Sunday 8 March 2009

Missy has an emergency visit from the vet!!!!

This morning whilst I was moving the ewes feed troughs to a new place, I noticed a sheep in the shelter. When I looked in it was Missy, completely flat out and breathing very shallowly. This could only mean one thing. Twin lamb disease!!!!! This is life threatening and has to be treated very quickly if the ewe and her unborn lambs are to survive!!!!!
The vet was called and he arrived within the hour (he was dealing with a difficult lambing when I called him). Basically Missy has had 100ml of glucose injected into a vein and 100ml of calcium injected at various points of her body just under the skin to help her recover. She was very cold, but as the glucose started to kick in, she warmed up greatly and was soon up on her feet and very responsive.
Here she is in the hospital shelter looking much better. We've got to give her some more glucose, thankfully as a drink, tonight and tomorrow. The vet has given us a quantity of the glucose drink to have on hand not only for Missy but for the rest of the ewes. Missy will have to be very carefully watched when she has her lambs as she could go into a low glucose coma again. So over the next few weeks she's in for some very special TLC

1 comment:

Jenny Holden said...

Hey Denise, hope you're ok. Sounds like a bit of a shock for you. That discussion on SSBL was really useful, I'm having nightmares about getting it all wrong with feeding the girls. It never worried me when they had lots of grazing to go at, but I'm having to manage them pretty closely at the new spot. Have you bred any Shetlands pure? Looking forward to more springy photos!