"TWIN LAMB" DISEASE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22515, 24 September 1938, Page 13

"TWIN LAMB" DISEASE

METHODS OF TREATMENT STATEMENT BY RESEARCH OFFICER “It is gratifying to report a marked diminution in cases of pregnancy toxaemia, or dopeyness or twin-lamb disease,” said IVIr T. K. Ewer, veterinary research officer of the Livestock Division of the Department of Agriculture, in a statement to “The Press” yesterday on “Twin Lamb Disease.” “No doubt it is partly due to the fact that most farmers are now m the n ust of lambing, and partly because green feed >of one sort or another is much more plentiful,” he continued. “On the other hand, it is not so pleasing to report that already among mobs of lambs round ,hree weeks o.t age there are deaths due to ent ;rotoxaemia, or pulpy-kiclney disease. Only a few days ago there came to my notice the case of a death due to this disease on a p’roperty which has never had it before. “A number of farmers who experience annual losses in their rcest prime young lambs due to entero-toxaemia, took the precaution of vaccinating their ewes before lambing. But ii tm» has not been done and you start losing a few of your best lambs, what can be done about it? Based upon the observation that it is almost invariably the lamb that is doing particularly well or thriving best that is allected, has arisen the practice of giving all lambs in such an affected moo some sort of a check. If tailing has not ocen done, that alone may be sufficient, or lambs may be penned up for a nigft, or both ewes and lambs turned on to poorer pasture. A farmer assured me a few days ago of another and much Jess drastic way which he had found com* pletely effective over several years. By this method ewes with, twins are run separately from the singles. Then each clay the dog is put round the singles so that they are sent once round the paddock. This simple method of ensuring a certain amount of compulsory daily exercise would seem to be quite sufficient to stimulate the lamb’s metabolic processes and so enable it to escape the disease. "But I would counsel sheep owners who suffered loss in their lambs last year from entero-toxaemia or pulpy

kidney disease, especially if it developed at a fairly late stage, to consider the advisability of vaccinating their lambs. This may be done at tailing, or better still, a week or fortnight after. To produce a full immunity two inoculations are desirable, the second being done in a month or six weeks’ time. Full particulars of the whole procedure may be obtained at any office of the Department of Agriculture.”