We lost a ram lamb today. He’d been looking off for over a week. We’d separated him to a small pen to keep an eye on him. He wouldn’t eat or drink, but he’d eat fresh snow. We gave him Nutridrench, propylene glycol, and warm malt liquid. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He didn’t really appear sick like he had a disease, but with not eating and no manure, something was clearly wrong.
He died early this morning. The first task of the day after chores was to do a postmortem on him. I think that every shepherd needs to know what normal and abnormal sheep guts look like. When I opened him up, a huge amount of yellow-colored, urine-like fluid came out of the abdominal cavity. His bladder had burst. I could not find any problems in the intestinal tract other than a hard mass of hay blocking one section. I felt the urethra for any stones, but didn’t find anything. There was no indication of a clostridial infection. His liver and heart were normal, but his kidneys were filled with fluid. I did talk to a vet via phone, and the result is that we believe it was a one-off. It’s unlikely that it’s a flock problem or an indication of a bigger issue.
I did take pictures in case we need them later, but they are pretty gross.