Swollen Shoulder

[Southdown]

My ram's shoulder is swollen and he will not put weight on it. It is hard like bone and large. When he holds it up, it looks like it's going in and out of the socket and the knee dangles. It's hard to describe, but he keeps it held up. He started with a limp about two years ago and we always kept trimming his hooves, thinking it was a foot issue. This winter he began to not use the leg. Then he quit eating and we took him to a vet.

The vet took radiographs and found no broken bones. She could feel through his fleece that the shoulder was large and in pain. She suspected clostridium and instructed us to give a high dosage of penicillin for a long time. (We told her we vaccinate with CD&T.) His appetite returned and he perked up, but no major change in the shoulder. She was out of ideas. I can pay to take him to the other vet in the same clinic. She suspected a broken bone, but the vet I was paying to see saw nothing on the radiographs.

Are there any other causes for shoulder swelling that would be hard and not warm like a soft tissue infection? My ideas are injury (maybe my larger sheep rammed his shoulder so hard that it took it out of the socket, but then again, why would it swell up months later), or maybe he has arthritis (vet didn't think so), or maybe cancer?

Now he's got a pressure sore on his chest, which is not getting better thanks to the laying around.

 

[mysunwolf]

It does sound like he had some sort of infection, possibly caused by an injury, and although the penicillin knocked it back into the shoulder (instead of allowing it to spread to other areas of the body), or possibly killed a secondary infection?, it didn't get rid of it completely. But honestly I have no idea what it could be. I'd consider taking him to a completely different vet clinic, if he is worth that much to you.

 

[Southdown]

There aren't any large vet clinics around here except for the one I took him to. I could take him back to the same place, but pay to see the other vet or I could pay to have a different vet come out to the farm to look at him.

 

[Latestarter]

I would have to agree with a totally different vet/clinic. Not sure where you're located but if you have a veterinary university or land grant university nearby, they might be able to assist you for a much lower cost. If you're really determined to keep this ram... Perhaps a new herdsire in place of?