Stillborn lambs

[RMSLLOYD]

Majority of the lambs that I lose are stillborns >95%. Full term just born dead. Have always put it down to sheepitis but am I missing a trick? Crossbred ewes, housed week before lambing. Is housing them close to lambing causing it? It's mostly one of twins or triplets. Singles are ok..

 

[LAMBCHOPS]

We have seen a big change in our mortality pre actual lambing date since we vaccinated all incoming yearlings for enzotic abortion (enzovax).All ewes are now fully covered across the flock and we don't have hardly any slip lambs or with dead lambs in them.

Now we don't inject for toxo. However we inject all yearlings and only them with Alamycin 17 days before lambing date this covering 17 to 31 or more days depending on when ewes went to tup

.Without fail if we don't those yearlngs would see several bring premature some dead some with one live but not able to survive.

Once injected it clears up straight away and they become immune to whatever they are picking up after that first year? We believe it's toxo related as they are introduced to a bug in the sheds.

This year trying to follow the vets advice not to inject with Alamycin (antibiotics) we lost 4 sets of yearling twins until we hastily injected them all thankfully none since. Hope that may help as this is our experience.

 

[neilo]

We have seen a big change in our mortality pre actual lambing date since we vaccinated all incoming yearlings for enzotic abortion (enzovax).All ewes are now fully covered across the flock and we don't have hardly any slip lambs or with dead lambs in them.

Now we don't inject for toxo. However we inject all yearlings and only them with Alamycin 17 days before lambing date this covering 17 to 31 or more days depending on when ewes went to tup

.Without fail if we don't those yearlngs would see several bring premature some dead some with one live but not able to survive.

Once injected it clears up straight away and they become immune to whatever they are picking up after that first year? We believe it's toxo related as they are introduced to a bug in the sheds.

This year trying to follow the vets advice not to inject with Alamycin (antibiotics) we lost 4 sets of yearling twins until we hastily injected them all thankfully none since. Hope that may help as this is our experience.

Most people would have been giving Alamycin to clear up EAE in the past, and I’m not sure it’s even effective against Toxo. I have send it to stop a Campy storm in it’s tracks though, before I started vaccinated youngstock for it. They get immunity to that too, once they’ve had a challenge. Noticed a big drop in those young animals that always appeared to be empty at the end of lambing, despite scanning in lamb. Always used to get a handful, rarely get any now.
Have you tested the aborted lambs?

That said, we vaccinate against Toxo and Campy, and have recently started back on with EAE (as neighbour’s been having problems since going back to buying replacements). We still get stillborn lambs, as the OP puts.

If average losses are 15% at lambing, the majority of those will surely be stillborn?

 

[RMSLLOYD]

We have seen a big change in our mortality pre actual lambing date since we vaccinated all incoming yearlings for enzotic abortion (enzovax).All ewes are now fully covered across the flock and we don't have hardly any slip lambs or with dead lambs in them.

Now we don't inject for toxo. However we inject all yearlings and only them with Alamycin 17 days before lambing date this covering 17 to 31 or more days depending on when ewes went to tup

.Without fail if we don't those yearlngs would see several bring premature some dead some with one live but not able to survive.

Once injected it clears up straight away and they become immune to whatever they are picking up after that first year? We believe it's toxo related as they are introduced to a bug in the sheds.

This year trying to follow the vets advice not to inject with Alamycin (antibiotics) we lost 4 sets of yearling twins until we hastily injected them all thankfully none since. Hope that may help as this is our experience.

Thank you. Yes i vaccinate the ewe lambs before i tup them. These ones that are born dead you wouldn't really class them as abortions as they aren't early or look like abortions if that makes sense?. ( come out clean and eyes not cloudy).

 

[RMSLLOYD]

Most people would have been giving Alamycin to clear up EAE in the past, and I’m not sure it’s even effective against Toxo. I have send it to stop a Campy storm in it’s tracks though, before I started vaccinated youngstock for it. They get immunity to that too, once they’ve had a challenge. Noticed a big drop in those young animals that always appeared to be empty at the end of lambing, despite scanning in lamb. Always used to get a handful, rarely get any now.
Have you tested the aborted lambs?

That said, we vaccinate against Toxo and Campy, and have recently started back on with EAE (as neighbour’s been having problems since going back to buying replacements). We still get stillborn lambs, as the OP puts.

If average losses are 15% at lambing, the majority of those will surely be stillborn?

Is 15% from scanning numbers a normal percentage to lose? If so then im under that id say. Nothing much dies ( apart from couple smothered) at lambing bar the stillborns untill they are romping on at 35kg+ then but that’s a different thread

 

[neilo]

Is 15% from scanning numbers a normal percentage to lose? If so then im under that id say. Nothing much dies ( apart from couple smothered) at lambing bar the stillborns untill they are romping on at 35kg+ then but that’s a different thread

I've certainly seen that figure in groups doing costings. It surprising how they add up if you include that ewe that died with three inside her, the odd slipper (even the vaccine companies only work their ads on losing more than 2%, everyone gets a few regardless), the odd one that gets led on, those stillborns, etc.

Only pedigree breeders claim to never lose any.

 

[yoki]

Old school vet around here back in the day said that for both sheep and cattle, whether they lambed/calved inside or outside didn't matter as much as not changing them from one to the other any less than 3 or 4 weeks before it.

He wasn't wrong about much so I've always tried to stick by it.

Late January is our deadline for bringing ewes in no matter the grass/weather situation as it gives them that three to four weeks to get settled to their new diet and surrounding before they start lambing.

Impossible to know obviously what would happen if we left them out a couple of weeks longer but I don't intend to find out .

 

[puppet]

We brought 27 triplets in 2 days before the first lambed. 5 days later 11 have lambed which is fastest ever. One thin one had a dead lamb. Another lambed all 3 past a harness. Everything else alive so far.
The majority of stillbirths are difficult lambings not infection

 

[S J H]

We have seen a big change in our mortality pre actual lambing date since we vaccinated all incoming yearlings for enzotic abortion (enzovax).All ewes are now fully covered across the flock and we don't have hardly any slip lambs or with dead lambs in them.

Now we don't inject for toxo. However we inject all yearlings and only them with Alamycin 17 days before lambing date this covering 17 to 31 or more days depending on when ewes went to tup

.Without fail if we don't those yearlngs would see several bring premature some dead some with one live but not able to survive.

Once injected it clears up straight away and they become immune to whatever they are picking up after that first year? We believe it's toxo related as they are introduced to a bug in the sheds.

This year trying to follow the vets advice not to inject with Alamycin (antibiotics) we lost 4 sets of yearling twins until we hastily injected them all thankfully none since. Hope that may help as this is our experience.

How do you know it’s the vaccination working and not the shot of alamycin?

 

[LAMBCHOPS]

How do you know it’s the vaccination working and not the shot of alamycin?

Only do yearlings coming in. Prior to that would have plenty of trouble with year lings prior to lambing which we don't now see. Adding to that injecting 17 days b4 due date sees no problem all clean. Also we don't get so many weak lambs. Enzo is carried so once they come in they are jabbed. Whether it's toxo or campler the stillbirth we test ed don't give us much clue. Anyway it's working for us