Lamb Death

[Ram20]

Have a few ewe's with lambs in a small pasture so I can keep watch on them a little better. Have been feeding hay to all and feeding lambs soybean meal. Had a set of twins that were doing pretty good but looked a little week and wormy. They are eight weeks old. I wormed all my lambs about a week ago and they were doing good. I decided to turn them into a larger pasture for a day where the new grass is beginning to put out. I put them up about dark and all looked good. The next morning one on my single really healthy lambs was dead and one of the twins was unstable and laying around a lot. It wanted to drink water all day. It was dead the next morning. Its twin is not doing good but still alive. May be a little better today. What went wrong?

 

[Sheepshape]

So sorry to hear what has happened.
Did your lambs show any other symptoms....diarrhoea etc?
Is the pasture good that they went onto? Are mums and lambs getting enough supplemental feeding? Was the temperature very low/weather windy/rain about?

I really feel for your loss. I hope you can find the cause and remedy it.

 

[Ram20]

The temp was in the upper 60's. They did show a slight bit of diarrhea. I guess from the grass caused that. Grass is just beginning to put out in my area. If they can't eat grass what can they eat. LOL.

 

[Goat Whisperer]

Bloat? I have heard of this before, people turn them into a lush pasture and the sheep don't know when to stop eating and bloat.

 

[SheepGirl]

Did you vaccinate for CD/T?

 

[bcnewe2]

you would notice grass bloat pretty easily. They were fine before you put them out? No runny poop before?
SheepGirl, how quickly can some of the clostridial diseases take to kill a lamb? I always heard that they drop over dead before you notice something is really wrong. We've been lucky and never had an issue.

 

[bonbean01]

So sorry for your loss!!!! When we put sheep and lambs out to pasture with new grass, we time them...20 minutes for first few days and watch for bloat, then 30 minutes for a few days...takes a few weeks before we let them out for the whole day, and then we're good. Could they have died from bloat on the new grass?

 

[bcnewe2]

I keep mine on pasture 24/7. The only time I've had bloat issues is when I kept them put up part time. If they are out all the time the access is always, so less apt to gorge. Otherwise, if I couldn't do that I offered hay before being let out. That way they were rather full and didn't over eat either.