joint pain in sheep

[Jumpin Boots]

My Dad has 3 ewes (one who has lambed) and 1 ram. Two of the ewes are a probably 3-5 years old and one is a yearling born last year. The ram he purchased late last summer for breeding purposes. I thought something seemed off about the ram from the get go, but didn't know what. Well eventually we figured out that he has some joint issues, seems to mainly effect his knees. However, by the time my Dad admitted (he's a very stubborn 76 year old) that something was wrong with the ram, the 2 older ewes had aready been breed. So we just hoped that the joint issue was due to injury and not genetic. The lamb is about 2 weeks old now and seems to be having issues with her knees too. At first she seemed fine, and she eats great. But lays down about 90% of the time and even when her mama is calling she won't get up. The lambs knees appear swollen and definatley sore, I'm going to try to catch her today to see if there is any heat.

 

I'm going to call my horse vet tomorrow and see if he knows anything about this. But thought maybe someone on the boards might have come across this. I have also been trying to look up info on-line, but haven't found much that has been very helpful.

 

Thanks in advance. Julie

[Bill Fosher]

Hi Julie,

 

I suspect that the ram's joint problems and the lamb's are unrelated. The lamb's are a common symptom of joint ill, also known as navel ill. The infection enters the lamb shortly after birth via the wet navel cord. It can be controlled, but not entirely prevented, by applying iodine to the navel shortly after birth, which disinfects the navel and speeds up its drying. Treatment is usually 1 cc penicillin per 15 lbs body weight twice a day for four to seven days. Some shepherds report success with long-acting oxytetracyline (such as LA 200), but I have never had any luck with it for a lamb with navel ill.

 

The lamb could also be displaying symptoms of white muscle disease, which is a deficiency of selenium and/or vitamin E. Treatment would be an injection of BoSe injectible selenium and vitamin E, which is available by prescription only. As far as I know, there is no harm in treating for both joint ill and white muscle disease at the same time.

 

The ram's knees are more likely a symptom of ovine progressive pneumonia, which sometimes manifests itself as a form of arthritis. Symptoms don't usually emerge until the sheep is four years old or older -- but even if he is younger than that you can't rule it out. OPP is caused by a virus. There's no cure, and its is fatal. The good news is that horizontal transmission is fairly rare. Most infected sheep get it from their mothers via infected colostrum, so it's unlikely (but not impossible) that the ram infected other sheep in the flock. There is a blood test that will help to confirm whether this is what he has or not.

[stockdogranch]

Bill beat me to it--for the ram, probably OPP. Nasty when you have it in your flock,

A

[NorthfieldNick]

The are where both Julie & I live has extremely deficient soils. When I first started with sheep, I was warned to always keep minerals in front of them. I'm generally pretty good about it, and I'm still amazed at how fast my ewes blow through the minerals from lambing to weaning. I can think of several cases of white muscle disease here in the past year or two.

 

Julie, I like the Range Country sheep minerals by Wilbur-Ellis. They're more expensive than the stuff in the brown bag (SE-30, I think), but they're worth it. I mix some kelp meal into the minerals, as well. You can get both at Skagit Farm Supply, at least the one in Mt Vernon (they're re-doing their floor, so you have to ask for just about everything right now.)

 

Good luck with the lamb.

[Jumpin Boots]

Thank you all for such quick responses. I will contact the vet tomorrow about the joint ill, I had just read about that online this afternoon. I had suggested to Dad that he did the lambs cord, but he doesn't always have the best memory and may have forgotten

 

Nick, you're absolutely right that our area has soil issues, I always have the horses on supplements, but I think Dad just has the sheep on a basic trace mineral block. I'll pick up some of the loose mineral for him and hopefully that will help.

 

Thank you guys again for the speedy response.

[1sheepdoggal]

I caught it early, just had a lamb with joint ill. Usually Im on hand when the lambs are born and spray the umbilical with iodine, but this one must have gotten missed some how. Treated with penicillin for 3 days and she is right as rain. Dont know what to think about the ram. Id be interested in what you find out from your vet.

[Lora]

So I have a lamb with the same symptoms. Have been giving BoSe.....twice last week but not doing better. She came up sore legged last Monday. How quickly would I see the results of the selenium if it were white muscle?? I will start her on pen today......she is a good month old....is that common for the joint disease? Also, I did all cords.......not always right away due to night lambing. If it is the joint disease....will I have problems next year...or is it always a potential issue??

 

Thanks!

[Bill Fosher]

Hi Lora,

 

I suspect you would have seen improvement if the problem was Se/E deficiency with two doses of BoSe. Dipping navels helps, but nothing is 100 percent, and as you point out there may have been times when you were a few hours tardy. That's all it takes, particularly in shed lambings or if lambs are in direct contact with soil as in lot lambings. Good sanitation will help, just as dipping navel cords will help. In fact, if sanitation is good enough, you don't even need to dip -- we don't dip navels in pasture-born lambs at all, and I haven't had a case of joint ill in four years. But, lambs are not in contact with soil -- they are on well-established sod -- and it's a very rare instance where two ewes will lamb anywhere near each other, so the ground they are lambing on is usually quite clean.

 

Will you have problems again next year? Maybe, maybe not. The chance is always there, even if you do everything right. But if you see it, you'll know how to respond a little sooner.

[Lora]

Thanks Bill....never heard of this before...and it really looks like white muscle. I've caught her for dose two of pen tonight and her joints are not hot, nor do they seem swollen....but she seems very stiff legged...really bad on back right leg...and lays around a lot. I am worried I might have not got this figured out in time...but tonight she was nursing more and aggressively then I have seen all past 7 days....so maybe she is beginning to respond. Does it hurt to give them a little more pen then you suggested? I know sometimes in infections in people...they will increase the dose for a more aggressive approach. Also do you know if a little Banamine would be helpful in easing joint pain symptoms?

 

The kicker is..I had three selenium deficient lambs last year.....I have a real selenium problem at my place. Vet talked about doing MuSe next year to the ewes when I do the prelambing shots.....anyway that is why my knee jerk reaction was white muscle. If she dies I will do a necropsy to see exactly where I am at. I also jug lamb....so I will be way more focused on sanitizing the barn and dipping those navels asap!

 

I really appreciate all the input.....I love learning and becoming a better flock mistress...thanks for all the advise!

 

Last question......what are the s/s of selenium overdose....I might have done that is this is indeed joint ill!

[Bill Fosher]

Hi Lora,

 

That's already a pretty high dose of penicillin, and it won't work overnight. Infections that are in the joints take a while to get to, regardless of dose. It is possible that whatever bug is causing the infection is not susceptible to penicillin. If you haven't seen any improvement soon, as in within the next day or so, or if the lamb takes a turn for the worse, I'd say it's time to call your vet.

 

An increase in feeding is certainly consistent with recovery from white muscle disease, so it may be that you were on the right track in the first place. But absent contrary advice from your vet, I would continue the antibiotics for at least four days.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I'd keep on with the pen - white muscle is often concurrent with pen-responsive pneumonia and it will be the bug that remains, that causes residual weakness and anorexia.

 

A shot of vitamin B complex (the kind with extra b-12) will help uptake those minerals and boost immunity also, not to mention help appetite.

 

The only time I've ever gotten joint ill was in a lamb that didn't get colostrum - I had done the cord right away, it just was kind of doomed due to having zero immunity. That was kind of interesting because my vet at the time was a sheep specialist and she actually took the time to culture the bug. It can be anything pretty much, as you know - in this case we used Naxil and actually saved that lamb. Wow, you should have seen the turnaround - even the vet was impressed.

 

On a lamb, one other thing she taught me was, any time you treat, feed, or medicate, take a towel - a warm towel if possible - and massage the lamb hard all over (well, not on the sore joints of course). Make that lamb's brains rattle. Then treat or feed. It really works.

 

One thing no one has mentioned on the ram is blackleg. That can also affect lambs. But you'd also see it in the ewe that lambed if the lambs had it. Rams tend to get it because in sheep it's spread by bumping up on stuff and rams tend to be big klutzes. Also, a new addition is a higher risk. The treatment is 11 mls of pen-g per 100 pounds. Yes, you read that right. That's per NC State. It's so highly responsive that it's almost diagnostic. Blackleg kills slow but sure, so in my book it's worth a try.

[Lora]

Becca, that would totally make sense...I talked to my vet today and since the joints are not swollen he did not think it was joint ill...but her not eating, laying down all the time along with the stiff legs.....made him suspicious! Man oh man is it hard to tell the two diseases apart...without expensive vet exams. She is responding to the antibiotic (and i did shoot her with multi B yesterday...also gave her some probiotics)...because her appetite is back, she was also much more difficult to catch today....those sore legs work well when she is fleeing! My llama is due for her yearly worming and shots.....so I will have him take a look at her on Monday if things are not significantly better.....I will keep you posted on the outcome. No matter....I gotta get a better program for selinium.....this is ridiculous.

 

Does anyone know......besides just being lacking in the area...what things decrease selenium in the environment? I've heard you can apply it to the property but I wonder about cost effectiveness and also longevity of problem solving......I need to investigate more. My place used to be a very poorly run cow dairy....and then had horses on it. When I took it over, it had rested fallow for a good 10 years......but no soil improvement had been done to replace that which was taken out with a field of alfalfa and grass grazing.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

It's very complex. If there's not enough calcium in your soil you can have all the selenium in the world and your plants won't be able to uptake it. So making sure your calcium levels are good and doing something about that, can help. It takes a while, but there's nothing at all you can do about low selenium as far as I know.

 

Depleted soils are a widespread problem. Better stewardship and time would solve it eventually, but it doesn't help our generation.

 

Making sure you have a mineral that's properly balanced for sheep, in front of them at all times, is super important. Being short on minerals can cause a cascade of problems besides just the direct deficiencies we tend to think of right away.

 

I've found that putting the minerals in the sheep and then rotating them over depleted soils, and lightly treating those paddocks with lime once they've rotated on, seems to improve things. When we moved from our last place, selenium and Mb was just a hint better but Ca was definitely significantly higher and you can tell in the grass and the fact that there are native legumes thriving over there where only sour grass once grew.

[Bill Fosher]

Lora,

 

WHere are you located?

[Jumpin Boots]

Just wanted to update you guys that the lamb was started on pen. yesterday. I haven't noticed any improvement yet, but after talking about things with the vet he was pretty confident that it is joint ill and that we should see some improvement start in 3-4 days. He prescribed 1 cc/30 lbs. twice daily for 7 days.

 

After reading about both OPP and blackleg, I'm pretty sure the ram has OPP. We have had sheep on our property off and on for over 25 years and have never had this issue before, so I don't think our soil is contaminated. The two ewes we got from the same herd as the ram and if he came with blackleg I would guess that they would have too. If any of my logic doesn't sound right, please let me know.

 

One other question...this may sound morbid. But the original plan with the ram had been to butcher for consumption. I haven't been able to find any info that says that an OPP positive sheep can't be eaten. And it sounds like many more herds have the disease than people realize so I'm guessing that it must not be a dangerous to consume an OPP positive sheep?!? correct?

 

Thank you all for the great info and help Our little lamb appreciates it.

[Bill Fosher]

The only problem with consuming OPP sheep is that in the later stages of the disease they tend to waste away, so there might not be much there to eat.

[Lora]

Bill,

 

I am in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Known to be selinium deficient...but I feel my place was mis-managed, pasture management wise, for years before I bought it. I am not sure how that affects selinium/calcium...but I do know I have a problem. Just not sure of the best way to solve it.......

[Bill Fosher]

If your soil is naturally deficient in Se, spreading it on the soil is going to be least cost effective way to get it into your sheep. The plants will likely not have what they need to take it up (as Becca has already outlined) but also they are likely adapted to the deficiency and might very well respond badly to it. You're much better off trying to feed the sheep via mineral supplements. Minerals are hellishly complex just in a single organism. Trying to regulate them by moving them through the feed you provide to the animals is a surefire way to make your head explode.

[Bill Fosher]

Incidentally, I am not saying that you shouldn't apply micro- and macro-nutrient minerals to the soil, just that you should only do so as a means of improving the health and vigor of your plants, and you should base your decisions about applications on the needs of the plants, not the animals they feed. If any of that benefit translates up the food chain, then that's a bonus.

[Jumpin Boots]

Thanks Bill, the rams weight still seems pretty good, so I don't think that the OPP have advanced very far. We will definately get him butchered in the next week to relieve him of the pain in his joints. He looks terribly uncomfortable and lays down most of the time.

 

Lora, we live in NW WA so have many of the same soil issues. Several years ago we had our soil tested and were advised by the local seed company not to bother with the cost of adding Se into our soil, since our area naturally has deficiency issues there was no reason to try to battle mother nature. They ended up customizing a nutrient package for our land and we spread it. I would highly recommend spending the money to have your soil individually tested and talk to a local seed/fertilizer company about how to improve you pastures for the long haul. The local company we worked with were very good about spending time to help us make a long term plan about managing our soil.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I would highly recommend spending the money to have your soil individually tested and talk to a local seed/fertilizer company about how to improve you pastures for the long haul.

 

I really, really second this. A little goes a long way in the long run - I was really surprised at a couple of the suggestions the local extension made (using a slightly different nitrogen compound rather than the one you can normally get in the feed store for instance). Eight years on one place and three years on the other and the results were very good. We've never had to overseed or replant anywhere we've been to move the pastures from icky sour stuff, to a decent forage.

 

That won't be true here I don't think but we'll have the extension agent over once it's cleared and we'll see.

[Lora]

When I bought the ranch(ette) I did have the soil tested and have done so every other year...applying just what was recommended and made special for the land. I also have a manure spreader and each fall...all the fields get nice rich composted material. I do not see selenium issues until I lamb and they have become fewer...so I know I am headed in the right direction. And BTW it was the fertilizer company that said we could add selenium to the place....I was like Bill....thinking it might not be the best use of my money...and also wanting some data on the effectiveness of field application.

 

The lamb looked better yesterday....actually chewing her cud. The vet had me switch her to nuflor and add in some banamine. I probably won't know if it was joint ill or selenium deficiency with a secondary infection but I am headed in the right direction!! Again, I really appreciate this board!