Radio Transcript

Welcome to Agritalk

This week we are going to talk about two common conditions which can cause death in pregnant ewes.

Over the last few weeks, plenty of farmers have been reporting deaths amongst their lambing ewes.  It’s a frustrating situation after carrying these ewes right through summer and autumn, only to lose them AND their lambs.  Many things can kill sheep at the break of the season so it’s important to narrow down the possibilities.

There are a couple of common diseases that are likely causes:

• pregnancy toxaemia otherwise known as twin lamb disease;
• and; hypocalcaemia otherwise known as milk fever.

Pregnancy toxaemia is a deficiency of energy that affects ewes even in good condition, during late pregnancy,  as a result of declining nutrition. Twinning ewes are more susceptible and onset is also triggered by stresses such as yarding, transporting, shearing, etc. If there is very little green feed in your paddocks and the ewes are in the last three weeks of pregnancy, or have just started lambing, the most likely cause is pregnancy toxaemia.

Hypocalcaemia is a calcium deficiency or an inability to mobilise calcium reserves.  Stresses such as moving, yarding, or holding off feed, can trigger the disease causing the animal to develop staggers and go down quickly.  Ewes in late pregnancy are prone to hypocalcaemia when grazing young, rapidly growing cereal crops or if they have been on cereal grain for prolonged periods over summer without calcium supplements and have just begun to get some green pick after opening rains.

These two diseases are often confused as they both occur in late pregnancy, they can both be triggered by similar factors and they may even occur together.

Treatment for one disease will not cause problems if it is the other disease. However, identification of the correct disease is the best way to deal with it.

There is more information on the symptoms, treatments, and prevention strategies for each condition available on the Rural Solutions SA website. Don’t forget it is important to rule out other scenarios when considering stock deaths such as consumption of toxic weeds that they normally wouldn’t eat if they weren’t hungry and enterotoxaemia if sheep have not been fully vaccinated.

For further information on this story or any edition of Agritalk, please visit www.ruralsolutions.sa.gov.au, click on news, then radio.  You will find a transcript of the program along with lots of handy links to the things discussed.

Information kindly supplied by Emma McInerney