Is there a urine test for pregnancy in sheep?

[gun barrel fibre]

For the urine pregnancy test... the urine sample is injected in young virgin female rabbits , then the rabbit is sacrificed to check the ovaries for egg production, if yes, the ewe is pregnant.
Historically the Hampshire is a large meat breed sheep and has a wide front end conformation which often causes difficulty in wool type ewes in giving birth without assistance. Hampshire ewes included. The Hampshire lossed out to the Suffolk in the range slaughter lamb production due to this. You will be wise to attend the births of lambs as often you will have to pull the lambs / assist in the delivery process. Good luck.

 

[gun barrel fibre]

I remember in the old days that poor rabbits had to sacrifice their lives for us fickle humans . Thankfully there is another type of test now adays which I just found out about thanks to mysunwolf. I would never do that to the rabbit for my sheep. Yes I liked your comments about the front end conformation. Valuable wisdom on attending births. I was able to attend all births so far but it was tricky and time consuming and it was apparent that the first time ewes needed help.I will be planning things a little better for next time.

 

[gun barrel fibre]

Yes but can you imagine a range flock shepherd following around each of their 50, 100, or 1,000 ewes for a urine sample? Don't worry, most folks don't have to worry about toxemia as long as you've talked to your vet and nutritional folks and have a dedicated plan. Or once you have older ladies. Time enough to learn. BCS is just nice to know if you're making your girls so fat that you're wasting feed or decreasing their productivity.

I just have a small herd here and when I stress them by moving them out of the routine they will pee for me. lol I thought I had a plan but it needs to be revamped obviously. This particular ewe that I lost to toxemia didn't present symptoms that were clear to me. She also had twins previously with the same ram. And was an aggressive eater. I think where I went wrong was a change of feed suddenly a month back that caused problems. It gave her diarrhea for 2 days. I changed feed companies . just guessing though but it was something I did wrong that spiralled out of control for me. She was my favourite sheep a silver Romney so it haunts me.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

For the urine pregnancy test... the urine sample is injected in young virgin female rabbits , then the rabbit is sacrificed to check the ovaries for egg production, if yes, the ewe is pregnant.
Historically the Hampshire is a large meat breed sheep and has a wide front end conformation which often causes difficulty in wool type ewes in giving birth without assistance. Hampshire ewes included. The Hampshire lossed out to the Suffolk in the range slaughter lamb production due to this. You will be wise to attend the births of lambs as often you will have to pull the lambs / assist in the delivery process. Good luck.

Very interesting facts on the pregnancy tests and Hampshire breed issues. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Latestarter]

It seems it's always the favorite animals that we lose unexpectedly.

 

[mystang89]

Ok, when I first read the comment about the rabbit being sacrificed I imagined some virgin rabbit being sacrificed to the sheep gods and then divining whether the ewe is pregnant. Of course I thought this was all a very funny joke. After reading more of the comments I'm not just confused. So I'll just ask.........huh?

 

[Latestarter]

In the bad/good old days, they would use a live rabbit to determine pregnancy... You've probably heard the term, "The rabbit died"... They would inject it with the woman's (who was being tested for pregnancy) urine and if the rabbit died, it meant the woman was pregnant. If the rabbit lived, not pregnant. Since rabbits got more expensive, they then moved to (I believe) frogs, to do the same test. A lot cheaper, less space requirements, same results. Now of course, that is considered barbaric and there are chem strips that detect the pregnancy for humans and I believe animals, but not as accurate for animals.