New Drugs Now Save Valuable Sheep During Lambing

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 55, 21 February 1949, Page 3

New Drugs Now Save Valuable Sheep During Lambing

Delivery of the young in abnormal cases involving a Caesarian operation is becoming a practice ! as standard and successful with animals as it has been with human beings. This is due to the availability of 'the new drugs, such as penicillin and sulphonamides, which have saved valuable stud sheep as well as dairy cows. Last year, probably for the first time in New Zealand, the Caesarian technique was successfully used on several stud ewes in the Poverty Bay district. Recently, within a period of four days, two such successful operations were performed by the veterinary staff of Massey Agricultural College. The first case was that of a pedigree heifer which could not be delivered of her calf by ordinary means owing to an anatomical deformity. The calf was dead before the operation was performed, but the heifer made a rapid

recovery and within a week of the operation she had joined the dairy herd and was milking remarkably well. In the second instance the same operation proved necessary for a valuable stud Southdown ewe. In this case the lamb was alive when delivered through the flank. ' Here again the mother made a rapid and uninterrupted recovery. The Caesarian operation is naturally a major one, involving, through the flank an incisiion measuring upwards of 12 inches in length. Needless to say, the operation can be performed only by a qualified veterinarian, with the aid of a general anaesthetic. It is all-important to operate promptly if the progeny as well as the dam is to be saved. The dam’s prospects of recovery are also poor if she has been subjected to prolonged rough handling in a vain attempt to deliver her young before the operation is decided upon.