Prolapse ewes, much higher than normal?

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Was an interesting section in the booklet @easyram1 gave us from the guy who came over and spoke with @Global ovine ref prolapse.
Talked of the relationship of various trace elements inc mag and calcium on prolapse, and the effect of uptake of said elements by grass growing in colder conditions.
It's certainly been a colder spring, until now. Interested to see if cases tail off going forward now.
I've had a lot more prolapses than normal this year. I usually feed the usual rate of cake out of a snacker to them and get the odd one or two but this year we are all grass and have had over 5% prolapses and I think 3 with guts out. Bloody depressing and frustrating. I assumed it was just them eating more bulky food instead of the concentrates but it doesn't seem to be. It's a mix of ages and body conditions so nothing I could pin down.
Was told by someone in my grazing group about that booklet and I'd forgotten I had it. Put out magnesium minerals for them and on advice from someone in the grazing group put out rock salt and it seems to have stopped. The magnesium helps the ewes to mobilise the calcium in their bones and the sodium in the salt helps make the calcium and magnesium more readily available to them.
It's probably been made worse by me plastering the silage fields with muck last year and then feeding the silage to the ewes over winter. Can't remember why without looking it up but something to do with the potassium in the muck affecting the calcium in the feed.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I was saying to a lad that works for me that my lamb losses at 3-4 weeks old hadn’t happened like most years for things like pulpy kidney/tetanus etc. Yesterday 5 of my best lambs all 4 weeks old all dead! We always thought it was tetanus from ringing the tails but all of these were entire and long tails :mad:?

Bugger.

At least you saved a few pennies on the rings though.:)
 
I've had 4/260 prolapse, all happened since they went on lambing paddocks. One just went downhill and had to be shot, the other three are still in the paddock.

Meanwhile a ringwomb last night has turned into two dead lambs this morning and there's another one that I could actually smell when I went to check her in the field. Just about my best ewe was standing over one live lamb and one dead tiddler this morning. Not sure if this is a pattern forming or not.

Store lamb buyers should be forced to read posts like the above when they're trying to get lambs in September!
 

Farmer_Joe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
The North
Found 2 more today, thankfully there lambing fast nearly a 3rd through em. Nearly run out of spoons do ring the rep for more.
He said local farmer blames it on condition or to much of it during tupping fatty uterus or something making less room?
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Found 2 more today, thankfully there lambing fast nearly a 3rd through em. Nearly run out of spoons do ring the rep for more.
He said local farmer blames it on condition or to much of it during tupping fatty uterus or something making less room?
There's also something about having it too easy mid pregnancy- the body gets lazy at mobilising calcium so isn't so effective at doing so in late pregnancy when its needed.
Would fit with the general "overfat" thing.

Makes sense from the nature point of view - mid pregnancy during mid winter when forage is short?
 

glensman

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Antrim
Found 2 more today, thankfully there lambing fast nearly a 3rd through em. Nearly run out of spoons do ring the rep for more.
He said local farmer blames it on condition or to much of it during tupping fatty uterus or something making less room?
The harnesses are far superior to spoons, I'm not sure if you've used them before but they are the answer.
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
I've had 1 or 2 more prolapse than recent years.
Had 3 with ringwomb (haven't seen that for a few years).

There's always something!

Disagree it's fat/full ewes which prolapse, I find it very rare it's the fattest. Of all the prolapses this year, only 1 was a triplet ewe - and she lambed the following day. The rest were twins, and a few of the singles which had jumped the dyke and were running with the (unfed) inbye twins.

Just put it down to the weather making the ewes miserable for such a long period... The weather takes its toll on everything, 1 way or another.
 

Bob the beef

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Scot Borders
Had more than usual as well. 12 out of 800. Last year 3/4. 4 have died rest are ok. Some in hill twins that were getting cobs from snacker with no haylage. Rest were in twins grazed on stubble turnips and haylage. None more than bcs 3.
Remember John Vipond doing a lot of research into prolapse few years ago. His conclusion was that diet had very little influence and the problem was a build up of gas in the abomasum (4th stomach), but he couldn’t pinpoint the reason for this happening . Environment and climate issues probably all contribute.
 

Farmer_Joe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
The North
ive got really good quality dry hayladge this year, and to be fair i obviously not feeding it now as grass is growing,

compare that with last winters whee they got super wet silage second cut they got and not one prolapse!

alot of green tag ones (including the 2 i found today), which make the most shealings, cull tagged them all the same as i dont want hassle in future...
 
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Boydvalley

Member
Location
Bath
Oh Dear reading this just had a count up. Got 15 harness but have used some twice so that’s over 20 needing a harness out of 400.
To be honest never really worried that much about it now. Modern harness are so good. Not culling for prolapse.
Had a very bad prolapse many years ago that was tagged to cull but got missed. She lambed for 5 more years without problem.
My observation is that their urge to prolapse doesn’t last very long if you can catch them early so the buildup of gas seems logical and not one I’d heard of. Quite often I’ll take a harness off and it’s got so slack that you think it can’t be doing anything.

Vet is convinced it’s to do with protein balance so had bloods done a 3 weeks before start and they came back all ok including minerals so it’s not that in my case.

Recorded all that prolapsed this year so we will see next.
 

Farmer_Joe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
The North
i know it dont really help, but im glad its not just me!

interesting you mention about one that got missed but was fine after...

im still certain the weather has a part to play as others have mentioned above, from wet new year, or fine weather plenty of grass for tupping...
 

Agrivator

Member
On major complication in vaginal prolapse is that any ewe which tends to have a slight prolapse is always at risk of not being able to pee. And that leads to her straining in an attempt to do so, and that just exacerbates the problem and causes an even more permanent prolapse.

So the main cause of slight vaginal prolapse might well be genetic, has little to do with environmental factors,, and a slight prolapse when a ewe lies down disappears when she stands up. But the development of a severe vaginal prolapse might simply be a consequence of an inability to pee. And when inserting a severe vaginal prolapse, there is a skill or a bit of luck entailed in holding it up so that the ewe can pee as much as possible before finally inserting and retaining it.

Does a harness properly fitted allow a ewe to pee. And if so, is that why they are maybe more successful than an ill-fitted spoon?

But I can't explain the reason for year-to-year variation.
 
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Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
"When I was a boy,"View attachment 868628 in the days when we 'wound' swedes and mangolds through a turnip cutter by hand, they always told us that's what caused 'em to prolapse (too much bulky feed).

Last year we grazed a lot of cover crops and had a much higher incidence of prolapses and guts out the back.
This year, no cover crops and much reduced prolapses and no guts out the back (feck, I wish I hadn't just said that :facepalm: I know what'll happen today now).

Just an observation, make of it what you will.
Potash?
Your covercrops will likely be much better at catching K that's leached beyond the rootzone of shallow-rooting species eg overgrazed grass/ cereal crops.

The old man used to tell me that the bottom 5 inches of grass held the 4 P's - phosphates, potash, parasites and problems.... and generally the "tight" years were followed by bearings regardless of BCS

in short the theory at the time was that high K creates a Mg deficiency in new growth which reduced the muscular control at parturition, but this is approaching 40-year-old theory now!
Supplement calcium and magnesium? Bloods will tell you.
 

puppet

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
sw scotland
On major complication in vaginal prolapse is that any ewe which tends to have a slight prolapse is always at risk of not being able to pee. And that leads to her straining in an attempt to do so, and that just exacerbates the problem and causes an even more permanent prolapse.

But the development of a severe vaginal prolapse might simply be a consequence of an inability to pee. And when inserting a severe vaginal prolapse, there is a skill or a bit of luck entailed in holding it up so that the ewe can pee as much as possible before finally inserting and retaining it.

Does a harness properly fitted allow a ewe to pee. And if so, is that why they are maybe more successful than an ill-fitted spoon?
Just put one in 2 hours ago. You are right in that the bladder wall gets pushed out too with lots of straining with urine retention. Trick is to put it in then push your fist gently up towards the spine. Success is measured by a very satisfying gush of warm urine up your sleeve. If she cannot pee it will just pop out. Harness easiest solution.
 
Just put one in 2 hours ago. You are right in that the bladder wall gets pushed out too with lots of straining with urine retention. Trick is to put it in then push your fist gently up towards the spine. Success is measured by a very satisfying gush of warm urine up your sleeve. If she cannot pee it will just pop out. Harness easiest solution.
What a life! Success measured by a sheep pi55ing on you?
 

Farmer_Joe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
The North
Just put one in 2 hours ago. You are right in that the bladder wall gets pushed out too with lots of straining with urine retention. Trick is to put it in then push your fist gently up towards the spine. Success is measured by a very satisfying gush of warm urine up your sleeve. If she cannot pee it will just pop out. Harness easiest solution.


When fitting a spoon depending on how long its bee out they always do a massive pee on you, as you say its a measure of if you have fitted it correctly!
 

Spartacus

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Lancaster
Had less than the last few years, first one took to the vet and got it stitched up, died a couple of days later, second put a spoon in, third put a spoon in but it died, 4th one put a spoon in, it pushed it out, tied the wool together, didnt last long, got the wool sack needle and some baler twine and did several cross stitches in either side as close to the skin as I could, letting so there was a cross behind the vagina, lambed that night alone and had everything still in the right place when it was finished! Will try it again next one I get.

That's 4 out of 480 ewes.
 

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