chronic diarrhea

[Hillsvale]

I have a 8 month old suffolk ewe that has diarrhea for ages, 4 weeks or so.... her rear is caked up and it can't be good for her. She is active and eating fine... same as usual.

Everyone else is fine, 8 sheep and 4 goats.... just her runny butt, I have wormed her with no change... she is eating the same that everyone else is.

Ideas?

 

[SheepGirl]

Some ewes will have poopy behinds but that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong.

 

[Hillsvale]

well she certainly doesn't seem ill in any way.... turds clumped to her legs aren't very attractive though

 

[that's*satyrical]

Have you tried pro-biotics?? They are supposed to help keep the natural balance. They are a supplement & reasonably priced.

 

[ksalvagno]

When you say you have wormed her, did you do a fecal first? You could be worming her with the wrong wormer depending on what parasites she has.

 

[Hillsvale]

I gave her 1 cc of ivomec orally, more preventative than anything.... I did not do a fecal as that vet is an hour in the opposite direction however if it were worms then the others should be displaying symptoms are well I should think.

The probiotic paste that I can fnd around here is for horses.... everything is for horses. :/ I may be able to find the greek yogurt locally, it has live cultures Today she isn't so poopy though but it seems to cycle.

 

[ksalvagno]

I did not do a fecal as that vet is an hour in the opposite direction however if it were worms then the others should be displaying symptoms are well I should think.

Not necessarily. Some animals are more prone to being affected by parasites than others. I would see if a local dog vet would be willing to do it or you could collect a fresh sample and mail it to a lab like your state vet lab.

 

[Hillsvale]

lol

We done have a local state (or Province) lab.... perhaps the vet school. Our extention services are sketchy. If it got mailed the sample would be 4 days old before it ever reached its destination.

 

[Southdown]

I have this same problem with two of my lambs right now. It has been going on since I brought them home in June 2011. I have done two fecal samples with my veterinarian. He initially detected coccidiosis, so we treated the whole flock with some medicine for that. While the rest of the flock was fine, the two lambs still have ongoing diarrhea. :/ So we did a second stool sample. This time the vet said they had worms. That's funny, because I have been worming everyone with Valbazen. So I bought some Ivermectin and administered that to everyone. Once again, everyone is fine except the two lambs. The vet said that "in theory" sheep will get over coccidiosis on their own. We have not done a third stool sample because now it is the middle of Winter. But I just don't know what's going on here. Why do the two lambs have chronic diarrhea? I read the earlier comment about probiotics and that does sound like a good idea. Where can I purchase some for sheep?