Ewe Off Her Legs.

Aye up,

We have a four year old ewe, fit not fat, not in lamb, bright and alert but struggles to stand and is wobbly on her legs for a few yards then flops down.

She nibbles on a bit of ivy and takes a bit of grass occasionally, will drink from a bucket.

She’s had AB, multivit, metacam, Ewe-Go, calcium and magnesium under the skin.

Seems as though she is drunk and weak on her legs, especially the back legs.

I can’t see anything in the paddock she shouldn’t be eating to poison her either.

Any ideas?

Cheers, Pete.
 
White muscle disease ? Does she have a strong desire to eat pellets still ?
ie everything still functioning but deficient in Selenium and vit E making the muscles weak. You’ve covered most bases, could try Vitesel as well ?
 
We can try her with some pellets.

She’s still strong and writhes about kicking when we handle her, so I don’t think it would be back trouble.

She can get herself up on her legs, just not for long and once up she’s all over the place.

When she’s back down she lays normally and looks happy in every way.
 

Mc115reed

Member
Livestock Farmer
Is her pasture getting a flush of rich grass? Iv seen grass staggers this time of year after a dry spell beforE

What AB you given? Slap the palm of your hand over her eye (don’t actually hit her just the motion) and then repeat on the other eye… see if there is a difference in her reaction on 1 side too the other…

if there’s no flinch on 1 side or even both sides I’d be thinking something nurelogical
I’d be going in hard with pen strep 2 or 3 times the dosage along with metacam


If she’s reacting too the flinch test and quite bright in her self I’d then be thinking nerve damage which needs steroids and metacam too treat
 

Andyt880

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Co. Down
Checking the ewes vision is a good call. I had trouble with bracken poisoning earlier in the year. Ewes went blind and staggered about the first day or two before going off the legs completely.
As far as I know listeria type poisoning affects one side of the brain so causing all the problems on one side. Toxin poisoning from a plant etc usually affects all the brain so symptoms are not one sided
 
Looked about the same this morning. Ate a bit, had a drink but didn’t want to attempt getting up at all.

By early afternoon I thought she might be going downhill. Called the vet, she was fitting by then and the vet said temp was 41 degrees, not much hope, had her put to sleep. Could have tried with serious anti biotic but prognosis wasn’t good. No way was I seeing her suffer another night. I could have called the disposal chap in the morning and he may not have been able to shoot her until afternoon. That’s too much suffering in my opinion.

She’s out of it now. Vet thought a huge and very nasty infection and that we made the right decision.

I tell you what, I never thought these woolly buggers would get to me like they do.
 

delilah

Member
Just to throw another sheep ailment into the mix, pneumonia, or at least secondary effects of ?
We've a 5 mth old lamb at the moment with same symptoms; staggering when tries to stand, high temp, but keen to eat. I wouldn't have a clue what was wrong with it if it wasn't for the fact that it had really bad pneumonia in May when we had frosts at night and hot days, should have died but came round, heat of the last week seems to have got to it, will probably fulfill its ambition this time round.
 

Mc115reed

Member
Livestock Farmer
Looked about the same this morning. Ate a bit, had a drink but didn’t want to attempt getting up at all.

By early afternoon I thought she might be going downhill. Called the vet, she was fitting by then and the vet said temp was 41 degrees, not much hope, had her put to sleep. Could have tried with serious anti biotic but prognosis wasn’t good. No way was I seeing her suffer another night. I could have called the disposal chap in the morning and he may not have been able to shoot her until afternoon. That’s too much suffering in my opinion.

She’s out of it now. Vet thought a huge and very nasty infection and that we made the right decision.

I tell you what, I never thought these woolly buggers would get to me like they do.
if you had vet out anyways should have got them cut it open while they were there it’s always nice too know what the problem was Incase it’s something that could affect other sheep and you can prevent it in future
 

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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