# Ewe lambing emergency



## jambi1214 (Oct 31, 2022)

I have a ewe that lambed twins yesterday. Ate and drank well yesterday. VERY flighty ewe so almost unable to handle. Got her and lambs confined. She has a low BCS and barely has milk. Have supplemented lambs with colostrum. She has chaffaye alfalfa grain and won't eat. She is desperate from her herd so unsure if she is stressed. It was a surprise lambing so she was not adequately fed prior. Started grain yesterday and she has diarrhea. Unable to temp. No tremore. Laying down and will move.around some but is mainly just staining there as lambs try to nurse. They are not constantly crying and besides being small seem ok. Gave her some sheep drench had on hand....help afraid to loose her @secuono @Baymule anyone else I can tag? Thank you


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## mysunwolf (Nov 5, 2022)

Sounds like it could be milk fever honestly. How is she doing? I realize it's been a while since you posted.


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## Ridgetop (Nov 5, 2022)

If she has milk fever or just ack of nutrients, stress can cause any problems to get worse.  If you could drench her you could give her a paste of Tums crushed in an electrolyte solution.  Tums have a lot of calcium in them which would be helpful if it is Milk Fever.  If is is a nutritional lack from her pregnancy, you can give electrolytes in her water bucket.  If she will eat grain, you can pour some molasses or Karo syrup over it for sugar energy.  There used to be a liquid protein supplement called Dyne which I used occasionally years ago.  Since she is not eating, she could have some other underlying problem.  

Since she is very stressed in the barn alone can you bring some of her flock mates into the barn and put them in adjacent pens?  This may lower the stress level and calm her down.  Are you willing to bottle feed the lambs?  Keep them on a bottle 2x daily until her milk comes in.  If she calms down and eats some grain and electrolytes, she can nurse them between bottles and build up her milk.  If she continues downhill remove the lambs. simply raise them on bottles, and return her to the flock to recover.  Since she is producing very little milk, she will dry up naturally and you can let her regain strength unti time to breed her again.


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## jambi1214 (Nov 5, 2022)

She did die 24 hours later and we are now bottle feeding her babies. The information is very helpful though. Thank you.


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## Ridgetop (Nov 6, 2022)

So sorry about loss of ewe.  We had a ewe that didn't push, I had to massage vulva to open cervix and pull lambs out. Twin.  Mother was in bad shape and we were leaving for TX.  DS1 checked ewe and she couldn't breath with snotty nose and mouth clogged.  He cleaned out her mouth and nose and she was able to drink.  I had him give her LA 200 for week since she continued to drain from nose.  Over phone I figured summer pneumonia.  We were all out of town for another week.  She also got mastitis in one side of her udder.  If we had been in town I would have pulled the ewe lamb and bottle fed.  Instead ewe lamb died but ram lamb survived.  When DS2 returned he resumed LA 200 for another week and ewe pulled through.  I sold her and lamb who was stunted.  She had lambed and raised twins successfully twice before.


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## mysunwolf (Nov 8, 2022)

jambi1214 said:


> She did die 24 hours later and we are now bottle feeding her babies. The information is very helpful though. Thank you.



Sorry for the loss of your ewe, I know these things happen! And it could have been so many things. Lambing is definitely a very stressful time for ewes.


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## jambi1214 (Dec 4, 2022)

We are doing great!!! Life is becoming easier


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## farmerjan (Dec 4, 2022)

Lambs look good.  One thing you can be thankful for, through the loss of the ewe, is at least you can handle the lambs and no more flighty craziness... Small consolation, but you sometimes have to just be thankful for the small things like that.


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## SageHill (Dec 6, 2022)

jambi1214 said:


> View attachment 94813
> We are doing great!!! Life is becoming easier


Beautiful lambs!


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