Pizzle rot

[BrownSheep]

The ram I've been having issues with has what I suspect is pizzle rot .

I discovered this when we flipped him to trim his feet.....His feet wich we suspected had foot rot or scald are fine after trimming and close inspection.

His sheath had a small sore. He didnt seem in pain when his sheath was contacted. I have trimmed all the wool within 6 inches of his buisness. We've started him on a course of penicillin. Should it be a 5 or 10 day course?

I haven't found anything about his out look as a breeding ram so I am curious as to what you think. His actuall buisness just look slightly red and irritated so I suspect we caught it early.

Is there anything else I should be doing?

If he is rendered sterile that is fine as well. He has been our main ram. The past two years and we've retained all of his daughters. He only had two ewes this year. I didn't see anything go down but we never do when it comes to Henry. When the two breeding groups joined back up the other ram wasnt interested. I believed both are bred.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Not sure about the penicillin dosages and intervals but I did find this:

Treatment consists of removing the wool around the area, then removing the dead tissue in the ulcer with a debriding agent, such as a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution. Then applying an ointment containing penicillin, bacitracin or 5% copper sulphate at weekly intervals. As an alternative to an ointment, a cetrimde solution can be used. If there is a suspicion that the ulcer has spread to the mucosal of the preputial sac, penicillin injections will help the healing.

To stop dirt contaminating the treated area, the ram should be bedded on a good layer of clean straw until the ulcer has healed. Depending on the treatment the external ulcers can take a few weeks to six months to heal. Part of the treatment is to remove the cause, that is adjusting the protein level of the diet to below the critical 16% level. Forage analysis and a ration formulation based on that analysis for each stage of production should be part of the flock management.

The healing ulcer does not prevent the passage of urine, but because of the pain of extruding the penis at breeding, the ram will be very unwilling to breed. Even if the ram can breed, it should not be used as there are reports of a venereal transmission to the ewe causing an ulcerative vulvitis. The same organism can be isolated from these lesions. A ram with pizzle rot should not restart breeding until the ulcers have completely healed.

 

[Shelly May]

Yes, with treatment you need to lower his Protein level as this is the main cause of pizzle rot, feed him grass hay with grain,
or timothy hay or orchard grass hay and no grain, He just needs to stay away from the high protein hay and grain together.
feed one or the other but not both, does this make sence good hay no grain, less quality hay and good grain. Hope this helped.

He sould be fine after treatment for next year breeding, if you caught it early enough, Good luck.