Lamb was going downhill fast, but then not?

[Anne's rabbit farm]

I have a seven week old ram lamb (twin) that seemed like he was going downhill pretty fast. He kept laying down, and then someone would bother him( or step on him because he laid down right in front of them, and he'd move again somewhere else. I figured he was just tired since midday is naptime here, but he seemed more tired than normal. He then started rolling onto his side and kicking his back legs, and when he got back up, his right back leg seemed a little weak.

It kept getting worse and worse over the course of a half hour, getting up, hobbling somewhere else, flopping back down and kicking, getting back up again, until his whole back end was super weak and he looked absolutely exhausted. I rushed and gave him Selenium and vitamin e paste and Probios and came back inside to figure out what may be wrong/ what I could do. The only livestock vet here only wants to play around with rich peoples' horses, and is rarely available, so that unfortunately wasn't an option.

Fifteen minutes later I went back out and he was up walking around like normal, looking for food. He still looks tired, but again, its naptime, so who knows. He's peeing and pooping normally.

Fifteen minutes after that (while I was writing this) he was eating hay with his brother and had a bounce in his step again.

I'm glad he's better but I'd like to know what was wrong, and how to prevent it from happening again if possible. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Mike CHS]

Selenium deficiency is more common in high rainfall areas while vitamn E deficiency occurs when sheep are on dry feed for long periods. Both trace elements can be provided as a supplement. Our first fix for our sheep is to give a drench that has B12, selenium and I don't remember what all it has. We routinely give a drench whenever we bring them in to pull fecal samples whether they are showing problems or not.

One question though - Are you providing free choice sheep mineral? Other than parasite problems, vitamin/mineral deficiency can cause the most problems

Edit to add another question - is the lamb on his dam or already weaned?

 

[secuono]

In a weird way, it sounds similar to colic. 🤔
Nothing to do now, if it was colic, if you don't know what may of caused it. New feed, ate a bad plant, ate non food item that got stuck but them worked its way out.

 

[Anne's rabbit farm]

Thanks for your replies
I'm feeding grass hay, alfalfa pellets and sweet feed. Floods this past fall and winter killed off most of the grass, so they're in a dry lot. So high rainfall and dry feed.
I'm haven't been able to find sheep minerals in my area, but one of the tractor supplies a few counties over said that they had some, so I'll try to run by there the next time I'm in the area.
The lamb isn't weaned yet, but he's set to be weaned next week. He and his twin picked their poor mother off the ground this morning with how hard they went at her udder.

 

[mysunwolf]

My lambs do this after banding tails and/or testicles. So it's possible that he was stepped on and got hurt and showed it. Then once it started to feel better, he improved.