# Cleft Palate?



## SheepGirl (Jan 3, 2013)

I didn't want to post this in "Diseases," because, well, I don't really think it's a disease, nor am I looking for a cure or a fix for it. But I was taking pictures of my sheep, including random ones (lol) but when I uploaded this photo I noticed that Ali has a split in her upper dental pad? Could this be a form of a cleft palate? She's never had an issue eating, but it sure makes me wonder... I tried to research it a little bit, but nothing really came up. Has anyone ever seen or dealt with anything like this? These past couple of months is when I've really started to actually look at my sheep's mouths so I've never paid much attention to any of the other sheep I've been around. hmmmmmmm


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## bonbean01 (Jan 3, 2013)

I've never seen that before...so no help from me


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## goodhors (Jan 3, 2013)

Split could be the result of an injury, poor healing.  To me a Cleft Palate
would incude the split going thru the whole gum, maybe including the 
actual palate above her tongue.  Of course there are degrees of 
severity in a Cleft issue, from small splits on into major holes in the 
upper palate that would make food or drink intake problems for the animal.

Maybe you could put this in "Blemish" as a catagory.  In horses a blemish 
disfigures an animal, but doesn't affect their usefulness in work or 
production.  Could be from an injury, scar, or maybe from birth, like a
wry tail (bent to one side all the time, though still swishable for bugs).
I don't think Cleft Palate is inherited, never heard that it was.  Just 
for some reason, the halves of the body don't connect properly or fully
before birth.  Baby people get surgery to correct the Cleft problem, but 
animals could be too expensive to fix.

Using the Blemish catagory, you could add other oddities as you come 
across in the future.

A second catagory of "Faults" with weak body parts, might also be 
helpful.  Things one should look for to avoid in purchases of stock.
These could easily be inherited if you used these animals for breeding,
making for a weak animal or flock.


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