Mouflon with broken teeth

[philter4]

I raise pureblooded mouflons, I have a ram that is very special, he never loses his winter colores. In summer, instead of the duller beige coat he gets a short coat but the pattern is the same deep red and black with white saddle like in winter. With that said I do not want to lose these genes from my breeding stock. Here is a photo of him this last summer, he was 14 months at the time of the photo.

He is also special in other ways, he was weaned from his mother and bottle fed for the last two weeks by me and hand raised until he was 10 months old with me as his "herd" so he is very attached to me, this has its good and bad points but he was going to be a castrated pet until his color pattern became apparent. Anyway now he is extremely aggressive to anyone (and most other animals) except me, I can pretty much do anything to him I want, although I know his potential and never let my guard down around him. I am giving all of this information for a reason, I want everyone to know why it is so important to me to save this particular ram rather then cull him if he gets to a point it becomes necessary, which is what I would consider if he were any other of my sheep.

Thursday of last week I was giving him a carrot and he was very reluctant to bite it, using the side of his mouth and there was blood on the carrot where he bit. I took a look and here is what I saw.

I sent the photo to my vet and she said it was some sort of trauma and he broke the teeth, that as long as he was eating there is nothing I can do about it, any suggestions? She is going to come out next week, but she is reluctant as the charge for a visit is high when there is nothing to be done, he eats, chews his cud, but he has trouble with carrots, apples, anything hard that he has to bite.

Any advice or suggestions would be great as this is the first time I've ever had anything like this happen,
Thanks,
Phil

 

[Baymule]

Keep an eye on it in case of an abscess. If the tooth is broken, it may come out on it's own. Can you tell if it hurts him? If he only has trouble eating the hard treats you give him, then maybe a softer treat is in order. Try to get some good rams from him as back up, just in case. I wish you the best with him. He is a beauty and I can see why you are so concerned.

 

[alsea1]

He is very nice looking. If you don't mind spending the cash I would go ahead and have the vet remove any tooth that's left and follow up with any med nec.
I would love to cross some mouflon blood on my black belly sheep.

 

[philter4]

Thanks Baymule and Alsea1 for the comments/advice, I appreciate it.

Alsea1, I have studded him out to both black belly and Barbados sheep in the past, in fact both breeds were originally mouflons crossed with domestic sheep, though I'm not sure which breeds. I'm in Northern California, if your ever in the area with a ewe or two drop by, he is always a willing ram!

 

[Bossroo]

Are you sure that the tooth is broken ? Remember when you were a minikid, and you put one or more of your teeth under your pillow for the tooth fairy. Sheep loose 2 of their lower teeth per year starting with the 2 middle ones, and then regrow new and bigger teeth.

 

[philter4]

Thanks Bossroo, that was just brought up today by me to my vet, at this point we are going to take more photos tomorrow and over the weekend unless something starts to look infected or changes for the worse. I guess he is at the right age to be getting his adult teeth.

 

[SheepGirl]

X2 what @Bossroo said, however you said he was 14 months old last summer? That would put him at almost 2 years old now, and should be losing the second pair of teeth. Unless Mouflons get their mature teeth later than domestic sheep.

However, from the looks of it from the photo you provided, it seems as though he is losing his baby tooth and the mature tooth is coming in (look at the tooth on the right; it is wider but it isn't all the way up yet).

That said it could still be an injury and he chipped his tooth, but I'm not sure what he could've chipped his tooth on?

 

[philter4]

SheepGirl, it was my mistake on the photo, that pic was at 14 months but it was taken in Nov, not July.

The vet came out today, it turns out that while he did break the tooth, it was his baby tooth, it is now out and there is a healthy adult tooth coming up underneath it, so all is good. I guess (my vet seems to agree) that wild sheep, or in his case at least if not all mouflon are on a later schedule then domestic sheep as far as losing their baby teeth are concerned. While she was there he got a pretty good looking over and everything else seems good so I'm relieved.

Thanks everyone for the comments and advice,
Phil