 My own knowledge of these matters led me to initially think that maybe she was just a little sensitive to the lush pasture or maybe had a “touch” of gastroenteritis – after all, babies get it and usually it’s diagnosed as “a virus” and clears up spontaneously!
After a week, I began to doubt whether our sheep diarrhoea problem would resolve on its own. Lucy was beginning to look more like she had been sat in a bucket of brown paint and had diarrhoea stuck to her fleece and down her legs. Fortunately, with such a wet summer, my initial concerns regarding fly-strike were not uppermost in my mind but, I suppose, we only needed a warm spell over the next week for this to become an issue.
My concerns were:
- Was she really ill? It was still difficult to tell at this stage as she seemed active and was still eating and drinking. How do you spot a dehydrated sheep?
- What was the cause of her illness? If you type in “diarrhoea in sheep” into Google, you get some scary responses! Is it viral or bacterial, something to do with worms/parasites or the pasture, WHAT!!! – she has SCOUR!.... I don't know! My own book on sheep keeping didn't have a section “What to do if Lucy has diarrhoea” - can you believe it?
- If I just hung on a little longer, she might pick up, however I was fully aware she may also rapidly deteriorate and be found dead one morning. What if the other sheep all “caught” the diarrhoea too!
- She had been wormed and vaccinated. Although neither process guarantees eradication of diseases, I was reassured that she had some protection against many of the serious, life threatening ones.
Plan of action:
- Don the overalls, gloves, mask and eye goggles
- Enlist the help of my 10 year old child and isolate Lucy
- Whilst my daughter sings reassuring songs to Lucy, I gently hose down Lucy’s daggy rear ends
- On realising that this poo does not want to part with Lucy’s backside easily, I resort to my first ever attempt at sheep shearing. With a pair of scissors and a steady hand, I gently cut away the soiled fleece – Nicky Clarke - eat your heart out!
My – oops, sorry – OUR attempts to remove the soiled wool was very successful. It reassured me that the likelihood of fly strike had been considerably reduced and enabled me to have a “cleaner” canvas to observe Lucy over the next few days to see if she remained loose – life’s never dull!
As it happens her dropping returned to normal over the next two to three days with no specific treatment, so we think in this case it was probably just a minor infective diarrhoea and nothing more serious.
Some of the commoner causes of diarrhoea in sheep are outlined briefly below.
Causes of diarrhoea in sheep
Worms
The commonest cause of diarrhoea in sheep is worms, we knew this was unlikely to be the case in our sheep. As their pasture was clean and fresh, we had wormed (drenched) them from being young lambs and on inspecting their stools there has never been any evidence of worms.
Coccidiosis
This is an internal parasite that is particularly likely to infect lambs under 4 months. Coccidia are microscopic single celled organisms that live in the lining of the bowels. If they increase in numbers and get out of balance then they become symptomatic with loose dropping which can be brown/black and even bloodstained in severe infections. Treatment is with specific medications and moving the sheep to a fresh pasteur for a period is also key to elimination.
Yersinosis
These are bacterial organisms that can also cause bowel infections in sheep resulting in diarrhoea. It is usually a relatively minor illness that lasts only a week or so but if more severe then it can require antibiotics.
Salmonellosis
Luckily this is relatively rare in sheep but when it does occur it can cause severe outbreaks and leads to very unwell sheep and it can also cross over and cause human disease. Treatment is with antibiotics and samples of stool should carefully be taken to confirm the diagnosis and get treatment sooner rather than later.
Spring and autumn scours
When large changes occur in the vegetation that sheep are feeding on then intestinal upsets and diarrhoea can occur. This has been put down to a number of factors such as high concentrations of chemicals e.g. nitrates or potassium in the grass at these times of year or dead vegetable matter in the lower layers of grass. Again a change of pasteur at least as a trial is the best plan here.
Back to Sheep articles index
|
