During the lambing season you never know what will face you and unfortunately in cases, despite your best efforts, the loss of a ewe or lamb may occur.
In many instances, the farmer will know better than anyone why a ewe or lamb didn’t make it and in other cases, the cause will be unknown.
Infectious agents are the main cause of lamb mortality on Irish sheep farms, according to Teagasc.
In the instance where a problem, e.g. abortion or increased mortality, arises in the lead-up to, or during lambing, make contact with your local vet to see if you can get to the bottom of the issue.
Send samples, where possible, to the local regional veterinary laboratory to identify the cause of the issue.
A few weeks back Shane McGettrick, a laboratory manager with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s Regional Veterinary Laboratory in Co. Sligo, spoke to sheep farmers and gave them some advice for sending in samples to the lab.
During his talk, he spoke at length about abortion problems and said that in most cases, abortion is caused due to placental insufficiencies.
He encouraged farmers to include the placenta when sending in a sample to a veterinary lab because most of the diagnostic tests work best on the placenta.
So whether it is an abortion or an unknown cause of increased lamb mortality, if you can, get it checked out.
Even though it might be too late to address the issue this year, it will hopefully enable you to put plans in place for next year to reduce such issues from arising again.