[blackbelly] Ewe Pregnant Twice?

[Mary Swindell]

Breeder Friends,

I hope you can help me with a strange problem.  I have a ewe who gave 
birth to a large (6.75 lb.) and healthy single ram lamb on March 
13th.  Her earliest possible 5-month due date was April 1st, so this 
lamb was 18 days premature.  My ewe had no milk at all.  After 
keeping the lamb with her for a week and switching to bottle feeding 
him, we finally grafted him onto another ewe who also had a large 
single lamb, also had plenty of milk.  So far, so good.  Both lambs 
are now large and healthy.

However, back to the first ewe.  We did a manual exam to determine 
that there were no other lambs inside her, two days after he was 
born.  She was not dialated much, so the exam was perhaps not as deep 
or thorough as it might have otherwise been.  I also put her on 
procaine pennecillan G for 5 days, as a precaution to make sure that 
no infection set in just in case there was something else inside her, 
since we were not sure why she gave birth so prematurely.  We kept 
her in the lamb pen with her lamb during that time, and then let her 
out to pasture with the other ewes.

I have kept my eye on this ewe ever since that time.  This girl seems 
to be gaining weight each week, to the point where she looks very 
pregnant, as if she could deliver twins any moment.  Her udder is 
still not bagging up, but she is beginning to walk like ewes walk 
(back legs slightly apart) in late stages of pregnancy.  She appears 
healthy, and is eating and drinking just fine.  But she has often 
come back into the barn by herself to stand near the lamb jugs where 
the new mothers and newborn lambs are kept, as if she is looking for her lamb.

This morning again I shooed her out of the barn two or three 
times.  She doesn't seem to care about being with the rest of the 
flock right now -- she is acting just like a ewe about to give birth, 
and she certainly looks like it too.

Does anyone know if there is a chance that a ewe can lamb twice?  Is 
it possible that she could have maintained a pregnancy with other 
lambs after birthing one fully developed lamb early?  The first lamb 
was born March 13, so this is almost a month later.  Honestly I would 
call the vet, but there is nothing here to make me think this ewe is 
unhealthy.  I am completely stumped.

Mary Swindell



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[blackbelly] scours, adult sheep

[Tracy Wessel]

I appreciate the archives of the list. It would appear I am not alone  
in having the odd sheep with unexplained scours (adult members of the  
flock).

My flock seems to have a couple members that will get scours at one  
of their hillside pastures in Oregon. I notice when I moved them for  
a year, they never got scours, and gained weight.

The one or two that will get scours will drop weight. It's a mystery  
and I'm rather certain it is related to a plant they are eating. It  
is rather lush pasture. Over the winter they will have hay, cob and  
beet pulp, salt and a protein/mineral block. I had them on loose  
minerals, but I was going through so much of them, I was certain the  
rodents must have been stealing, or that the sheep were just knocking  
it over. However they have at times had access to the horse mineral  
block which I have removed and I have some suspicions it's the copper  
in the block.

My concern is to get the weight back on them. I have a ewe bagging up  
and I I'd rather hoped she was barren because she didn't put on much  
weight after having scours.

If anyone has had some insite into this, I'd love to know.

If it were the whole flock, I'd have great concern for disease,  
nutrition etc. But since it is the odd one or two, I'm rather at a loss.

Tracy
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