The babies and Mums are enjoying their new paddock with plenty of grass.
But most of the day I have been watching one of the sheep who is very unwell. A phone consultation with the shepherd diagnosed Pneumonia but I have a suspicion it is circling disease - possibly caused by eating old silage. We don 't have any silage but she is a new one and may have got hold of some somewhere. She has had a hefty does of Penstrep for two days and I have been giving her sips of water from my hand. I shall see how she is later and maybe go on a Shepherd hunt for a further consultation.
Hope the sheep is improving...never heard of circling disease?
ReplyDeleteThat is what I call it! The real name is Listeriosis and it is a bacterial disease. One symptom is circling behaviour and drooling.
DeleteI know this is terribly boring but I researched it further and, for anyone interested - -
The underlying cause is the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. This is an infectious, but not contagious, microorganism. This means that it does not spread by direct contact. Transmission occurs after the bacteria has built up in soil, the faeces of animals, and rotting vegetation, and is then ingested by the sheep. Low quality silage bales are known to have been implicated in some cases of listeriosis outbreaks because the silage has become mouldy. In particular, abrasions in the mouth lining of the sheep can provide a route of entry for the bacteria, which then pass to the brain.
The symptoms of the disease appear around five weeks after infection.
Meningo-encephalitis is of particular seriousness in causing small abscesses on the brain. Side-effects of this can include fever, depression, and anorexia. But this also includes the strange characteristic symptoms such as the circling behaviour that gives the disease its name in sheep, accompanied by head tilting and drooling, for example.