Michael,
Sounds like it is a back leg? If so, check her udder. Feel it for
fever, and also feel each of the teats. Also get down under her (or
gently set her up on her rear) and visually examine the entire udder
to look for signs of infection. If any part of it is hot, inflamed,
infected, abcessed, or if any of the teats are hot or hard, she could
have mastitis, and the pain could be radiating into the leg. It is
not likely, but if you would by chance have this and it goes
undiagnosed, it can kill her, so better to check it out and be
safe. Sometimes limping on a back leg can be the "red flag" symptom
of mastitis.
Ruling out mastitis, and if there are no foul smells or irritated
tissue on the bottom of hoof, then the other thing to check for is an
abcess in the interdigital gland (the gland between the two toes on
the front of the hoof, just where the hoof stops and the black hair
begins). Sometimes a hard cyst develops there. You can usually
relieve that by squeezing out the cyst through the front.
Other than these two things, I cannot think of anything
else. Perhaps she has sprained her leg a little and it just needs
time to recover.
Good luck!
Mary Swindell
At 04:23 PM 3/6/2012, you wrote:
Could use some advice on what to look for here.
older (not sure how old, but she's my oldest) AB ewe shows up limping
yesterday. I had planned on trimming hooves anyway so I penned her and
trimmed while taking a look. No foul smells, no oozing, no
discoloration I could see. No swelling of joints or apparent apparent
break. Joints moved in the right direction and freely. Did not trim
into the quick or make her bleed. I have done that once and seen a ewe
limp for a few days, but in this case, was careful. She can grow some
pretty long eagle claws for hooves, but usually only on her back feet.
The fronts really required little trimming.
Today her limp is not better, and might be worse. In general, she does
get up and move slow and might be developing Osteoarthritis.
Incidentally, she's also mostly deaf.
Not sure how to proceed other than to pen her for a week, feed her,
keep her real dry (covered pen) and apply hoof drench? I have a
splint I could vet-wrap onto the joints, but not sure if the hoof
itself is what is hurting... I also could wash her hoof and inspect
between the toes a bit better. Did not really do that.
In general the sheep have dry, green grass pastures and are not in a
manure and urine-filled muddy paddock, like some livestock can be. Our
rain has been maybe 1/2" every 10 days lately. Never had a problem
with any hoof-related diseases in 4 years and with 15 sheep and pygmy
goats.
-Michael, Perino Ranch Blackbellies.
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