[Blackbelly] one udder
I had a somewhat strange thing happen to a ewe this spring. She literally lost an udder. The ewe had been nursing one lamb for a couple of months until one morning when she started acted sluggish and stopped nursing. I couldn't see anything different on her or find any injuries and I looked at her udder carefully. She lay down and didn't move much for nearly a week. She wasn't much interested in food or water either. When she finally started to recover, she had lost a lot of weight, and I could see that one side of her udder had begun to rot away. I figured that was the end of her, but she seems to have survived it. There is a hairless dark patch where the udder used to be, and she is back to normal, along with now being a nice trimmed size. (She was a fat, Great American breed.) Is this at all common for any kind of livestock to have a part of their body rot away and fall off? I am so surprised that I almost want to keep her to see if she can still produce and nurse lambs next year, but maybe that is not the most logical, practical thing to do? Rick Krach Auburn, California (530) 889-1488 _ The other season of giving begins 6/24/08. Check out the i’m Talkathon. http://www.imtalkathon.com?source=TXT_EML_WLH_SeasonOfGiving ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
Re: [Blackbelly] one udder
Hi Rick, What you have described is mastitis. I have had two ewes have this problem where the mastitis killed one side of the bag. I gave a lot of penicillin injections into the bad side of the bag to keep down infection. I also helped the bag come off with some barnyard surgery. The good news is the ewe can still have lambs. Check the remaining side of the udder and make sure it is still good and not hard. If the remaining side is still good and the ewe is a good mother she can still raise twins. It would be a good idea to keep a very close eye on the lambs to make sure they are getting enough milk. Mastitis is hard to keep contained to just one side of an udder but can be done. I found the biggest reason for mastitis is bummer lambs mugging a ewe for a meal. They bite the teat to hang on and the ewe literally drags these lambs around. The teats get injured and then infection sets in leading to mastitis. I have learned the hard way to grab these bummer lambs and separate them away from the moms ASAP. Mark Wintermute I had a somewhat strange thing happen to a ewe this spring. She literally lost an udder. The ewe had been nursing one lamb for a couple of months until one morning when she started acted sluggish and stopped nursing. I couldn't see anything different on her or find any injuries and I looked at her udder carefully. She lay down and didn't move much for nearly a week. She wasn't much interested in food or water either. When she finally started to recover, she had lost a lot of weight, and I could see that one side of her udder had begun to rot away. I figured that was the end of her, but she seems to have survived it. There is a hairless dark patch where the udder used to be, and she is back to normal, along with now being a nice trimmed size. (She was a fat, Great American breed.) Is this at all common for any kind of livestock to have a part of their body rot away and fall off? I am so surprised that I almost want to keep her to see if she can still produce and nurse lambs next year, but maybe that is not the most logical, practical thing to do? Rick Krach Auburn, California (530) 889-1488 ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
Re: [Blackbelly] one udder
Hi Rick, J.C. wonder if maybe she was bitten by snake. Do you have the brown recluse spiders in your area? Cathy LeapN Lambs On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 7:28 PM, Rick Krach [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I had a somewhat strange thing happen to a ewe this spring. She literally lost an udder. The ewe had been nursing one lamb for a couple of months until one morning when she started acted sluggish and stopped nursing. I couldn't see anything different on her or find any injuries and I looked at her udder carefully. She lay down and didn't move much for nearly a week. She wasn't much interested in food or water either. When she finally started to recover, she had lost a lot of weight, and I could see that one side of her udder had begun to rot away. I figured that was the end of her, but she seems to have survived it. There is a hairless dark patch where the udder used to be, and she is back to normal, along with now being a nice trimmed size. (She was a fat, Great American breed.) Is this at all common for any kind of livestock to have a part of their body rot away and fall off? I am so surprised that I almost want to keep her to see if she can still produce and nurse lambs next year, but maybe that is not the most logical, practical thing to do? Rick Krach Auburn, California (530) 889-1488 _ The other season of giving begins 6/24/08. Check out the i'm Talkathon. http://www.imtalkathon.com?source=TXT_EML_WLH_SeasonOfGiving ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info -- Cathy Mayton ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
