Hi, and welcome to the sheep show podcast dedicated to all things ovine. Thank you for joining me. I'm Jill Noble from Hallston Valley Farm and sheep stud and your host. This is your podcast To learn more, no more and achieve more when it comes to shepherding home with me as we explore the amazing world of sheep and sheep farming together.
Unknown Speaker :For those that know me, you probably know that I've recently befriended a feral cat.
Unknown Speaker :The cat's name is Gatto as an El Gato. So a Spanish name. And the reason I'm telling you this story is because I'd like to talk to you about a variety of diseases that impact us, pre lambing. So we've talked about lambing one on one when everything goes well. We've talked about lambing difficulties, so that's lambing 2.0. Now we're going to talk about the really ugly thing.
Unknown Speaker :When things die when you have abortions when you have stillborn lambs when your use actually go down when they really suffer pre lambing so particularly in this podcast episode we're going to talk about things that cause abortions in use and the things that will cause metabolic disturbances and metabolic disorders in pre lambing us as well. So it's seriously use, I suppose, the ugly side of lambing and the real challenging side of lambing, but the good news is, once you start to understand these a little bit more, you will start to see that there are ways that we can prevent these things. So things that we can actually do as shepherds that will minimize these issues from occurring. So let's start off by looking at abortions in in sheep in particular. So, there are a variety of causes that can result in abortion. So it is it is reasonably rare. So an enormous
Unknown Speaker :Little percentage of abortions in a flock of us is about, you know, one to 2%. So, I'm getting these statistics from different government, Australian government statistics. This is based on research, you can get what we would call an abortion storm, where about 5% if you getting 5% or more than really it does require classification and investigation. So the some some abortions are sort of considered normal and sometimes it can be really hard to know if your sheep has aborted and I'm going to talk to you about my personal experience this lambing season so far. But one of the challenges is of course, your sheep or your you could abort and you never know because the what's left or the incompletely formed fetus can be eaten by predators, foxes, giggles whatever it might be, or she might just never see it in your paddock, you know, so you might move your views on and
Unknown Speaker :And you never know. So and perhaps the first sign that we often will see is when we go to mark and we see a dry you or we're, if we're sort of closely monitoring our use, and you know which ones are due to lamb and you see, that one hasn't learned yet, or you're seeing that perhaps they're, you know, they're putting on weight, but no other development. So these sorts of things can can be really, really quite challenging. Now, of course, this is different from us being in fertile. So when the EU doesn't get pregnant at all, of course, that that, of course is a bit different to to the US and again, that that's something for us to explore at a later date.
Unknown Speaker :But when it comes to abortions in shape, there really are toxins that cause these, these challenges and and they're infectious. So they're, they're things that actually our our US will actually be infected with. And the other challenge here is that a lot of
Unknown Speaker :These infectious diseases are what we call zoonotic, which means that they can cause disease in people as well. So we we can actually suffer from them. So back to my feral cat, cats can cause one of these diseases. And this is toxo plasmosis. And it's a parasite that can cause abortions in small ruminants. What happens is that the cats can shed in their feces shed these parasites, and if cats like my feral cat is living in a shed, for example, or where you store your feed, then that cat feces can be deposited on that feed, or even in water potentially, and then your sheep or other small ruminants can become infected when they ingest that feed or ingest the water that's contaminated by those cat feces now
Unknown Speaker :I trust my feral cat.
Unknown Speaker :Sorry, I do. And but I do see her sitting on bales of straw and sitting on bales of hay. So constantly thinking, What are you up to? Now she's living outside and she brings me lots of mice and variety of different things. But of course, this is a challenge for me to constantly think about now we have been, as you've heard me talk about before we have been supplementary or adding to to the feed for our sheep for the last couple of weeks. Now primarily, I'm using a customized non GMO grain mix with a high acidosis buffer that we get specially made up by local feed mill, and it's stored in a silo. So I'm storing that in a closed environment. So I know for sure that there's no contamination there from my feral cat but I also was very, very lucky to get my hands on some clover hay from a local farmer.
Unknown Speaker :In January, we went into the paddock and picked it up. And my sheep and my sheep don't normally don't eat hay. They like this hay. So that's amazing. And I know my cat has been frequenting that particular hay shed. So what I'm trying to do is the top bales of the Haley's are small square bales, the top bales of hay, I will give those to my weathers, or my ewe lambs that aren't pregnant, or I'll feed them to our cows or horses. And then I will take the next layer down. So again, I'm trying to manage or reduce the chance of this cat my feral cat infecting those that those bales of hay. Now the reason I'm really telling you about this is because I've already had two abortions. Well, one abortion on one stillborn. I'm going to tell you a little bit about that as well. And sometimes again, this can be a result of this talk. So plasmosis issue and generally in late gestation, you're going to see it so random at the time that we're at. We're actually now
Unknown Speaker :Sometimes with the toxoplasmosis, the lambs are born alive, but really within with a compromised immune system, or their placenta is very damaged. And of course, it can lead to too weak lambs. So with my stillborn there's a possibility that that one could have been as a result of something like toxoplasmosis. And of course, I don't know where my feral cat is at night, she could be up around the where the sheep are, and of course could be infecting them as well. So it's just one of those challenges. But yeah, unfortunately, that's that is something last year, I think I had one or two abortions and uschi kind of start to see this where the larger your flock, the more likely you are or the more frequent you're going to see things like these happening. So that's something worth considering and just being aware of, particularly for a lot of us on farms, we have cats, you know that they're around but quite useful. And I love my ghetto. So,
Unknown Speaker :so that's something to be aware of. Some of the other things can be that
Unknown Speaker :They can cause abortion as well. Again, a lot of them are bacterial. So there isn't. There's another one called Cam fillo Bakker. And again, this this can be a big challenge with with causing abortions and so on. And And again, it's just a bacteria where once the sheep ingests this bacteria, it spreads into the uterus and can multiply and of course can result in abortions as well. And you can do an autopsy if you wanted to on the fetus. And if you can see things in the liver of that fetus, then you can identify if it's orange or yellow, you can identify that it is this killer bacteria causing causing some problems as well. So and this type of bacteria really survives quite well in cool wet situations. So a lot a lot more common in winter and an introduced by one
Unknown Speaker :Animals so this is the feces of crows and foxes when they would have ingested perhaps contaminated wild animals. So they've eaten roadkill for example, and as a result then can spread that around. There is some research on these particular bacteria which suggests that it can be cyclical so it can occur every couple of a couple of years now you can get a vaccine for for this particular one as well. But once once you've had abortions, and you think that this might be the cause there's no treatment so it's just one of those outbreaks as well. With with a few things to think about with with us that have aborted you wants to remove any material. So if you do see any fetuses placentas, you do need to move that and get that away from the environment as quickly as you possibly can. Because of course that can carry the bacterias that we're talking about. And it is better if you can to remove
Unknown Speaker :Those use from the other mob as well because of course they could possibly infect their their other mates to another one is as a result of
Unknown Speaker :a lot of poorly fermented feed like silent or spoilt feed, and this is listeria. So pretty typical again, humans can get that and it can actually cause quite a few diseases in sheep from abortions to septicemia meningitis and things like that as well. And again, you can check this one with the yellowing or white in the liver if you did want to do an autopsy on on your fetus for that particular one as well.
Unknown Speaker :And again, that one, if you do notice that they can be treated with antibiotics, of course, changing the feed, so sort of managing that the other one is salmonella as well. And again, this can be ingesting the bacteria
Unknown Speaker :And it could be a carrier shape or some sort of contamination from birds or other mammals as well who could carry this for example, chickens often have a lot of salmonella, or other birds carry a lot of salmonella. And, and again, what what you're looking for here is your use are sort of dull, lethargic, not just not themselves. And in this case, you will also get, you can get quite foul smelling bloody diarrhea, from your shape, as well. So those sorts of things can can be managed by antibiotics too. And then the other one that we haven't actually talked about much but it's worth mentioning and we'll talk about it a little bit detail because it's later on because it is quite important is brucellosis. So in Australia in particular, we recommend that you only buy your Rams from brucellosis accredited flock flocks and this is a disease that ramps
Unknown Speaker :In particular carry, I can result in infertility in RAMs, and it is as a result of homosexual activity in RAM. So that's how they often spread it. And it can cause if it is spread by a ram and perhaps that ram you have just has it as a carrier of it, it can cause again, late abortions and stillbirths or again, very, very weak lambs that will not survive and things like that. What you'll often see and this is what I saw with one of my young news actually, what what this string hanging out of her so I didn't see any placenta, I didn't see any actual fetus, but I didn't see cotyledons now called a lead and then we can describe it is it's like a little string of pearls hanging out of her, her vulva. And it's it can be smelly, and it can be quite thick, quite leathery. But if you start to see those hanging out, and I think I saw on a Facebook page, but if in doubt, pull it out. Again, you do
Unknown Speaker :Want to kind of get rid of that as much as you possibly can, and again, segregate that you or or that shape from, from the mob. So that's, I suppose just a little introduction to abortion. Again, bear in mind, even though we've just talked about all the different reasons why it could occur, it can just be one of those things, you know, sometimes that lamb is not going to be viable, sometimes that you just knows, you know, for her, it's just not not going to be possible for her to carry that lamb to full term, whatever. It just happens. It is just one of those. One of those things, unfortunately, the other area that's worth talking about E's, metabolic diseases in shape. Now, metabolic diseases is a group of conditions that cause or are caused by deficiencies of essential nutrients. And of course, they, they cause disease, they disrupt the normal metabolic process in that animal. So how they
Unknown Speaker :Process nutrients, how they process their, how their rumen works, for example, all these sorts of things. They they're they're very sort of diseases or conditions that are caused by lots of different things. So sort of multifactorial, and why I'm talking about them right now is because pre lambing, late pregnancy early lactation are times when there's a high stress high demand on our use, and high demand need for nutrients. So you can imagine just like any person, any any any animal, there is a huge demand on the body when that person or animal is in like pregnancy particularly in our you flock, where and particularly in the year that we've gone and we talked about this with Brett, where we may may see multiple lambing so we may see and I know in in our you flock we've seen lots
Unknown Speaker :triplets and lots of quads in Australia so far this year. And again, that's kind of what you get. But of course, what you need to be aware of is that with that, you can get a lot more of these metabolic issues actually, actually happening. Now, the challenge here with these metabolic diseases is the conditions overlap, they often look very similar. And often you might have one or more disease at the same time, which of course, complicates it. So again, prevention is if we can is really important, and again, treatment or how you going to deal with it, you'd really need to be aware and a lot of it this is just about planning, prevention as much as you can and then and then planning. So one of the ones that most of us probably are very aware of is one called pregnancy toxemia or often called twin lamb disease. Now cows can get this as well. And what this is, is where the animal is deficient in
Unknown Speaker :GE so they have a fall in their blood glucose when they have increased energy demand which course in late pregnancy early lactation they're going to have, if they don't eat enough to meet that demand, then they will start to use other resources for energy. So effectively, you will start to use her own body fat. And this is going to lead to a production of a byproduct in a chemical byproduct in their body, and it's a ketone. Now, I don't know if you've ever done a high protein diet, but this can sometimes happen to us as well. And of course, the challenge is the toxins are in excess. When when you start to see this twin lamb disease is when the animal is on poor feed, or they're already in poor body condition or again, there's there's additional stress additional demand. So large fetuses, twins, triplets, over fat. These are all situ situations that are highly prone to pregnancy toxemia
Unknown Speaker :Think about it that you that's pregnant. If she's got two or three lambs, her rumen is smaller, her demand for nutrients is higher, but the space inside her is smaller. So if you give her the normal feed grass, for example, she simply will not be able to consume as much grass as she needs to because the space that she has is very limited. So what this means is that we need to make sure that the feed that's available is higher in protein, and denser I suppose, and hiring energy as well. So that pregnancy toxemia doesn't happen. Of course, what feed is higher in energy, higher wind protein? Well, this is where you start to think about supplementing supplementary feeding with grain with Lucerne, something that would be of a higher percentage of protein and we're probably looking at 1213 14% if we can or more
Unknown Speaker :have protein as much as we possibly can. So again, this is where we can prevent it now, so let's look at this. So your animal to know if your animal has pregnancy toxemia, they will just be depressed, they'll be lethargic, or they will be reluctant to eat. They'll be slow to get up from lying down, they can actually show neurological signs that these are things like ryegrass, staggers, stargazing, tremors, blindness, this sort of stiff or staggering gait when they're getting up. And of course, that can actually result in death. So and again, the other thing is, you can get other issues, again, multifactorial, things like mastitis can occur as a result of these metabolic diseases. So it can literally just be like a domino effect. You get one you get you get them all. So how do you prevent it? Well, adequate, good quality feed, and if you can, particularly if you know you, you've had a good season there.
Unknown Speaker :probably already have had a good flush there, they're carrying multiple lambs, then you need to really think about making sure they're in good condition, first of all, so condition scoring your use, and then if you can increase that protein in the feed, and this, hopefully will, will ensure that you don't get it at all. So it's preventable. If you do get it, then you're down the treatment route. And what you need to do is you need to increase and boost those blood glucose levels. And this is where you can get a pink liquid called keto, which you can give orally to your, you know, in a little syringe, and over about a week or so it's absorbed so you continue to administer it, and then they they're able to metabolic eyes, the glucose in their liver, and again, any good quality feed, it will help in that as well. If it's really bad, you can get your vet to do an intravenous infusion of glucose as well. Now of course will give a much quicker boost but relax
Unknown Speaker :A short time, so you would need to be able to give ongoing treatment to your you with with that. So again, prevention is much, much better than cure and the amount or so that that again, check with your vet, but you're probably looking at about 125 mils of this solution for a week or 10 days or so, but I will definitely be going with advice from your vet. So that's pregnancy toxemia twin lamb disease or ketosis, the other two then incredibly multi multifactorial, so one is hypo calcium Yeah. And then the other is grass tetany or grass staggers or hypo magnesium.
Unknown Speaker :So calcium, magnesium so this is this sort of balance and nutrition that our our US need. So let's look at the the first one I mentioned which is hypercalcemia hypercalcemia is is often called milk fever.
Unknown Speaker :due to low blood calcium, now calcium in our use is important for lots of different processes. So again, this is where the
Unknown Speaker :metabolism comes into it heart muscle function, blood levels. Obviously, with a growing fetus there, the requirements are really high, she really needs to maintain those blood levels. And what will happen is she will start to use calcium from her bones. And this is of course not not good for for the EU at all. And milk fever will occur if the she's just struggling to keep up with that need for for for calcium and again, times of stress or if you change their grazing, if they go from low roughage, high roughage lush, if there's a lot of oxalates. So these are chemicals which bind calcium to form insoluble salts. All these sorts of things can be a predisposition to
Unknown Speaker :To milk fever, again, what you will see in your animal is stiff, staggering gait. So again, they'll be sitting and they'll really struggle to get up muscle tremors, weakness, the lie down a lot the lie on their chest to their side, they'll be depressed. And of course that can also result in death again, sounds similar. This is one of the challenges because all of these metabolic diseases show very, very similar tendencies, very similar signs. So what do we do again, prevention much better than treatment if we can, if we can look at that, but this is where we want to make sure that our use have again good quality, a good quality grain, and again, we start to increase supplements. So leeks for example, will will help particularly if they if they're grazing particular pasture, vitamin D will help with the absorption
Unknown Speaker :of calcium. And of course, this is where you can give different injections to to your use pre lambing as well, you should probably think about encouraging them to
Unknown Speaker :sort of store calcium more or manage calcium as much as you possibly can. So even grazing pastures that are hiring calcium, so you've got clover that will be recommended, those sorts of things. So So trying to try to manage that and of course avoiding stress. So you will often see these sort of metabolic diseases apparent when you start to move your sheep or you put your sheep through the yards, there will be ones perhaps lagging behind and again, those are additional times of stress when they're when they're been moved. So trying to be gentle and cam and move your animals in a in a sort of a more leisurely fashion around this time is is good, good advice as well. So what treatment then if it does happen, and you do see it
Unknown Speaker :In your flock in your use, well, this is where you need to give them a calcium solution. So you might be familiar with a sort of a pillow pack called min cow or min bow. And that's administered through quite a large subcutaneous needle over a variety of spots, perhaps in your animal on their body to have it absorbed. You can of course get your vet to help you with this as well you will see that they will improve really quickly but you might need to do it a few times keeping them warm, dry, you know those sorts of things can can help and again, good feed as well will will really help and again for for sheep, you're probably looking at giving 100 hundred and 50 meals of of this and you'll even I was able to find this recently in my produce store so it can be just literally bought over the counter and administered yourself so it's good to have it on hand. And the reason I'm talking about this to you
Unknown Speaker :Well, because I have seen this as well in my shape. So I've been giving them links. So I've been using a calcium magnesium licked block to help them. And I've been adding some loose lick as well to their feed. And that has helped but I am waiting at the ready in case I need to do this subcutaneous injection as well. So, but they're all still coming for feed. They're all lying down, of course a lot because they're very heavily pregnant. So that's normal. It's just about well, do they still stand so can you go up and touch them, that's probably not a good sign. They're probably the needing a bit of intervention if that's the case, and then the other one is grass tetany and this is as a result of low blood levels of magnesium grass, tetany grass, daggers, good magnesium essential for muscle and nerve function. And if your animal is not absorbing enough of this in their diet,
Unknown Speaker :Then you might also start to see this happen well this this appear parent I mentioned that these particular metabolic diseases are multifactorial. So, one of the things can be particularly with grass tetany is that if the pasture has been fertilized by potassium based fertilizers, then the absorption of magnesium can be impacted. So, magnesium absorption can be interfered with by other material and minerals, particularly potassium. So, and of course, if you're using a sort of an NPK type traditional fertilizer then this can be an issue. So this is the sort of thing where we're sort of playing with as well Gary and I have been particularly talking about prevention of grass tetany by using multi species cropping so looking at well what grasses species could we grow or cover
Unknown Speaker :crops could we grow, that would ensure that there would be enough magnesium and of course, calcium as well. But magnesium here in particular is what we're talking about. So that when the US are eating grass, particularly in that sort of last six weeks or so the last stage of gestation, that they would be able to access these minerals in the feed, and then all we'd really have to manage is the pregnancy toxemia. So really looking at that, in particular, and this is where we see like for us at the moment in our pasture we have we're very lucky, it's quite lush, it's quite green, but it's a lot of winter rye grass. So that's obviously meaning that in some of our pastures, that's all there is there. There's food there, there's food on the ground, but of course that will mean that one species will or could be deficient in nutrients and particularly where there is lush green
Unknown Speaker :grass, you might see that there are these metabolic diseases appear because effectively their honor as sort of a mono culture of mono species diet. And again, the symptoms of grass tetany will be stiffness, staggering gait, tremors, blindness, sometimes they can get sort of really nervous and excitable, sometimes it's drowsy depressed, they'll be lying down. And of course death can can occur. And in some instances with particularly with grass, tetany, all you see is death. It's just they're dead. And of course, that's not what we want, at all. So to prevent it, again, think about that multispecies type cropping and this is something we're going to explore in some future podcasts as well. So what exactly would be a good combination to try and grow and how to do that? You know, a lot of our pasture is not tractable.
Unknown Speaker :So we need to look at other alternatives to so out and introduce different species into our pasture so that we can get that diversity. But of course prevention can be in the form of licks, magnesium related leeks and I've been trying even Epsom salts adding some Epsom salts it is a laxative. So you do need to be careful with it and and anything where that you would you would have perhaps we you know the levels of potassium in your soil. So if you're aware of your your soil mineral makeup, then you can sort of try and make some decisions around where you might graze those sheep coming up to those final stages of of gestation. If you do see these signs of signs of grass tetany then it's back to that subcutaneous injection that I mentioned. So particularly here, the min bow or the pillow pack four and one is, is used on account of course you can you can consult your vet, but you can
Unknown Speaker :Get this product over the over the counter as well. So and we're looking at regular doses trying to increase it, you will again see they will respond very quickly but you do need to perhaps continue it and you're looking at you know, 400 kilos, you or 80 kilos 100 250 male so so quite a lot subcutaneously administered for for managing those so prevention better than cure being aware of these two particular challenges the bacterial impact with all of those particularly that can result in abortions stillborn lambs that are not viable. And then the metabolic diseases and of course, metabolic diseases can actually occur at any at any stage, not so much the pregnancy toxemia. But at any stage of stress, you can start to see these metabolic diseases but pregnancy of course, is the highest period of stress that we're going
Unknown Speaker :Have for our use. So that's when we will see them see the parent, as well. I guess the real learning here for us, and hopefully for for a lot of you is that this is something we need to start managing months ago. Yeah. So when it gets to these stages and you're like me, you start to sort of see some of the signs. I mean, I'm seeing it. I've got 100 hundred years or so at the moment that I'm that I'm learning and, you know, I'm just seeing a tiny piece, but still, it's there. You know, still I've had a good one bortion and one sort of stillborn on viable lamb. Again, I'm putting that down to that. That's probably the normal percentage, but the metabolic diseases are something that we can really start to prevent. So loose links, mineral injections in the pre lambing, diversity of pasture managing the soil, being aware of your
Unknown Speaker :So on nutritional levels, supplementary feeding, and then being prepared. So you know, being prepared for those eventualities or being prepared for the sort of disasters, and sometimes that's exactly what we just need to do. So trying to prevent as much as we can and then trying to be prepared as much as we can this series here. This podcast is going to be part of a lambing diary series. So I'm going to continue to share with you my journey warts and all of lambing, my biggest lamb numbers that I've ever had to lamb, and hopefully, you'll learn along with me as I as I learned and research and talk to people and and find out some of the challenges. Hopefully the news will get better. I am expecting some lambs this week. So hopefully by the time we talk next week, we will have some lambs and they'll all be lovely, joyful.
Unknown Speaker :bouncy baby lambs are around the place. And and that's really what what we want. And I'll be able to tell you a little bit about how those how those situations go and and what joys I can share with you. But yeah shepherding is is sometimes the highs and the lows, as I've mentioned before and, and these things that we just talked about today are definitely some of the more challenging things. But hey, that's some. That's all part and parcel of it. It's all a learning tool, an opportunity for us to get better, happy lambing, wherever you may be. Or if you're in other parts of the world, you might be coming to the end of summer, and you might be starting to mark your lambs and weigh your lambs. So interesting for you. You're in a position where you can prepare, I suppose, for joining and ensure that some of these things that we've just talked about, you can prevent them as much as possible. You've been listening to the sheep show podcast with Jill Noble from holston Valley farm, please take a moment to rate and review this podcast.
Unknown Speaker :On your preferred podcast app each rating and review helps us fulfill our goals of helping you learn more, no more and achieve more when it comes to all things. Oh, Vine, thanks so much for listening. Until next time, sheep well Transcribed by https://otter.ai