Posted by Administrator on June 16 2005 11:14
Ovine Newsletter 4th Quarter 2005
Maximizing profitability on your sheep operation means maximizing the number of viable lambs. Being prepared for lambing season by having your supplies in order and being ready with disease prevention and treatment strategies will maximize your lamb crop.
The first step in obtaining on adequate lamb crop is having pregnant ewes. It’s not too late to have ewes pregnancy tested so you can sell open ewes. We have ultrasound services available for pregnancy checking. It is best to check them between 45 and 85 days of gestation. Care should also be taken is preventing abortions. There are two diseases that cause abortion in ewes late term. Campylobacter fetus, which is also called Vibrio, is commonly transmitted by ingestion of contaminated feed or contact with an infected fetus. The main way to bring Vibrio into an uninfected herd is to buy sheep that are infected. Carrier sheep carry the bacteria in their intestinal tract for up to 18 months. Vaccine is available for this disease, however, you should be vaccinating prior to breeding as well as a month later. If you have not vaccinated yet, the best prevention strategy is too not purchase any new animals and if you do you should keep them separate from the rest of your herd.
The other pathogen that causes late term abortion is Chlamydia psittaci, sometimes called Enzootic Abortion. Again, you can vaccinate for this disease pre-breeding and boostering three weeks later. If animals have not been vaccinated, one way to help prevent this abortion is to feed Aureomycin at 200mg per head per day the last six weeks of pregnancy.
Preventing baby lamb scours begins prior to lambing by vaccinating the ewes with Ewe-P-Bac. This vaccine can help prevent scours caused by E. coli as well as preventing pneumonia caused by Pasteurella. This vaccine should be given to the ewes six and two weeks prior to lambing. This will provide antibodies to prevent scours and pneumonia through the ewe’s colostrum.
Also, before the ewes lamb, it is also important to deworm them to decrease the worm challenge that will be presented to the baby lambs as well as decrease the ewes parasite load so she can be more efficient at milk production.
Maximizing protection to the baby lambs from Enterotoxemia (overeating disease) can also be obtained by vaccinating the ewes pre-lambing with a C&D vaccine. This Clostridium C&D vaccine can also be given at six and two weeks pre-lambing.