Reabsorption

[Man_in_black]

Only a handful left to lamb, but 3 in last two days that were scanned twin but only produces single. Now obviously this could be scanner error, but in terms of ewe reabsorping or abortion causing loss of one lamb, is there a way of telling from after birth etc? I'm never happy with a loss, always want to investigate.

 

[Al R]

Only a handful left to lamb, but 3 in last two days that were scanned twin but only produces single. Now obviously this could be scanner error, but in terms of ewe reabsorping or abortion causing loss of one lamb, is there a way of telling from after birth etc? I'm never happy with a loss, always want to investigate.

Is there a very dark red blood? About the same quantity as an egg’s contents? This can often be very early reabsoption.
More detailed again is a 3” long dinosaur looking foetus, it’ll look like a light brown blob until it’s dried out for a day or 2 and then you should be able to make out a jaw, maybe a leg or 2 and the ribs should show quite clearly.
Last year out of over 1750-1800 lambs my scanner was never wrong, I either found dark red blood after the first lamb OR a small 3” long foetus.
How long are you lambing for and when were they scanned? I scan my March lambers early January (straight off field and none of this keeping inside before malarkey) and my scanner is predicting lambs until 20th April, so well out of normal scanning range, he will be able to tell me when scanning if there is a reabsorption happening during scanning, is she 1-2-3 cycle and how many lambs. The last 3 years he has told me I have 2 sets of triplets due on the 3rd cycle, they’ve always arrived right at the end frustratingly!

 

[Al R]

This is 1 I found last year.
When it dried out you could feel the ribs quite plain, I can’t remember if the legs were formed or not.

 

[Global ovine]

Only a handful left to lamb, but 3 in last two days that were scanned twin but only produces single. Now obviously this could be scanner error, but in terms of ewe reabsorping or abortion causing loss of one lamb, is there a way of telling from after birth etc? I'm never happy with a loss, always want to investigate.

Yes you can tell very easily if you are not too far away from the birth. Spread the placenta out like a cloth. It will have numerous blood vessels radiating out from the navel attachment. If there is only one group of blood vessels converging into the navel cord, it was without doubt a single.
If the placenta has 2 groups of blood vessels converging into each navel cord, it was twins, and so on as the litter size increases.
Where a lamb has died, eg. scanned twin but only a single present at birth, check the placenta for another group of radiating blood vessels that may converge onto a pus ball or a mummified foetus as so clearly photographed by @Al R above.
However if the ewe eats the placenta..........?

 

[yellowbelly]

is there a way of telling from after birth etc?

As above - the cleansing won't look normal.
Had one on Saturday morning. Scanner man said,"It's one lamb plus something that doesn't look right." She had one big lamb and 'a thickening' in her cleansing, but nothing that looked like a lamb - it had obviously died/been reabsorbed at an earlier stage than the one in @Al R 's pic.

 

[Boydvalley]

My scanner for the first time ever said you've got a few jelly like foetuses when he finished. Bit annoyed with him as he didn't know how many and just marked live lambs. It's normal to see one or two he said. Asked the the vet And he wasn't particularly helpful kind of saying it maybe Toxo. Did have a very ill ewe a couple of days before scanning which clearly had aborted. Rest of ewes look really well.

Anyone else had this and if so what was the result at lambing.

 

[yellowbelly]

Anyone else had this and if so what was the result at lambing.

Our man puts a different mark on anything unusual - we had one that lambed on Saturday and there's one in the late mob that don't lamb until late March.

Not sure if Toxo would show as early as scanning date. IME, Toxo lambs are nearly fully developed when they die

 

[twizzel]

Had a twin last year that only had 1 inside... she had a lot of white, creamy discharge when she lambed which we put down to the missing lamb

 

[Al R]

Had a twin last year that only had 1 inside... she had a lot of white, creamy discharge when she lambed which we put down to the missing lamb

Felt slightly like crushed bonemeal in a soup? Deformed lamb.

 

[Global ovine]

Creamy discharge, crushed bone meal in soup etc. are all late stages of resorption. Later losses such as Toxo foetuses have too much mass in too small a window in time to be resorbed.
I stated in the thread, "Scanned my Lleyns" post # 6, almost all resorbed foetuses are the result of lack of foetal nutrition due to where in the uterus they happened to be implanted as an embryo. These die from about the end of the 1st trimester, which is why the scanner includes them in the count or flags them as recently died.
Campy causes partial losses of litters about mid pregnancy which can be partially resorbed, but most campy affected pregnancies are lost. Some other diseases also attack foetuses or the placenta and these are not common across all sheep farming nations, eg. Salmonella brandenburg a bacteria, or fungal toxins in black and brown mould in poor silage.

 

[JD-Kid]

just to toss something in to the pot and I have no idea on but. alot of dogs. reasorb pups. due to a drop in hormone levels
do sheep. sometimes do the same just know a breeder that has had a few litters lost that way and. thought ummm wonder if. sheep can have the same prob

 

[Dry Rot]

just to toss something in to the pot and I have no idea on but. alot of dogs. reasorb pups. due to a drop in hormone levels
do sheep. sometimes do the same just know a breeder that has had a few litters lost that way and. thought ummm wonder if. sheep can have the same prob

I believe pigs often reabsorb some of the foetuses, so not unusual or abnormal. I was led to believe it was Nature's way of adjusting population to the available food supply, but I doubt it's that easy.

 

[JD-Kid]

I believe pigs often reabsorb some of the foetuses, so not unusual or abnormal. I was led to believe it was Nature's way of adjusting population to the available food supply, but I doubt it's that easy.

yea just crossed my mind. other day when a breeder lost another litter of pups and. thought ummmmmm in some ewes. is that were a few twins. go all ewes. have there full vax program
just don't see dead lambs on the ground all scaned the same yet. lamb/tailing. 20 odd % diffrent maybe. diffrent. reaction to the vax program don't think so tho

 

[Global ovine]

Those species that mate and shed eggs over several days and produce litters the of the size seen in pigs and dogs have quite different hormonal patterns to an animal like sheep and goats which have a very defined oestrus. However, most of the losses seen in all species are embryonic due to genetic rubbish or normal embryos failing to implant in an region of the uterus favourable for foetal growth.
Recent research from NZ has shown a wide difference in embryonic survival between some rams with a high heritability.
Foetal losses due to resorption would not exceed 3 - 4 % unless increased by disease during the first half of pregnancy.
Embryonic loss is not seen by the scanner and does not leave blood vessel development in the placenta. This goes unknown by farmers except contributing to paddock differences in lambing %.

Very few species can control foetal development. To my knowledge, they are mainly all marsupials. Because a foetus is a parasite (in true terms) and takes all it can get from its dam, even to her detriment eg. pregnancy toxemia.
Far too much blame is attributed to foetal resorption by farmers for lowered %. After the first few weeks from mating, level of nutrition (other than starvation) has no effect.
Regarding vaccination; no vaccination programme is 100% effective. And no farmer gives every animal the perfect dose and the vital time despite trying to.

 

[JD-Kid]

Those species that mate and shed eggs over several days and produce litters the of the size seen in pigs and dogs have quite different hormonal patterns to an animal like sheep and goats which have a very defined oestrus. However, most of the losses seen in all species are embryonic due to genetic rubbish or normal embryos failing to implant in an region of the uterus favourable for foetal growth.
Recent research from NZ has shown a wide difference in embryonic survival between some rams with a high heritability.
Foetal losses due to resorption would not exceed 3 - 4 % unless increased by disease during the first half of pregnancy.
Embryonic loss is not seen by the scanner and does not leave blood vessel development in the placenta. This goes unknown by farmers except contributing to paddock differences in lambing %.

Very few species can control foetal development. To my knowledge, they are mainly all marsupials. Because a foetus is a parasite (in true terms) and takes all it can get from its dam, even to her detriment eg. pregnancy toxemia.
Far too much blame is attributed to foetal resorption by farmers for lowered %. After the first few weeks from mating, level of nutrition (other than starvation) has no effect.
Regarding vaccination; no vaccination programme is 100% effective. And no farmer gives every animal the perfect dose and the vital time despite trying to.

intresting. stuff there. had not crossed my mind. realy till other day
split. ewe in to 3 groups. all scanned as twins split of breed come tailing 20 % difference between. top breed. and lowest. breed in the yards yet did not see. high losses in the lower lambing ones
maybe how one breed reacted to vax not sure

 

[Global ovine]

intresting. stuff there. had not crossed my mind. realy till other day
split. ewe in to 3 groups. all scanned as twins split of breed come tailing 20 % difference between. top breed. and lowest. breed in the yards yet did not see. high losses in the lower lambing ones
maybe how one breed reacted to vax not sure

Hi JD
I doubt that there would be a breed difference in their immune response. However there is a raft of evidence both from farmers and from research institutions that significant lamb survival differences can occur between lambing paddocks over different weather conditions amounting to 20 percentile points and larger.
In your case one could add some topography effect too, as yours could hardly be called flat to rolling.
Breed x weather x topography could explain a lot if each could be measured.
Regards M

 

[JD-Kid]

Hi JD
I doubt that there would be a breed difference in their immune response. However there is a raft of evidence both from farmers and from research institutions that significant lamb survival differences can occur between lambing paddocks over different weather conditions amounting to 20 percentile points and larger.
In your case one could add some topography effect too, as yours could hardly be called flat to rolling.
Breed x weather x topography could explain a lot if each could be measured.
Regards M

Hi M
yea. we have a few paddocks. that always tail lower. than. the one next door. just a split of. same ewe yet one lot. will be lower
most of the lambing was on lower country so semi steep. hahaha
was a eye opener. all together. highest. % lambing. but once split down. more it showed a trend of breeds lambing diffrent. even tho they were all scanned as twin ewes so somewhere between scanning and tailing the losses happened
I breed I know dose have some probs with counting. HAHAHA but. did not see. miss mothered lambs or numbers of. dead lambs just not there alot of UFO sightings that year tho
as Mr. Miyagi said on sheep farming........ they live. they die