diarrhea in new lambs

[Robyn8]

Any suggestions on how to clean the diarrhea off these lambs? I tried on Wednesday and it did not go well. They were very stressed and only got a little cleaner. I tried a hose and a little dog shampoo. Should I just shave off the wool instead?

 

[Southern by choice]

yep

 

[Mike CHS]

Make sure that you 'fixing' the problem doesn't stress them out enough to make matters worse.

I have hair sheep and just hose them off with a light brushing but you want to avoid "fly strike" so I would think you would cut it off. I hate to give incorrect advice but I'm not familiar with wool sheep so helpfully someone else will chime in. The few times I've been around wool sheep they cut it away and had a term for it. Seems like it was "dag" but I'm not sure.

edit: I see she did.

 

[Sheepshape]

Just noticed this post, and hope the lambs are recovered/recovering.

If a sheep of any age gets diarrhoea,the colour of the diarrhoea may be a clue to the cause. Also the smell! (I don't go poo huffing, but the smell seems to be everywhere when the little darlings are decorating the shed or field).

Firstly, Coccidiosis. It causes bleeding into the bowel. This may show up as red blood in the diarrhoea, but more often as altered blood which renders the stuff black, maybe tarry, and sticky. The smell is metallic.....once smelt, never forgotten. Needs to be treated as early as possible as Coccidia can cause early death or lasting gut wall damage which leaves a lamb weak and failing to thrive for many months.

Green(ish) diarrhoea often occurs after dietary change, and doesn't smell too disgusting. Usually settles after a few days.

Yellow, runny stuff usually happens when lambs are on milk alone. Milk substitutes (cade lambs) are often made from cows' milk, and the cow whey protein is 'foreign' to the lamb. Typical sour-milk smell.Usually self-limiting.

Yellow diarrhoea with frank blood (lamb straining and bleating on opening bowels)......usually E.coli. Early treatment mandatory.

Finally runny brown stuff when sheep start eating lush greens after being on dried food throughout the winter. Smell like ordinary sheep poo. There's also another type of brown liquid diarrhoea when a sheep eats way too much sheep food containing sugars (osmotic diarrhoea).....again a very typical smell. These two types of diarrhoea settled by themselves when the excess greens or sheep nuts/sugar source are restricted.
Runny brown stuff also is characteristic of intestinal parasites. A sheep with diarrhoea does not necessarily have worms and a wormy sheep does not necessarily have diarrhoea. Faecal sampling will sort things out.

Very finally....tapeworms. The faeces are usually solid, but there are what looks like white bits of white skin in it....these are tapeworm segments.

Our vet asks for pooled samples from 10 lambs in cases of diarrhoea in lambs.So....picture the scene....wandering about a field with an old spoon and a jam jar collecting diarrhoea. there have to be better ways to spend the day.....

With regards to cleaning the animal, if it's not too extensive I usually just let the stuff dry on the lamb, then cut off the 'dags'. Mike CHS, you've remembered correctly, 'dags' is the term. We use the term 'dags' to describe the hard dry lumps of diarrhoea on fleece when the animal has recovered. The term is probably originally from 'Down Under'....Australia and New Zealand. There's also a saying 'Rattle your Dags' meaning 'Get a move on'...which derives from the fact that these dags 'click' or 'rattle' together when an animal runs.....

 

[Robyn8]

Ok thanks! I’ll try to shave them instead

Just noticed this post, and hope the lambs are recovered/recovering.

If a sheep of any age gets diarrhoea,the colour of the diarrhoea may be a clue to the cause. Also the smell! (I don't go poo huffing, but the smell seems to be everywhere when the little darlings are decorating the shed or field).

Firstly, Coccidiosis. It causes bleeding into the bowel. This may show up as red blood in the diarrhoea, but more often as altered blood which renders the stuff black, maybe tarry, and sticky. The smell is metallic.....once smelt, never forgotten. Needs to be treated as early as possible as Coccidia can cause early death or lasting gut wall damage which leaves a lamb weak and failing to thrive for many months.

Green(ish) diarrhoea often occurs after dietary change, and doesn't smell too disgusting. Usually settles after a few days.

Yellow, runny stuff usually happens when lambs are on milk alone. Milk substitutes (cade lambs) are often made from cows' milk, and the cow whey protein is 'foreign' to the lamb. Typical sour-milk smell.Usually self-limiting.

Yellow diarrhoea with frank blood (lamb straining and bleating on opening bowels)......usually E.coli. Early treatment mandatory.

Finally runny brown stuff when sheep start eating lush greens after being on dried food throughout the winter. Smell like ordinary sheep poo. There's also another type of brown liquid diarrhoea when a sheep eats way too much sheep food containing sugars (osmotic diarrhoea).....again a very typical smell. These two types of diarrhoea settled by themselves when the excess greens or sheep nuts/sugar source are restricted.
Runny brown stuff also is characteristic of intestinal parasites. A sheep with diarrhoea does not necessarily have worms and a wormy sheep does not necessarily have diarrhoea. Faecal sampling will sort things out.

Very finally....tapeworms. The faeces are usually solid, but there are what looks like white bits of white skin in it....these are tapeworm segments.

Our vet asks for pooled samples from 10 lambs in cases of diarrhoea in lambs.So....picture the scene....wandering about a field with an old spoon and a jam jar collecting diarrhoea. there have to be better ways to spend the day.....

With regards to cleaning the animal, if it's not too extensive I usually just let the stuff dry on the lamb, then cut off the 'dags'. Mike CHS, you've remembered correctly, 'dags' is the term. We use the term 'dags' to describe the hard dry lumps of diarrhoea on fleece when the animal has recovered. The term is probably originally from 'Down Under'....Australia and New Zealand. There's also a saying 'Rattle your Dags' meaning 'Get a move on'...which derives from the fact that these dags 'click' or 'rattle' together when an animal runs.....

This is super helpful thank you!! The diarrhea is definitely greenish not black, yellow or bloody and smells like normal sheep poop. It’s like pudding consistence to slightly thicker. They are still eating, drinking, acting 100% normal. Seems like the poop is starting to thinker up maybe? I’m still waiting on my fecal results to give a dewormer if needed. We cut off as much of the poopy wool as we could last night. We don’t have real shears yet so just used scissors (very carefully).

Thanks again for everyone’s help!!

 

[Robyn8]

Hi again,
My fecal results showed no coccidia but small strongyles at 200 eggs per gram feces. Everyone is still eating and drinking and acting completely normal other than pudding consistency greenish diarrhea. One of them seems to be thickening up as I don’t see as much on her backend now that we have cleaned her up a bit. The other one seems like his is the same as before maybe slightly better. I did not treat for coccidia yet as the meds I ordered are arriving tomorrow. I’m too freaked out about polio (we had a goat get polio) to use corid so I decided on baycox which I had to order.

Should I go ahead and give the baycox anyways even though coccidia didn’t show on the fecal? I started safeguard tonight for the worms. How many days should I treat for? 3?

 

[Southern by choice]

yes, 3 days ---- the coccidia news is good I would still use as preventative.

 

[Robyn8]

yes, 3 days ---- the coccidia news is good I would still use as preventative.

Great thanks so much!! One dose of the baycox?

 

[Southern by choice]

Are they market lambs? If so when will you slaughter? There is a long withholding with that product.
If a keeper I would do prevention every 3 weeks til 6 months. Or at least 2 rounds.

 

[Robyn8]

Are they market lambs? If so when will you slaughter? There is a long withholding with that product.
If a keeper I would do prevention every 3 weeks til 6 months. Or at least 2 rounds.

They are not for slaughter so I’ll do the every 3 weeks for 6 months you recommend. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out! I’m new to all this and still learning.