“I would encourage you to talk to your vet and ask them to go through the postmortem with you”
Illeana Wenger
It’s bad enough losing a lamb, but losing it without knowing the reason is worse. “You need to know exactly why your lambs are dying,” Ileana Wenger, a veterinarian and sheep rancher from Bowden told a recent sheep seminar here.
Post-mortems will generally be done for lambs that are two weeks of age or less. Wenger said that lambs will often die from hypothermia and starvation, but there may be other reasons why lambs perish. Knowing the exact reason for death can help a producer to make the best management decisions to control death losses.
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“I would encourage you to talk to your vet and ask them to go through the post-mortem with you,” she said.
Some lambs may be stillborn, or they can die from starvation because the ewe doesn’t have enough milk, said Wenger. Conditions such as fractured ribs and other injuries will also become apparent during a post-mortem.
Most lamb losses occur in the first 10 days of life. The death rate is even higher for the first three days of life, said Wenger. “It’s very important for you to be able to distinguish what’s going on, on the farm.”
Lambs that die when they are older than two weeks should have the post-mortem and testing done by a veterinarian to have the proper diagnosis. “The complexity of what can be killing them is much greater and you need a better diagnosis,” Wenger said.
Women of child-bearing age should be extremely cautious when doing post-mortems as many of the bacteria that can cause abortions in ewes can also affect pregnant women. All producers doing post-mortems should wear long sleeves and protect themselves adequately.
Local sheep organizations and ag colleges can also be great resources for producers who wish to learn how to do a post-mortem, said Wenger, who has run several clinics for producers who wish to learn how to do post-mortems.
