Mastitis

[angus464]

Grrrrr I hate mastitis!!!!

Scanning yesterday and my best zwartble ewe was being scanned... Scanned for twins and to my horror the scanning man says she has a lump in her udder!! Totally gutted at this news as she is the best ewe I've ever had!! I checked myself and sure enough, she has a smallish lump in one side of her udder!!! She is about a month from lambing, is there ANYTHING at all I can do or even if she can raise one lamb on one side?!

 

[z.man]

should manage one ok and if a zwartble possibly both on one side with a little help nothing you can do until she lambs apart from getting prepared

 

[angus464]

Thanks! Seems pretty common in the zwartbles? Had one last year aswell, dunno is it because they have so much milk or what?!!

 

[ed g]

Had a few ewes with lumps last year which only noticed once lambed. Our vet now advises me to give a jab of zactran which seems to help - 3 mls. Had one ewe with triplets who reared all three . I gave it no chance, kept it inside for a month just in case but her lambs grew fine. She had an abscess type lump in one side.checked her after the lambs were weaned - no sign of a lump. Still culled it though.

 

[angus464]

Sounds promising! Thanks

 

[Clive Tee]

Our vet recommended to jab for mastitis in sheep with a 3-4 day dose (all at once) of Marbox. I've done that since and it's been reasonably successful.

But the first time I spoke to him I was on a bad mobile line and misheard him. So I jabbed with a 4 day dose on day one, then did normal dosage jabs for the next three days as well. That was the best success I've ever had with mastitis but not recommending it obviously.

 

[neilo]

There are lumps, and there are lumps. It isn't necessarily mastitis, it could be a lump on a lymph node for example. She may well rear two OK.

I am taking part in a mastitis study with Warwick University at the moment, and one of the things they are looking for is whether there is any link between mastitis and lumps in udders. The only link that I've noticed, is that it always your best ewe.

 

[angus464]

Ohh yeah definitely, along with some real bad luck!! I have a handfull of pedigree zwartbles and this is the second now that has had udder problems in 2 years and 200 odd blackies on the hill that rarely have any udder or feet problems what so ever!! Just typical!