Coccidiosis in 9 Week Old Ram Lamb

[rockdoveranch]

The ram lamb I posted about on 6-7-11 apparently has Coccidiosis. It is funny in that we discussed Coccidia with our vet awhile back because we have pigeons and chickens, but he said it rarely appears in sheep and not to worry about additional exposure from the birds.

Since sheep naturally have Coccidia in their digestive system and the disease usually does not present in young lambs unless they are stressed, I am somewhat baffled. The only stressful situation around here is the horrible drought and that the sheep are eating grasses all the way to the ground.

However, about a year ago we changed feed to a cheaper product that does not have Decoquinate in it. What is the saying? You get what you pay for! Tomorrow we are going to town to purchase the more expensive feed that has the preventative in it.

The lamb ram was going down again today but not rolling. I thought he had feces blocking his anus, but when we examined him closer there was no blockage. There was what looked like dried mud or poo in the area.

I cleaned him up good and left my husband holding him down to go back into the house to get a dose of vegetable oil for him. When I got back he had pooped out about 10cc's of bloody mucus.

We treated him with 2cc's of Amprolium and will continue daily for 5 days.

Any other suggestions or input?

Thanks All!

 

[ShadyAcres]

I use Deccox (6% Decoquinate) from pipestone vet supply (pipevet.com). A 2 lb bag is about $20. Add 2 lbs to 50 lbs of salt and feed free choice to the ewes about 3 weeks before lambing. Ewes typically have a small load of coccidia but have the immunity to keep under control. My first year lambing I lost a few lambs from this. Had never had sheep on this property before and it had been a few years since cattle had been on it. Before that it was unused for years. Coccidia typically does not cross species anyways, though many different animals can have it. Usually by 4 mos old lambs can go without any coccidiostats. You can also mix the Deccox in feed (2 lbs Deccox to 1 ton of complete feed) for additional control if you cannot find a feed with the additives. If you dont creep feed lambs, or if they arent eating enough grain due to good grass and / or moms milk, I just continue to keep the salt mix out. Have not had problems since the first year.

By the way, I have been a long time lurker before getting around to registering. Have to get my daily fix by checking out everyones posts! We have had sheep for about 6 years now and usually run anywhere from 30 to 50 head of White Dorper.

 

[rockdoveranch]

Thanks for all the great information ShadyAcres!

I will post more in a few hours to ask a few more questions. The only place we can find sheep pellets with DQ in it is an hour away and we are headed out the door now.

 

[rockdoveranch]

We are back home now.

We went to the only feed store in our surrounding counties that carries a large line of sheep products. It is in our biggest town around here of 60,000 people. There are only 18,000 in the county we live in, although there are 7 feed stores. Shiner beer is brewed in our county.

We did see a 5 pound bag of DQ granules to add to the feed, but we went ahead and bought Purina Sheep and Goat 16% DQ .0023% We have 19 ewes, one lamb born in January and 7 born in April, so we will be going through 1 bag every 2 days to make sure all the sheep are covered. We should be having more lambs within a month or so. Our big rams are on another pasture (safely far away from me) and they look good and have grass so we are not going to give it to them.

We keep liquid Amprolium on hand for our homing pigeons - 200+ of them, so that is what we are giving the ram lamb once a day. He looked good this morning and when we got home. He had been holding his tail out straight, but now it is down. I am sure his bottom was sore and hurting him.

We read to give him the Amprolium for 5 days. Would you agree with that?

I am grateful we decided to hold him down to get a better look at him, so I am hopeful he will pull through. Catching him in the working pen has not been much fun for him or us, poor lamb.

 

[ShadyAcres]

If I remember right, 5 days is fine. I think there was one mix you add to the drinking water, another to give as a drench. Drenching I knew they were getting the proper dosage. They hated the water mix and I was always concerned they wern't getting the proper amounts. There is also a bolus (labeled for calves) that I have used - Sustain I think it's called. It didn't take too many treatments and worked quick.

As far as preventative for the others, the medicated feed for the lambs should be fine as long as you can keep an eye on them and treat at any sign of diarrhea. Adult sheep are rarely bothered by them so I have never worried about preventative or medicated feed except just before lambing to get the little ones off to a good start.

I have talked to a few friends who are also experiencing coccidia for the first time this year. Must be this crazy weather we have been having. We are hot and dry too, though did finally get some rain this week!!! (I am in TN)

Good luck! Fortunatley you are on top of things - too many people don't catch it until they start loosing lambs (calves, chickens, etc).

 

[rockdoveranch]

Thank you for the information! We never ever had any health problems until the droughts started the end of 2008. We actually went through a brief time where we had sheep coughing. We concluded it was from inhaling the dust as they ate and walked through what was once gassy pastures. We are now trying to keep the dust down by keeping the soil damp.

I looked up Sustain and it is Sulfamethazine, a Sulfa drug, so it definitely would work too. I was going by Sheep 201: Sheep Diseases - http://www.sheep101.info/201/diseasesa-z.html#diarrhea - and it said to use Amprolium or sulfa medications. My husband found the same information on http://www.case-agworld.com/cAw.LUcocc.html.

The Amprolium we are using is supposed to be mixed in with the drinking water, but like you, we were afraid the sheep would not get the right dosage or drink it. My husband did the math calculations on the dosage so that we could give it to the lamb orally with a syringe.

Seriously, we would not have realized what was going on had we not caught the lamb to take a closer look at his back side, and had he not gotten frightened enough to poop while on the ground. We had not noticed any blood on the ground. So, all of this has just been a bit of luck on our part.

Interesting that you have a few friends who are experiencing the same thing. In my opinion too, it HAS to be the weather.

 

[rockdoveranch]

I wanted to give ya'll an update and let you know after 5 days of treatment the little ram lamb appears to have recovered fully. Apparently we caught it in time.

We will continue feeding the ewe and lamb herd with feed medicated with DQ for a full month.