Break out of Framesby Mary Jarvis * 1994, revised July 1997 It is important to every shepherd that his ewes have the ability to raise lambs. Keeping the udder in good condition will enhance the ewe's genetic ability to wean high pounds of lamb. Thus, a discussion of udder health will not apply exclusively to the dairy shepherd. In the dairy particularly, however, the ewe is adding significant income to the farm, and strict attention must be paid to udder management or you run the risk of going teats up! A healthy flock of sheep is infinitely easier to manage than an unthrifty one. Our udder health program begins with a strict health protocol which includes, but is not limited to, being OPP Negative. Ovine Progressive Pneumonia can affect the udder, causing a hardening of both halves, with poor milk secretion. Culture of the milk will often not show bacterial infection, however ewes suffering from OPP may demonstrate subclinical mastitis and have elevated Somatic Cell Counts. Some people milking sheep in the late l980's were even insisting that sheep have naturally high somatic cell counts. We were the first producers to recognize the importance of OPP in the sheep dairy, and when our ewes went on line in 1991, we consistently turned in Somatic Cell Counts under 250,000, which blew the high SCC level theory out of the water. To put this all into perspective - levels of 500,000 indicate the presence of subclinical mastitis. Grade B, or manufacturing grade, milk production SCC levels can be no higher than one million, and Grade A milk must be under 750,000. Milk which is high in Somatic Cell Counts produces less cheese per pound of milk, and its over-all quality and taste are impaired. OPP is not the only factor which will affect your SCC's, nor is being OPP negative a guarantee of freedom from any udder problems. A comprehensive udder health program needs to be implemented. Begin by following good husbandry practices in your annual preventative medicine schedule. An ounce of prevention IS worth a pound of cure! Conduct a pre-breeding inspection of the ewe flock's udders. Check for abscesses, lumps or signs of unresolved mastitis. These ewes tend to be management problems if you let them lamb. It is unlikely that they will be able to raise their lambs, resulting in feeding a lot of milk replacer. Your best choice is to cull out half-bag or bad udders. We keep this kind of ewe only if she has produced tremendously high pounds of milk on the stand; we keep her to retain her genetics in the form of her daughters. If you must keep these ewes, hold them back from the breeding group for two weeks before you turn them in with the ram. The excellent ewes you are holding onto would probably normally be among the first to settle. Delaying their exposure to the ram will allow a window at lambing time for the collection of colostrum to feed to these ewe's lambs. After you get your daughters from her, she should go. If you don't have soremouth on your farm, vaccination would be contraindicated. This disease is usually thought of as a young lamb problem. It turns into an ewe problem when the lamb infects the dam's teats. These soremouth lesions on the teats make it painful for the ewe when the lamb tries to suck. She will refuse to let the lambs nurse, and this can easily lead to mastitis in the ewe, and starvation in the lambs. Vaccination of the ewe, a minimum of 8 weeks pre-lambing, will give the ewe immunity to the virus. The ewe retains her immunities for a fairly long period of time; it is not necessary to vaccinate her every year; rather perhaps every 2 years. The vaccine is not expensive. Soremouth, or "orf", is infectious to humans, and is very painful. Therefore great care must be taken in administering the "live" vaccine. Shear your ewes pre-lambing. This is a good time to recheck udders. We shear as close to 4 weeks pre-lambing as possible. Your prolific ewes, full of lambs, have the potential to abort from the stress of shearing; keeping it early rather than later in the gestation is advisable. Keep the ewes off feed for 12 hours pre-shearing. Keep stress low and udder injuries unthought-of. Know your shearer. If you don't want to do this yourself, and we don't, find a good shearer, and treat him well! Our shearer knows we have extremely healthy, and valuable stock. His combs and equipment are clean, so we don't inherit someone else's health problems. We shear on our own rug placed on our own plywood. The excitement is building now, as the results of your breeding program are about to materialize. Keep up the good husbandry. Keep the ewes on clean, dry bedding. We walk behind ewes at the feed bunk which is an excellent time to check udders. Watch for any signs of abnormality: uneven udders, "hot" sides, etc. Our ewes are so calm that we can walk up behind them and palpate their udders while they are eating; this is a function of their genetics, compounded by their environment of being in the dairy string. Don't neglect their nutrition; feed the ewes in late gestation for healthy udders and milk production; also be sure there is adequate Vitamin E and Selenium in the diet. At lambing time, the ewes have been on clean bedding. However, there is still the chance that she could have e. coli or other bacteria on her udder, particularly if lambing time coincides with rainy Spring weather. Our normal procedure is to inspect the udder for dirt or other foreign matter, and recheck the udder again for any lumps or bumps, in what we call a first pre-milking inspection. If the udder is dirty, before the lambs nurse, we will wash the udder with warm water and a mild solution of udder wash. We dry the udder well, and then strip out the first waxy plug in each teat. Lambs, with no immunities at birth, fare better if they don't ingest a mouthful of bacteria with their first colostrum. We make sure that the lamb has received a good meal of colostrum. Then keep watching the udders of the new mommas. A hungry-looking lamb means that your ewe has a problem. During the time when the lambs are on the ewe prior to milking, keep your eyes open for any signs that the ewes are ill. Studies have shown that acute mastitis (sometimes called "hot cases") in sheep who are nursing lambs is most often caused by Pasturella haemolytica. This is the same bacteria that causes baby lamb pneumonia. It normally exists in the tonsils of lambs, even healthy ones. They pass it to the ewe while they are nursing, and any teat injuries, cuts or abrasions increase the risk of infection, which can quickly lead to clinical or acute mastitis. Staph aureus also causes hot cases. You cannot tell by looking at the ewe which bacteria is causing the problem. A culture and sensitivity will reveal the culprit, facilitating treatment. In discussing a quality product, we must not neglect our bacteria counts. Proper cleaning techniques in conjunction with proper handling of the milk and udders free of contaminants result in milk which has low bacteria levels.
Historically, mastitis flare ups occur in cold or cool, damp, rainy weather, like the summer of 1993. These are the times that try our souls, particularly in a forage based system. Our food source, being outside in the elements, works against us at these times. What to do? If you're fortunate enough to have an indoor area large enough to accommodate the flock, consider feeding high quality hay during that rainy period, and keep your little darlings under roof. If you're like us, one of the reasons you've elected a pasture based system would be your lack of facilities which would be suitable for confinement. So you need to use a few management tricks that will help. After the ewe is milked, her teat sphincter will take some time to close. Using a teat dip will help to protect her; this is definitely not the time to forget to dip after milking. Don't let her lie in wet, dirty bedding. Her natural inclination is to lie down and chew a cud, as she just got her grain ration on the stand. We try hard to keep her standing. We offer a feed bunk with high quality hay in the milk stand exit area, which helps keep her on her feet for a while. We like to keep them standing for 30 minutes after they come off line. We also keep any holding areas well bedded with clean straw. When you put them back out on pasture, put them on a new area after each milking. Keep your paddocks, lanes, gates, and barn exits and entrances clear of mud. These wet times are also frustrating because you'll need to wash udders. Then, the ewe will move her legs, rubbing against the udder, and it'll be wet again, if not also dirty again. Milking will take much longer because you'll be doing a lot more prepping. At these times you'll particularly see the importance of legs and udders free from wool. Remember that milking a wet udder will dramatically increase the chance of spreading bacteria from the outside of the ewe's udder into her teat canal, and also increase the chance of spreading bacteria from ewe to ewe via the inflations. Keep your eyes peeled for budding infections; they tend to come in multiples. It can happen, that in spite of all your best management efforts, ewes can still get mastitis. In the dairy, we tend to recognize it earlier than in other aspects of the sheep industry because we are, after all, looking at udders twice a day. It is still shocking to realize how quickly gangrenous mastitis can flare up; in as little as the interval between milkings. In acute, or gangrenous mastitis, there is usually only one half which is infected, and it may be larger than the other side, and feel tight, and hot. Halves which are further along in the infection process may already be turning blue, and feel cool to the touch. This ewe must not be milked into the milk bucket. Fomites are an often-forgotten source of infection; anything you touch this ewe with needs to be discarded or thoroughly washed and sanitized, to avoid passing infection along to other ewes. Treatment of the ewe with gangrenous mastitis (also known as blue bag) begins with our checking and recording her temperature, BEFORE treating with antibiotics. We then collect a milk sample using ASEPTIC TECHNIQUE:
Not all cases of mastitis are acute, or gangrenous. In non-gangrenous cases, we follow the same routine as described above, up to the treatment. In these cases, the mastitis will often respond to cow mastitis treatments. We keep on hand a collection of DRY COW mastitis treatments because we live quite far from a reasonably priced source, and we don't have time to wait for a shipment from a catalog. Being prepared by having several selections on hand will facilitate the initiation of appropriate treatment once the sensitivity comes back. In inserting the infusion the ewe needs to be restrained, and the teat cleaned with an alcohol swab, before the dose is injected. We use a full tube per udder half. After the udder is treated, we don't milk the ewe out as we do with the acute cases. We will observe the ewe to see how she is responding to the treatment, and hopefully, the culture and sensitivity will be available quickly, and we can switch to a different infusion if need be. Some of these udders DO recover, if caught early in the infection, and the ewe can resume a productive place in the flock in following years. In managing ewes with mastitis, we confine ewes with different types of mastitis separately, and of course all sick ewes are kept in a hospital area away from the flock. Be careful about handling any of these ewes so that you don't bring infection back to the rest of the flock on your hands or materials you use in treatment. As always, keep them on clean, dry bedding. Sloughing udders are potential sites of fly strike or infection. Monitor the ewes for signs of either, and try to keep their area as fly free as you can, and the ewe as comfortable as possible, including spraying the sloughed area with wound coat to help protect it. After treating the ewe with antibiotics, a course of probiotics will help to get her back on feed. She'll need good nutrition to help with the recovery process. In culling these ewes, remember to make note of withdrawal times for any antibiotics you may have used. You don't want to compromise the food chain. In the cow dairy, producers use a lactating cow mastitis treatment which will have a short milk withholding period, and they can thus treat a cow and keep her in the milking string. In the sheep dairy, we need to understand that there are no mastitis treatments approved for dairy goats, let alone for dairy sheep! It is unlikely that drug companies will spend the money to get FDA approval, considering the level of market penetration they would enjoy in the sheep industry. We must, therefore, continue to work closely with our veterinarians in mapping out treatment, as these medications will be used on an extra-label basis, with our veterinarian's recommendation. We must also constantly be cognizant of the implications of drug residues in our milk. The product that the cow dairy uses on lactating animals has been tested on sheep for drug residue in the milk. Residues have been found for 30 days past the treatment date. This is in comparison to the cow dairy, where there is typically a 3 day milk discard. Until we have ewes in this country with lactations significantly closer to a cow's length, it isn't economically feasible to attempt to continue to milk an ewe being treated for mastitis. Basically, in our operation, if she develops clinical mastitis on the stand, she's out of there till next year. We don't even bother with the short acting, lactating cow dose. We treat with a long acting, dry cow mastitis treatment. We feel that this program works better, because the treatment hits the causative organism harder, and we don't intend to try to milk her again in that lactation. This question will be answered by your own situation. We do not routinely dry treat ewes when they come off the stand. Why? In our opinion, treating a healthy animal for mastitis she doesn't have doesn't make much sense. In 3 years, the only animals we have dry treated are those with suspicious CMT levels at the cessation of our milking season; these ewes it makes sense to use a dose on. I don't like the idea of using one infusion tube for the two halves of the udder. Even using extreme care, it is potentially possible that bacteria can be introduced into a healthy udder in this manner. So suspicious ewes will normally get a full tube in the suspicious half; if she needs two tubes, because both halves are suspicious, so be it. Cost of the treatment is also a consideration; each tube costs over a dollar. This is well worth it if you have a good ewe who may indicate to you that she is tending toward developing mastitis. But to spend this sort of money on perfectly healthy ewes and at the same time run the risk of infecting them while treating them seems odd to me. Additionally, if you don't know what sort of bacteria you are treating for, you can be throwing your money away, so you should really have a culture and sensitivity before you dry treat. This procedure will be well worth the expense if you save a lot of udders. In our operation, it has not proved necessary or economical. If, however, preventative dry-treatment benefits can be demonstrated, it would be worthwhile economically and management-wise. Toward the end of our ewes' lactation, as yields are becoming reduced, we go to once a day milking. We then set our goal to "fill a freezer" for our cheese plant to make a pick-up. By the time that the freezer is full, most of the ewes will be ready to quit, but there may be a few persistent ones who are still putting forth a fair amount of milk. These are the ewes you should be concerned about drying off. Do a final CMT to detect ewes who should be dry treated. We then follow the same procedure we would use for drying off ewes at weaning. We reduce their water intake, and they go to very short rations in the form of our worst hay or skinniest pasture. DON'T feel sorry for them and milk them again after a couple days; you'll just prolong the agony. DO keep checking them for any signs of mastitis. I like to keep close tabs on them for at least 10 days (or as necessary) before they go back with the rest of the flock. Udder health affects flock performance, milk quality, and farm income. A healthy group of ewes will be more easily maintained in good udder health. An udder health program should contain provisions for PREVENTION, MANAGEMENT, TECHNIQUE, AND TREATMENT. It isn't EASY to maintain Somatic Cell Counts below 250,000, but our averages of 245,000 in 1992 and 101,000 in 1993 show it can be done. It is economically rewarding with a $5.00 per cwt bonus paid by our cheese processor for SCC levels under 250,000. Good udder health reflects not only in the pocketbook, but also in the milk bucket, with a quality product of which one can be proud. Special Thanks to Cindy B. Wolf, DVM, for her review and suggestions for this article. This article was previously published, and presented at the 1994 WI Sheep Breeders Cooperative Meeting in Madison, WI. I hope you find something here helpful - HAPPY MILKING!
Mary Jarvis (affectionately known as Mare) lives with her husband, Rusty, at Groveland Farm in Poplar, Wisconsin. Mare was Secretary and Treasurer of the OPP Concerned Sheep Breeders Society for 7 years. The Society decided to take advantage of the Groveland Farm web site to publish a fact sheet on Ovine Progressive Pneumonia and some other helpful materials. Mare has written numerous articles about sheep dairying for industry magazines over the years, and lectured at sheep conferences. When the Jarvis' were still milking sheep, they won awards for Milk Quality, and they basically wrote the Quality section of the Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative's manual. Mare is still a director of the Maremma Sheepdog Club of America, the breed association for the livestock guardian dogs that they raise. Rusty was a board member of the Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative, serving as a Vice President. His focus was Quality Control. He also served on the Endangered Species Committee of the American Sheep Industry Association for 4 years, with the timber wolf as his major focus. They raise Est A Laine Merino sheep, llamas, Maremmano-Abruzzese livestock guardian dogs, and Border Collies. You can email Mare at grovelandfarm@superiorwi.com or visit their website for more information. All Animals owns all rights to this article and the photos. You may link to the article (not the photos), but you may *not* copy it, nor reprint it anywhere else. You may print the URL which is www.all-animals.com/milk.html Advertising | Site Design | Site Hosting | About Us | Home | Email |
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