** I am not a veterinarian** But I still know some shit.. Part 1 *I've underlined and bolded the symptoms in my ewe, and halfway down there is a list of the treatments that I used. With the vital treatments in red. Story time: So while I was having a blast, enjoying my first week at Umass Amherst, my ewe Bluebelle (currently a yearling, will be 2 this spring) went and got sick. ... My sister messaged me on Friday saying "SHEEP EMERGENCY CALL ME". I call her, and we chat about how BB is doing. She tells me, that she is shaking, stiff-legged, and keeps falling. Also that she is drooling and tilting her head. My thoughts immediately go to listeriosis. I ask if she has been off feed, how her stool is, wether she has miscarried etc. It turns out that BB has been acting normal up until that day; when Olivia went out to feed and found her leaning up against the fence. Liv immediately separated her, and gave her nutridrench, and yogurt and water (every 3hrs).... I instruct her to call our vet, and have her come over asap. I travel home the next day, and take a look at my babe. She is just as described, shaky, stiff, and easily started. The paralysis in her face was very mild, and she would still walk (stumble), and eat hay. Our vet had given her penicillin and banamine (to treat her for the worst case scenario), she was not positive of what exactly was effecting BB. None of the signs were easy to pinpoint a cause. Earlier that day, it turns out that BB had had a seizure, she fell to the ground on her side and shook. After hearing this, my thoughts immediately went to hypocalcemia, which causes seizures in the death strokes... But we were treating her for listeriosis, so maybe it was just the medicine working to kill the bacteria in her brain? After a night of fitful sleep, I went out at noon to re-evaluate. Liv and I dosed her with 3ml pen, and 1ml banamine; also drenched her with nutri-drench, yogurt, and water... A minute after the complete drenching +shots, I noticed BB shaking her head (essentially a mild seizure), her lips , ears, and eyes flapped and twitched. While she braced herself against the wall. She recovered and I finished feeding the rest of the animals. When I came back into the barn a few minutes later, I heard a splash, when I looked into the stall BB was full on seizing on the ground, with legs out and flailing. I went in and held her head, and talked her through it. She proceeded to have another full-on, and another semi- seizure in a span of 10 minutes... As I was helping her through the seizures, I knew this wasn't listeriosis. It was something much different, and may have been caused by the banamine (shot of banamine, then 5 mins later, intense seizures? Can't be a coincidence)... So I left her in a recumbent position (legs underneath her), and went inside to research. At first I was looking to see if banamine causes seizures in sheep (it has never before in my animals, but I just wanted to make sure). Turns out that it does when accidentally given in an artery. I didn't do that, so I kept looking. I knew a symptom of BB's was seizures, so I researched hypocalcemia, not it. But somehow I came across hypomagnesaemia, (grass tetany), on one of the pages. And BOOM, that was it. Grass tetany causes a stiff gait, tremors, excessive peeing, and before death, flailing seizures.. I went back out to the barn to call Kerri, whilst keeping an eye on BB in fear she may be already dead. She was not, but she was on the ground and seizing again... After she recovered I called kerri, and told her my new diagnosis. She said to give her CMPK and/or Epsom salts (magnesium oxide); which we just happened to have. It is recommended to give it iv, or sub-q; but we only had oral. So I gave her 2oz of CMPK D3 drench orally. The effects were not necessarily immediate, but she hasn't seized since! Later on I mixed her a drench of 10g epsom salts, water, and molasses. We gave this to her at 5pm. For her continued care, she will be getting 5g epsom salts per feeding (2x a day), nutri-drench, yogurt, and propylene glycol (to prevent toxemia). Time will tell if this remedy will work, often sheep relapse with this disease. But as of now (approximately 62 hrs since first signs of tremors), she has no facial tremors, and her legs are beginning to be less stiff. If she makes it, I predict she will have moderate to severe brain damage, but hopefully she will not be in pain. What caused grass tetany in the middle of winter?
Treatment: Friday (noon) 0hrs - 40-80ml nutri-drench, h20 3hr - 20ml yogurt, 20ml nutri-drench, h20, 3ml penicillin, 1ml banamine 6hr - 20ml yogurt, 40ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 9hr - 20ml yogurt, 40ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20, 1ml banamine (seizures) Saturday 18hr- 20ml yogurt, 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 21hr- 20ml yogurt, 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 (noon) 24hr - 20ml yogurt, 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 3pm 27hr - 20ml yogurt, 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 6pm 30hr - 20ml yogurt, 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20, 3 ml penicillin 9pm 33hr - 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 (stopped yogurt, she was eating hay) Sunday 42hr - 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 45hr - 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 (Noon) 48 hr - 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 , 3 ml penicillin, 1ml banamine (4+seizures) 49hr - 2oz CMPK D3 drench 53hr - 10g epsom salt solution, 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20 57hr - 80ml propaline glycol *10grams a day of epsom salts is the max recommend for sheep. So continuing on I gave her 5g dissolved in water, twice a day* Monday noon- 20ml nutri-drench, 20ml h20
Part 2: Update: (I got distracted and forgot I hadn't posted this, so it's now Oct 27 2016) lol
Thanks for reading, and sorry again for taking so long to post! Until next time, - Isabelle
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AuthorHey! I'm Isabelle, and I have experienced a lot of crazy things with my sheep. From triplet births, to crushed nerves; it's all apart of the job. My mom always tells me that I should write it all down... So here ya go! :) ArchivesCategories |