sheep abortion

[rancher]

No that's true but still a big item to do several hundred ewe lambs.

If I had 3000 ewes, I'd need 600 ewe lambs and €5000 of toxovax and Enzovax
It's not a big expense because I'd be selling €450000 worth of lambs.
All relative I suppose

 

[GTB]

If I had 3000 ewes, I'd need 600 ewe lambs and €5000 of toxovax and Enzovax
It's not a big expense because I'd be selling €450000 worth of lambs.
All relative I suppose

Makes you sit up and think when you have to write the cheque though!

 

[GTB]

I disagree. I make far more money treating clinical disease than preventing it.

In all honesty if everyone took my advice and did everything right I'd have to sack half the vets as I couldn't afford to keep them. I'm currently selling Bravoxin and Footvax at cost +£1 per bottle as otherwise the trade is cheaper.

Our vets don't even try to sell clostridials or wormers. Apparently local merchants are selling them out at less than the vets are buying them in for.

 

[neilo]

Do you order it through vet and they sort all the licences? Do you give them a yearly booster?

I knew a vet that was travelling in the right direction, and was willing to bring some back (suibtably packaged) for me, so I got my vet to do the import licence for it and emailed it to him before he travelled back. I was pleasantly surprised when my vet only charged a tenner for the licensing paperwork, so presumably it is fairly straightforward.

 

[rancher]

Makes you sit up and think when you have to write the cheque though!

I feel your pain ,
Have a neighbour with a thousand ewes that thought vaccination was too dear........until last year.
you seem to be very fortunate

 

[bovine]

I was pleasantly surprised when my vet only charged a tenner for the licensing paperwork, so presumably it is fairly straightforward.

Your vet seems very cheap for everything. Have you got some dirt on him/her?

9/10 are straightforward filling in a form and then a licence arrives as a PDF. 1/10 ends up in a silly email exchange with them wanting lots of extra information to prove the need for a product to be imported. I charge more than a tenner to cover all that. Realistically it takes 15-20 mins of vet time for a straightforward one.

 

[neilo]

Your vet seems very cheap for everything. Have you got some dirt on him/her?

9/10 are straightforward filling in a form and then a licence arrives as a PDF. 1/10 ends up in a silly email exchange with them wanting lots of extra information to prove the need for a product to be imported. I charge more than a tenner to cover all that. Realistically it takes 15-20 mins of vet time for a straightforward one.

I did say I was pleasantly surprised. It isn’t always so, but i’d Better be careful as one of them is on here now...

Surely a vet wouldn’t be necessary to actually fill in those import forms, just to OK the application? Will it not just be an secretarial/admin job, when there’s a spare 15-20 minutes?

 

[neilo]

Our vets don't even try to sell clostridials or wormers. Apparently local merchants are selling them out at less than the vets are buying them in for.

Ours are (refreshingly) keen to compete on vaccines and wormers, and usually get very close to the cheapest quotes I can find from merchants. Where that’s the case, I tend to put the order with my vets in order to support them.

It’s a shame more vet practices don’t also take the view that it’s better to make a little bit on something, rather than a big mark up on nothing.

 

[bovine]

Surely a vet wouldn’t be necessary to actually fill in those import forms, just to OK the application? Will it not just be an secretarial/admin job, when there’s a spare 15-20 minutes?

I wish. We have to log in with out own details and then fill in a series of pages with no option of going back and checking what has been inputted. It counts as a vet certification so there is no way I'd delegate it to admin staff. They are also a bugger to do.

With things like TB testing there is a system that allows lay staff to go in and input data but on the vet can go in, check it's ok and sign and submit it.

 

[GTB]

Ours are (refreshingly) keen to compete on vaccines and wormers, and usually get very close to the cheapest quotes I can find from merchants. Where that’s the case, I tend to put the order with my vets in order to support them.

It’s a shame more vet practices don’t also take the view that it’s better to make a little bit on something, rather than a big mark up on nothing.

But is it worth it for them to have all that money out and having to chase their customers for money if the margin is so tight? One of our vets did mention that they were tied into a supplier who was competitive on drugs but not so good on the stuff you can buy at the merchants. Pretty sure the vets wouldn't want to be buying the stuff in by the pallet like wynnstay and downland either. Personally I'm quite happy for them to stick to what they're good at and leave the other stuff to the merchants.

 

[hendrebc]

More often than not when i do buy anything from my vet i could get elsewere like a wormer or fluke drench the advice i csn get off them is wirth way more than the price difference. Most of the time they arent much more expensive than a merchant anyway

 

[Mcnulty24]

The advice and relationship with my vet is worth more than the few pounds I might save shopping round at a merchants.

 

[GTB]

The advice and relationship with my vet is worth more than the few pounds I might save shopping round at a merchants.

I have a very good working relationship with our vets and they give us an excellent service in every way. They don't bother with clostridials and wormers simply because they can't compete on price. I don't think they even stock any apart from zolvix and Startec.

 

[mikep]

When we ran more sheep (many years ago) we started to get abortion problems. We have to lamb inside as the ground is too wet here. We were keeping half our replacement and buying in the rest so there was always an influx of new blood and bugs.
After a couple of years pissing about with antibiotics we decided to try self inoculation.
Once the ewes had finished lambing we penned the ewe lambs tight in the old yards without hay or straw and fed some lamb creep pellets scattered around so they had to root. From the next year on none of the shears aborted and it kept a lid on it for years until we reduced the numbers and closed the flock.
A lot cheaper and better than vaccinating and jabbing.

 

[GTB]

When we ran more sheep (many years ago) we started to get abortion problems. We have to lamb inside as the ground is too wet here. We were keeping half our replacement and buying in the rest so there was always an influx of new blood and bugs.
After a couple of years pissing about with antibiotics we decided to try self inoculation.
Once the ewes had finished lambing we penned the ewe lambs tight in the old yards without hay or straw and fed some lamb creep pellets scattered around so they had to root. From the next year on none of the shears aborted and it kept a lid on it for years until we reduced the numbers and closed the flock.
A lot cheaper and better than vaccinating and jabbing.

I've heard of this working for Toxo but wasn't aware it would work for other abortion diseases like enzo. I know a couple of farmers who keep their ewe lambs near the village (cats) to 'immunise' them for toxo.

 

[mikep]

I've heard of this working for Toxo but wasn't aware it would work for other abortion diseases like enzo. I know a couple of farmers who keep their ewe lambs near the village (cats) to 'immunise' them for toxo.

We've got plenty of cats about so may all be in the mix, didn't get it typed so no idea what we had.

 

[bovine]

Once the ewes had finished lambing we penned the ewe lambs tight in the old yards without hay or straw and fed some lamb creep pellets scattered around so they had to root. From the next year on none of the shears aborted and it kept a lid on it for years until we reduced the numbers and closed the flock.
A lot cheaper and better than vaccinating and jabbing.

I've heard of this working for Toxo but wasn't aware it would work for other abortion diseases like enzo. I know a couple of farmers who keep their ewe lambs near the village (cats) to 'immunise' them for toxo.

If he had enzootic it would work very well indeed to spread the infection. It lays dormant until the next year.

One sheep cannot directly infect another with toxo so it would do nothing for that.

Works reasonably well for campylobacter.

Would happily spread things like salmonella to others.

Stupid, stupid idea and completely incapable of protecting against most things!

 

[paul&mandy]

I'll second that , don't take any risks ! In fact if it was my wife and unborn i wouldn't have them anywhere near a farm lambing sheep ,

We found out we were having a baby just as we finished lambing. 9 years of trying and wife was pregnant the whole of lambing. Not ideal.....

 

[msheep66]

Had the results back for our latest abortion. Vet says it is Q Fever, apparently humans can get it as Flu. He said there is no treatment for it. Anyone else heard of it? @bovine

 

[cotswoldcs]

We found out we were having a baby just as we finished lambing. 9 years of trying and wife was pregnant the whole of lambing. Not ideal.....

Worth jabbing her with some Alamycin? Seriously, congratulations and I hope all will be well with the pregnancy.


We have had a conformation of Campylobacter from APHA so dealing with it as best we can. Up to 3.5% of flock (30+ ewes) have now aborted with 10 days to go.Have held off injecting but with 7 ewes today I'm not sure I can hold my nerve. Will antibiotics have any effect on ewes that are 10 days off or is it too late for them?