Ewe just lambed... toxemia and/or acidosis... advice...needed... moved from 911.
Apr 27, 2017 22:41:21 GMT -5
Post by petebert on Apr 27, 2017 22:41:21 GMT -5
Ewe due this week went down Monday afternoon. Vet came out, said she had ketosis, gave her an IV of something, a vitamin B shot and started us on a propylene glycol regiment. She also had some pudding consistency poo and he felt she had some acidosis too but didn't have much to say about that. I forgot at the time but the day before I had a group of cows and lambs get loose into the barn and get into the chicken food. I'm now wondering if she ate a bunch of the chicken food and acidosis is the bigger issue here.
She perked up with a few hours of the vet being here. She hasn't stood up all week but her eyes were bright and alert, she could hold her head up and was looking around the barn. I've seen her nibble on some hay throughout the week but not much and no cud chewing. She has been having large bowel movements every day and they stink really bad, very bitter smelling.
Last night I go into the pen to clean up her latest bowel movement and give her the propylene glycol. She hadn't stood up all week, just scooted around the pen a bit. While I had the pen door open she scoots out into the middle of the barn just using her back legs. Because I want to make sure she has fresh hay available at all times without the other animals eating it, I drag her back into her pen and give her the glycol. Within 30 minutes she starts to show signs of labor, although she doesn't have the energy to do much. Saw a sack under her that didn't look very good so we get ready to pull lambs. First lamb is dead and absolutely massive, took us a while to get it out. I'm guessing it weights 20lbs. Maybe dead for a couple days? My arms would had brown slime on them after working on this lamb. Surprisingly we then pulled a live lamb from her, healthy strong, normal sized lamb. We put it by the ewes head and she starts cleaning it.
Mom still won't stand up. We got the lamb to nurse with the mom laying down. We verified she is producing milk and it's now been 12 hours, lamb is still alive and didn't have much interest in a bottle last night so I think it had a full stomach.
Was a little unsure of giving her molasses water due to what I'm guessing is acidosis but I really wanted to get some energy into her. She ended up drinking a gallon of it last night, good thing about this is she's barely been drinking water all week. I had been giving her water via a drench gun.
So now onto today. Another nasty BM. I decided to get her out of the pen and into a quiet pasture with just a few other ewes in it. I think the fresh air will be good for her and the weather will be good for a couple days. She smells pretty gross, with that bitter smell. We even took teat wipes and cleaned her up quite a bit last night. We slid her into the pasture on a sled, she did get up and walk about 20 feet but now she's laying down again.
So questions, are we looking at acidosis? If so is the molasses water a bad idea or should we make that available? Same question for the propylene glycol. Should I switch over to a acidosis drench and do you have a recipe/dosage for that? Anything else I should run up to the feed store to get her to try and get her on her feet.
Update: I actually typed all that up on a sheep forum I go to about 12 hours ago but it's been down most of the day. So we're now 24 hours post birthing. No significant changes to mom. I tried to focus on baking soda/water mixtures throughout the day but didn't see any changes. She started to look stressed out around 4pm so I gave her another proplyene glycol dosage. She ate a little bit of hay a couple of hours later and looks to be doing better. I brought her another 1/2 gallon of molasses water and again she drank almost all of it within a couple of minutes. Lamb is still doing well. Doesn't have much interest in colostrum replacer from a bottle. I can make sure it eats by holding moms leg up to give it access to a teat.
So now I'm thinking I should keep a supply of molasses water with her. I have a tube of probios, should I give her any of that?