If you've had sheep for 20 years, you've already run across every sheep problem under the sun and already have ways of dealing with them. If not, a systematic approach to looking at symptoms will go a long way towards getting the sheep or lamb the right treatment and back to good health quickly. If your best efforts fail and you need to call a veterinarian for advice or to come and treat an animal, a clear list of symptoms will help the veterinarian, also.
Maintain a good relationship with your veterinarian so that he or she will be able to evaluate your assessment of a situation, especially if you need help quickly. We have our veterinarian give rabies shots and draw blood for OPP testing. While he's at the farm, he'll vaccinate dogs and cats for rabies for a much cheaper price than if we bring them to the clinic.
Make sure all the sheep are easily accessible and can be examined or treated quickly, with minimal effort.
Our veterinarian calls when he's on his way to our farm and I tie the ewes' collars (I have a tiny flock!) to the pasture fence so he can go right down the line with no hassle. I shear an area on the sheep's neck if they are in heavy fleece to assist in drawing blood. We are very fortunate in having a large animal practitioner with years of dairy cattle experience only about 20 minutes away. If we have an emergency, he prefers that we bring the animal to the clinic where there are more treatment options.
Clearly, if you've done the routine preventative chores like vaccinating, worming and coccidia prevention, you can eliminate some things from your list of what's ailing the animal.
It's often hard to figure out what's wrong with a heavily wooled sheep. Check body condition score, temperature and listen to lungs and rumen with a stethoscope (around $6 in most veterinary supply catalogs) for any unusual sounds. Listen for rumen sounds on the sheep's left side between the last rib and hipbone. Get used to what normal sounds of lungs and rumen should be. A silent rumen is an ominous sign. See if the sheep, if it is white, has unusually pale gums . Check the ewe's udder for unusual heat, tenderness or redness - - signs of mastitis. If the sheep staggers or appears blind or if its posture is unusual in any way, these could be symptoms of neurological involvement.
If you should see any signs of neurological involvement, it is possible the sheep has rabies. Put on rubber gloves and be extremely careful handling it. Human exposure to rabies results in costly, painful treatment.
Sometimes the problem is thiamin deficiency (a. k. a. "polio", P. E. M. or polioencephalomalacia).
"Polio" has no relationship to the human disease and isn't contagious to humans or other sheep. It isn't clear what causes it although possibly moldy feed, stress or the coccidiostat, amprolium, may contribute to it.
We have never had thiamin deficiency in our sheep, but have seen cases in our goats. All were at least six months old. The first one we ever saw had exaggerated movements and even bit at us. Then she had a peculiar gait in her front legs and held her head extremely high above her withers in the "stargazing" posture. She went down on her side with her head, still in the "stargazing" position, pulled back over her spine. We contacted Dr. Mary Smith of Cornell University who told us to give her thiamin and she was fine the next day!
Another time I noticed a goat having trouble backing up, seeming to stagger on her back legs when she tried to turn or back up, although she could move forward normally. Thiamin quickly corrected the condition.
Treatment with injectable thiamin or if it cannot be obtained immediately, large doses of B-complex can bring about a speedy recovery. In any case, the b-vitamins cannot hurt. If there is no improvement in a couple of hours, listeriosis can be the problem. This is an infection that needs large doses of antibiotics and probably a veterinarians help. Sheep can get listeria from eating spoiled silage, but it can apparently be in the ground. Another cause of neurological injury is the meningeal worm if sheep have access to pastures where white tailed deer abound. Frequent routine treatment with ivermectin seems to be the only prevention.
If the sheep is scouring, has little fat over the loin and has pale gums or even bottle jaw, it's pretty obvious that parasites are the problem. Some wormers are safer than others on severely debilitated sheep. Ask your veterinarian. Parasites can become resistant to wormers so even if the sheep were just wormed a few weeks ago, it doesn't necessarily mean the problem isn't worms.
If a ewe has just been separated from her lamb and suddenly becomes sick or if she is with her lambs and refuses to let them nurse one of both sides of her udder, mastitis is likely the problem. Check her udder for injury, heat or tenderness.
The best treatment for mastitis is very frequent stripping out of the infected half or halves and injectable antibiotics for at least 5 days. Usually mastitis caught in its early stages can be cured. If it recurs more than once, you may want to cull the ewe. If a ewe has mastitis during her lactation, you could try dry treatment when you wean her lambs. Shake the dry treatment tube carefully and holding the end upright, squirt the air out of the tube. Clean the teat end carefully with alcohol. Using very clean techniques, and WITHOUT inserting the end of the dry treatment tube into the teat, line up the teat opening and the tube orifice and squirt about half the contents of the tube into the udder. Use a fresh tube for the other side of the udder. Discard the partially used tubes or mark them and save for external use.
Usually the stomach problems of adult sheep fall into two categories: poisoning and everything else.
For poisoning, you can keep activated charcoal on hand. It's very messy, but can be administered orally in a large syringe with the tip removed. Bags of IV electrolytes are also a good idea to keep on hand. If a sheep has very severe scouring, it can lose so much fluid so fast that it will die of shock even though it might recover from the actual problem if it had enough time to do so. Usually by the time poisoning is discovered, there is little to be done except supportive treatment. Remove the source of the problem, give the sheep decent grass hay and plenty of fresh water and mineral salt.
A sudden change of feed, either in amount or type can make sheep sick. Give the sheep baking soda and cut back on grain or reduce exposure to lush pasture for the next couple of feedings. Watch the sheep very closely for improvement.
If rumen sounds are absent for more than one day the situation may need more drastic action. Try probiotics or even a cud transplant. If you have a "pet" sheep that isn't uncomfortable in close contact with humans, force a tablespoon into the cudding sheep's mouth and recover some of the cud with all the lovely rumen bacteria on it. Stir the mess up with another tablespoon of water at body temperature and draw up the liquid and administer to the sheep with no rumen sounds. Rumen sounds should return in 12 hours.
I've never had a sheep bloat, but there are products such as Therabloat or just vegetable oil that can help break up bubbles and relieve the bloat.
Pneumonia in adult sheep, unless OPP is present, occurs mostly when sheep are confined in barns. Prevention includes good ventilation and ammonia control. Treat sheep with injectable antibiotics. Your veterinarian can suggest what's the best choice.
If you have a small flock, count the sheep every time you look at them to make sure none are missing from the group. If you have a huge flock you have to decide for yourself how often it makes economic sense to check on your flock. Often the first sign of a problem is a sheep that isn't keeping up the flock. If the sick sheep stays off by itself for several days, the chances of fixing its problem is diminished.