Greythundercloudys
Member
That's the war cry on here, get to the vet get things tested for this that and the next thing, just get on and treat them for it.
scab or lice
- Thread starter DartmoorEwe
- Start date
- Location
- Yelverton, UK
Thanks for your comments and I too am concerned but this may not be anything more than a bit of loss of condition of the wool due to the stress of late pregnancy and 2 blizzards. I know scab is about so I'm being hyper vigilant. I also know we have had lice before and last year I used click not crovect so any small population could be on the rise.
There are a few tufts of fleece hanging from a handful of ewes. They are in good condition otherwise and lambing outside enthusiastically with no difficulties so far. When I pull out a tuft it is clean with maybe a couple of bits of grit. When I part the fleece the skin looks healthy enough with just a few flakes of dandruff. There are no bald patches. I'm finding it hard to do a skin scrape when I don't have a bald patch to scrape.
I will get the vet to look when a symptomatic ewe has lambed and they are strong enough to live without her for a couple of hours and I'm all for treating if I have a problem but apart from a few tufts I don't have any evidence. If I'm just being over sensitive then it seems OTT to gather and inject the whole flock mid lambing.
So back to the original post. Can anyone explain how I take a skin scrape and how I collect and look at a sample of wool to give me the best chance of finding out if there is a problem?
There are a few tufts of fleece hanging from a handful of ewes. They are in good condition otherwise and lambing outside enthusiastically with no difficulties so far. When I pull out a tuft it is clean with maybe a couple of bits of grit. When I part the fleece the skin looks healthy enough with just a few flakes of dandruff. There are no bald patches. I'm finding it hard to do a skin scrape when I don't have a bald patch to scrape.
I will get the vet to look when a symptomatic ewe has lambed and they are strong enough to live without her for a couple of hours and I'm all for treating if I have a problem but apart from a few tufts I don't have any evidence. If I'm just being over sensitive then it seems OTT to gather and inject the whole flock mid lambing.
So back to the original post. Can anyone explain how I take a skin scrape and how I collect and look at a sample of wool to give me the best chance of finding out if there is a problem?
- Location
- The North
sorry cant help with that but you can see lice or can can if you part fleece in area where tuft coming away, small dark yellow/orange lice maybe couple of mil long
- Location
- Highland
That sounds just like lice go buy some Spot On and be done with it, you'll need it later anyway once the flies are out.
- Location
- Yelverton, UK
I like anything that points at lice rather than the s word. Spoke to the vet who said the earliest I can treat baby lambs is when the youngest is 4 weeks old. Got to concentrate on containing it by double gating each field till then.