We had a ram lamb born Friday morning to one of our yearling ewes. We locked them up for bonding and went out every 2-3 hours to help him learn where to nurse from. He was doing pretty well by the end of the day. Dh went out around midnight Friday night, and then didn't make it out there again until about 10:30 Saturday morning. He came back in saying the lamb looked fine. A few hours later, he went back out to check on them again and found the lamb almost dead. He quickly brought him in to me. His body temp was way low and his eyes were cloudy. I worked on rubbing him dry, and wrapped him up in a towel in front of a heater. Dh got some of the mom's milk for him, plus more from another ewe since the new mom didn't have much at all. I fed him that milk with a syringe, as he was too weak to suck. Dh read that cloudy eyes could be entropian, or something like that, where the eyelids are messed up. That didn't seem to be his problem. He said it could be some other type of infection, and found a suggestion of treating topically with colloidal silver. We tried that, but so far, it hasn't worked. Saturday night he perked up quite a bit. He was standing, walking around, and even tried climbing out of the box we have him in. And he got a nice, strong bleat back. Sunday morning he stood and walked around. Then he was very still for the rest of the day, until a short time of standing in the evening. He also got quiet again. This morning, dh found him standing in his box. But since then, he's been barely responsive. We're still having to syringe-feed him, and he's not swallowing as well today. The eyes are still cloudy. Now he's breathing very hard, and dh thinks he looks kind of bloated. He gave him a shot of penicillin--about 0.05ml for a roughly 5 lb lamb. Any clue what could be wrong? How we should treat him? And no, we don't do vets because we can't afford them.
Newborn lamb, cloudy eyes, barely responsive
- Thread starter Redwood
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