudden death is the main symptom.

yes with covexin 8 ,which will protect against 8 different things , no pasturella cover , but very cheap ,
we always do older ewes pre lambing with it , as i think older sheep have more natural immunity to pasturella , there was a whisper many years ago regarding hep p pre lambing and weak or dead lambs at birth , so we have always used covexin 8 ,

 

[saitek1989]

I used it last year under vets advice and had no problems duno why I bothered with hep this year tbh

 

[bovine]

So @bovine, can I go back to my original question, was this lamb in your opinion, more likely ill and I didn't spot it for whatever reason or is there an accepted, all be it very occasional "reaction" to the vaccine which has nothing to do with the health status of the lamb?

We will never know. I think it's most likely that the stress of gathering and handling exacerbated an underlying condition. I would still report such things to the drug company. Without a PM we will never know.

 

[bovine]

I used it last year under vets advice and had no problems duno why I bothered with hep this year tbh

Did you do the course of 2 Heptavac injections again?

 

[saitek1989]

Doing second on Thursday

 

[Henarar]

We had a lamb drop dead before we done them with heptavac
That wasn't anything to do with the jab was it

 

[Nithsdale]

yes with covexin 8 ,which will protect against 8 different things , no pasturella cover , but very cheap ,
we always do older ewes pre lambing with it , as i think older sheep have more natural immunity to pasturella , there was a whisper many years ago regarding hep p pre lambing and weak or dead lambs at birth , so we have always used covexin 8 ,

I use Covexin8 on the ewes... moved from Hep P about 10 years ago. Felt it gave the ewes too big a knock pre-lambing.

The last 3 or 4 years iv lost ewes to pasturella where i never used to. Seriously considering going back to Hep P... sometimes, i think you can never win