Aborted lamb

[Ruus]

I posted a few hours ago about one of my ewes that was in labor without having any sign of an udder. She delivered a dead lamb about an hour ago that had obviously been dead a long time, even though she carried it full term. She passed a splat of brown goo right next to it. Any ideas what happened? There aren't any cats around that I'm aware of, so I don't think it was toxoplasmosis...

 

[alsea1]

I have no idea, but I would def. check her temp.
How disappointing.

 

[Ruus]

I have no idea, but I would def. check her temp.
How disappointing.

Yeah it is. I had a gorgeous healthy ewe lamb born two weeks ago, and one ewe left to lamb. She's got a nice big udder and she looks like a blimp, so I think she should be OK.

 

[Roving Jacobs]

I'm so sorry to see this. I've had 2 ewes abort this year and another had a dead lamb and a live 3 lb lamb 6 days early. I'm having pathology done so hopefully I'll know what caused it but the vet said there are so many things that can cause abortion that without testing (and sometimes even with testing) you might never know.

 

[Ruus]

I'm so sorry to see this. I've had 2 ewes abort this year and another had a dead lamb and a live 3 lb lamb 6 days early. I'm having pathology done so hopefully I'll know what caused it but the vet said there are so many things that can cause abortion that without testing (and sometimes even with testing) you might never know.

I should have saved it for testing, but I didn't. I was kind of freaked out when I found it, and I was worried about it being infectious so I got rid of it right away. It didn't occur to me until later that I should have taken it for a necropsy.

 

[Sheepshape]

Sorry to hear of your loss.
If just a single ewe aborts, then it is probably as my vet says 'just one of those things'. If there are a number who abort at a particular stage of gestation and/or the aborted foetuses look similar, then it is important to take foetus and placenta to the vet for analysis.
There looks to be some infection on the aborted foetus and the ewe probably needs antibiotics to my eye.Cats roam for miles and e.g Toxoplasma turns up in the most unexpected places.
I had 4 ewes abort this year, and it is pretty horrible for all concerned.
I hope that this is an isolated event for you. Try not to blame yourself....your fault it is not.

 

[Ruus]

I'm hoping it's just a one-off thing... my last ewe is due to lamb any day, so we'll see. She looks just like the ewe that had the healthy lamb did before she lambed, so I'm hopeful.

I didn't actually want the ewe that aborted bred last fall, but my ram jumped the fence. She was a slow grower, much smaller than the other two and I wanted to give her a year to catch up. Maybe that combined with the horrid winter had something to do with it?

She seems fine today, except that she keeps looking back at her rear. I'm hoping there's nothing else still inside her. I'm pretty sure the goopy stuff was the afterbirth, so there shouldn't be anything else...

 

[Ruus]

Well, my lambing season has a happy ending at least! The last ewe had a nice healthy ram lamb last night!

 

[SCLeppyLvr]

I can relate, we had our very first lambing experience with our first year ewe that was due in a week who delivered a stillborn ram lamb last night, it was very small compared to what i have seen on you tube or on here, a friend of my daughter's and a co-worker of mine both came out to help us check the ewe to make sure she wasn't carrying another. she wasn't, and the friend (who has lots of experience breeding) said the lamb seemed not normal size wise and it's belly was round and "waterlogged". so it wasn't meant to be.

BTW anyone know if you can use DE to get rid of "sheep mites" we had those when we first got this ewe, she was covered in them, we used a pesticide and sprayed it on her to kill em and thought they were gone, but now last night my daughter had one on her from being in the shelter, it bit her, so i want to spray or spread something that will kill them and keep them away.

They are little brown bugs that look a little like a tick, and if you squeeze them they don't die, but her FFA teacher said they aren't ticks, he called em sheep mites