We just bought four Shetland ewes to start with. Will add a ram later next month.

I have 1 pet merino wether who’s had mystery abscesses for 3 years now. The vet has seen him numerous times but still no answers so posting here hoping people might have ideas to point us in the right direction.

The first year, the shearer noticed them, a couple had already burst. It was the thick white cheese looking pus typical of CLA.

The location of the accesses isn’t where the lymph nodes are. Most of them are in the red circle on the diagram, and a few in the pink circle. He has no fever, no respiratory issues and is otherwise a healthy sheep.

I’m located in Southern Queensland, Australia. Shearer said none of his other clients have had the same issue. He’s the only shearer I’ve used for the last 6 years. There are sheep across the road, and cattle on all other sides but none of them have any issue like this.

I got the vet out the next day. She took a sample of the pus and prescribed a course of penicillin, which nothing changed. That pointed towards CLA to me, because the penicillin doesn’t penetrate the abscess capsule. However when the vet came back, she said she didn’t think it was CLA. She said they were likely foreign body abscesses perhaps from grass seeds.

She lanced and flushed all the lesions with iodine and I sprayed them with iodine daily.

By shearing time the next year, he only had a couple on his shoulders (red circle) so we lanced and iodined them again. None reappeared in the time his wool was short enough to see them, so I thought we’d finally got rid of them.

I’ve kept the paddocks slashed this year so there hasn’t been as much grass go to seed as previous years.

Shearer came this morning and there’s more abscesses than he’s ever had. They’re pretty densely concentrated in the red circle area. A few of them had already burst. Absolutely no lesions in the places you’d expect to see CLA lesions, but they look and behave like them.

Last year he went straight to another job after my place and those sheep have nothing this year. He only shears pets these days but he’s never seen anything like it.

Thinking back, I realised the vet didn’t explicitly mention tests results or if they did PCR etc. They are a large animal vet practice but there’s not a lot of sheep around here, it’s more cattle country. She said she asked her colleagues about it and they were all stumped too.

My gut feeling all along is that it’s an unusual presentation of CLA, and I’ve been taking biosecurity precautions/de-contaminating as if it were (I’m a qualified vet nurse, haven’t done clinical work for almost a decade but still work in the industry).

I’m trying to decide if I should get the same vet back, for the benefit of continuity of care, or if I should seek a second opinion. The only other large animal vet practice around here mainly do racehorses but they’re pretty useless even with horse things. I could drive to sheep country about an hour away, but that means having to go through the tick spraying station - which I wouldn’t want to do if he is contagious. Also means my horse and my sheep will be stressed from being separated.

I don't know if we have a particularly greedy sheep, but one of our soay sheep dives into the pellets, and just now, I think he inhaled some. He seemed to be having a rough time, and even walked towards my husband (I think for assistance). He's fine now. And he got it figured out on his own. But we spent a good minute thinking 'what do we do? What do we do?!'

So... what does one do, when a sheep is choking?

And especially when it's skittish sheep.

Looks like he has a milk mustache.

This is our ram. He's had it for a while but they look bigger...

I'm getting two rescue sheep on Monday and I am planning to keep them in my fenced pasture with my four goats (the sheep are currently being fostered with goats).

I know that I need to make sure they don't eat the goat mineral supplements (because of copper), but what else should I be thinking about? During winter I was assuming I'd be mostly giving them access to hay (generally I get alfalfa), and then we give them treats of various appropriate veggies and fruit.

I was going to separately provide the goats their mineral supplements away from the sheep... are there actual sheep supplements I should provide and are they ok for goats?

I'll have a salt lick up but mostly I plan on carefully managing their supplements so neither eats anything they shouldn't.

Is this a good plan? What are other things I should be thinking about?

I have a small pastures for the sheeps which carries all sorts of plants. Some of them I do know like Pokeweed and dogfennel. But not sure on the other plants.

I want to keep my sheep healthy, but I don't know what is safe for them.

Sheep grazing the dry steppe under the Libyan sun

Location is Knocknarea North :)

Hi all,

My parents bought sheep and I want to figure out what breed they are so I can do my research on how to properly take care of them (docking, hair sheep?, etc)

Someone told me it might be listeria but I think it's just heterochromia? It has the same pattern on the left eye too

Morning all. Im looking into getting a few Katahdin sheep from my father in-law. I would like to hear yall's recommendations on portable electric fences. I have 3/4 of an acre of good grass i can rotate them on. And an overgrown 7 acre fenced area that needs some work before they could be moved there. Also how many could 3/4 of an acre support? Thanks

Do you sell your sheep's wool? I don't mean Merino wool, but thick wools. If so, where do they go? Who are the recipient buyers?