oversized lambs

[dime]

we've been raising sheep for quite a few years and a couple of years ago (I guess about 4 years) I looked at a Hampshire and liked what I seen however every once in a while we wind up with a dead lamb, nothing unusual as we have 90 ewes so things happen. But these Lambs are born at approx. 14-16 pounds 2 weeks later they are around 30 pounds and dead, we don't have that many but a lamb like that is about 3-4 times on occurance. Ihave several informative sheep books and a good vet, and their outcome is as my guess the same that it grew to fast for its little heart to keep up and there isn't much you can do about this. does anyone have another suggestion??

[Ross]

I get that when I feed too much grain to fat ewes. I find I have more trouble with 4 and 5 score sheep than 2.5-3.5 scored sheep. (Tough to score that half point really.)

[PNP Katahdins]

Do your ewes get their CD/T shots before lambing or do you vax your newborn lambs? What about iodine on the navels?

Our lambs aren't usually quite that big at birth but some are. We don't lose many each year and have 120+ lambs each spring. It's usually the small, weak lambs that die for us, not the big, strong ones.

Peg

[Bret4207]

We grained our ewes one winter. "Keep them fat" we thought. 85% of the lambs died on me. We don't grain till they lamb now and our survival rate gets better every year.

[FairviewFarm]

White Muscle Disease crosses my mind. Our flock is Hampshire and I've selected for rate of gain over the years. A couple years ago we lost 5 lambs just after weaning. They'd be fine when I'd start chores and dead by the time I was done 45 minutes later. Starting with the second I had the vet out to do post mortems. They all had symptoms of WMD around their hearts and pale hind leg muscling. With dead lambs #4 and 5 we did tissue sampling and it came back as WMD, with the greater deficiency being the vitamin E. I immediately dosed all remaining lambs with BoSe and didn't lose any more that year.

I subsequently changed sources of my sheep mineral for quality assurance reasons as I learned that the shelf life of the vitamins in a mineral mix is about 6 months. My former supplier couldn't tell me how old their supply was. I have had no problem since. Were it to happen again I'd dose with BoSe right away.

Do you feed a mineral that supplies selenium and vitamin E? Check out how old it is. Are the ewes consuming it so the lambs have it in their system at birth. Are you offering it to the lambs? If not, consider giving the newborns a dose of BoSe.

[dime]

Thanks everyone for the input. Yes although we do do everything according to hoil there could have been somethig that I might have missed, the ewes do get their shots the lambs are looked after andwe seldom lose a weak lamb, although we do have a selinium deficiency in this area of the country I generally give them their AD+Sel. shots at birth and have had no problem. Although I do like the sugestion that WMD could be present in these big lambs I don't see how?? but try anything once, the ewes get their fre choice min-supp. at all times but then again some of the ewes might not get enough. I will try and get a P.M. done for WMD and se what? The supps. and meds. are all up to date as that I did have a problem wit that before so now I check on that before I take the units. again thanks to everyone for your sugestions.

[Bret4207]

Amazing the difference .3 cc of BoSe can make given shortly after birth.

[eieiomom]

Great point about WMD.
Since I started injecting newborns with BOSE a few years back, it has made a substantial difference in my lambs.
However, at about a month old, there are a few who have either shown symptoms or I have sadly lost very quickly from symptoms pointing to WMD.

Fast growing lambs and those becoming very active around that age are more susceptible.

Hope this information helps,

Deb

[Shoupie]

Do the times coincide with your pneumonia season? More often then not right when it starts to warm up which is a month or two after everyone has lambed a fast acting strain of pneumonia sweeps through the flock and takes a couple of the biggest and most vigorous lambs.