While I like the idea of being proactive rather than reactive, we do not want to give the sheep a bunch of medications they do not necissarily need. At this point, we only vaccinate for worms, and did that in early January. Lambs are due the beginning of March. What else should we be doing to ensure healthy lambs? What are your best practices? Thanks.
Unfortunantly sheep need more than goats. I use an 8 way vacine Tasvax 8 or Similar, that will cover the worst a sheep can get. If you dock or castrate Tetnus is a real possability. Pulpy Kidney, can take your best lambs and drop them like flies, over eating disease is another nasty one to deal with. Vacinate with a booster (8 way or whatever) approximately 2 weeks before lambing to pass the antibodies to the new born. If you miss you can vacinate the new borns ask your vet for the dose. You could talk to your vet about minimising the vacination to a 7 way or even down to the CDT shot for goats. He or she may recomend further vacinations beyond the clostridial coverage of those mentioned. These's vacination for pink eye, footrot (I think they still have that), and a host of other problems I can't think of this morning. Your vet will know what's needed and working locally. You shoudl remember that external parasites are not killed with the sheep prescribed Ivomec products, they must be treated seperately.
We worm regularly, rotate the wormers, though worming is not vaccinating, persay. Last year, all my sheep were unvaccinated and I didn't have a problem. I used tetanus antitoxin when I docked to prevent tetanus. I know people around here who use no vaccinations, and don't protect against tetanus and they don't have a problem. We have 12 horses though, and tetanus spores are present in high numbers in horse feces, so I have to protect. I didn't have any health problems last year, but I decided to vaccinate with Covexin 8 because vaccinating the ewes and boostering during pregnancy is cheaper and provides more protection than injecting each lamb with antitoxin. Leah
