United Suffolk Sheep Association

Saving Lambs with Vaccinations

The most important vaccination to be given to pregnant ewes is that against Campylobacter (Vibrio). Chlamydia vaccine is usually hard to find and not particularly efficacious anyway. The abortion vaccines all recommend that they be given before breeding, although they actually can be given anytime before lambing or abortions begin. Keeping in mind that abortion can occur anytime after conception, the best insurance against early lamb loss would be vaccinating shortly before breeding. However, immunity from vaccinating doesn’t seem to be very long lived. Research done at the Caine Center shows blood antibody levels begin to wane about the 4^th month after administration. Since most abortions tend to occur in the 4^th month of gestation, we have recommended giving the annual booster for Campylobacter (Vibriosis) about the time the ram is taken out but if you haven’t yet vaccinated for Campylobacter, now would be a good time! 

Campylobacter doesn’t always show up in a flock as abortions. It can also cause stillbirths. It is not uncommon to have one dead or weak lamb born due to Campylobacter infection with a perfectly healthy normal twin. If you are getting more than one or two weak or stillbirth lambs per 35 or so ewes and you really can’t pin it on exposure/hypothermia, check it out. Save the dead lamb and its placenta and send them to the nearest diagnostic laboratory for diagnosis. Furthermore, always pick up and dispose of any placenta, whether from a weak, dead or normal lamb. They are far more likely to harbor the abortion bugs than the dead lambs. Dogs eating infected placentas not only drag them around, further spreading the contamination around pens and corrals, but also pass the organism in their feces. And you know dogs;  they rather poop in the nice dry hay feeder than out in the cold wet snow. 

J.R. Papp and P.E. Shewan from Guelph, Ontario, Canada showed that ewes that abort with Chlamydia carry the organisms afterwards and excrete them from the reproductive tract during the heat the following year. They also found that ewes infected vaginally before breeding produced weak, infected lambs at birth; and if infected vaginally 60 days after breeding experienced reproductive failure (are open). Previous research from Montana showed that rams could have chlamydial infection of the testes and excrete Chlamydia in their semen. The Canadian researchers suspect that rams can spread Chlamydia from ewe to ewe during breeding or become infected themselves and spread it in their semen. Thus, they think that venereal infection may be a major means of perpetuating chlamydiosis in the flock. Their recommendation is to cull ewes that abort with chlamydiosis to avoid venereal spread the next season. However, you have to know that she had Chlamydia before you can make that decision. 

Many people bypass this problem by feeding tetracycline for 2-3 weeks before breeding or before lambing. Chlamydia is easily controlled with tetracycline. 

Vaccinating with a 7 or 8 way Clostridial vaccine 30 to 45 days before lambing is another good idea in order to protect lambs after birth against Clostridial diseases via the ewe’s colostrums. Colostral antibodies last for at least 60 days in the lamb’s blood and research at Cornell suggests that colostrums from vaccinated ewes will protect lambs against enterotoxemia for up to 120 days of age. (Of course you have to make sure lambs get their colostrums within 3 to 4 hours of birth.) I don’t know about you, but I much rather vaccinate ewes than squirmy little 30-day old lambs; which you need to do and again at 60 days, if you don’t vaccinate the ewe 30 days before lambing. 

Dr. Marie Bulgin was raised on a ranch in Idaho and received her veterinary degree from the University of California in 1967. She worked in a mixed animal practice, was a racing commission veterinarian and took care of a sale yard among other things until 1978 when she went to work for the University of Idaho at the Caine Veterinary Teaching Center. She was the second Idaho faculty member hired for the then brand new WOI (Washington-Oregon-Idaho) Cooperative Veterinary Teaching Program. She has been at the Teaching Center ever since as Idaho’s small ruminant veterinary specialist and now is the Coordinator of the Idaho veterinary teaching program and the Caine Veterinary Teaching Center. 

Over the years, she has been involved in research on neonatal lamb death, ram epididymitis, abortion in ewes, ovine footrot, OPP hardbag, yellow lamb disease, and Pasteurella pneumonia in Bighorns. Her present research interest is scrapie and she oversees 100 head of naturally exposed scrapie-research sheep supported by NIH for development of a diagnostic test for CJD.