The lame sheep of the family...

A distressing sight met me towards the end of my afternoon walk today when a field that contained a small flock of sheep revealed that not all of the occupants were in the rudest of health.

Footrot! Not a nice subject but all too common it seems with sheep that winter outside. At least one of the sheep was so badly afflicted with footrot that the only way it could feed was by kneeling down on its front legs with it being barely able to bear it's own weight on its rear legs, it made for a pitiful sight.



Older ewes, ewes rearing twins and male lambs seem to be at particular risk.
 A survey by vetinary services in Scotland found that five treatments for footrot were identified

Paring, footbathing, topical antibiotic,

parenteral antibiotic and vaccination.

Affected sheep should be segregated from unaffected sheep for treatment.


Their advice also included the following:

Infected sheep:

These should be separated into a hospital flock and walked through a footbath every five days.

I'll be back to check on these sheep tomorrow and if there's no change for the better (and I can't see how that could happen overnight) I'll be looking to seek out the owner for a word or two.

The affected sheep today.