Ask the Sheep Guy: MastitisQUESTION: What is Mastitis?
ANSWER:
Mastitis is an inflammation and infection of the udder.
My experience is that mastitis is caused by a bacterial infection, and that good husbandry can prevent mastitis. By good husbandry I mean good nutrition, good hygiene (i.e., a clean barn), and good practice in weaning off lambs and drying up ewes.My experience is also that sheep with mastitis should be culled, shipped, after raising their lambs if they have lambs. If left untreated, mastitis will kill a sheep.
What to do if a sheep has mastitis? As soon as I see that a ewe has mastitis, I milk the ewe’s udder out and administer broad spectrum antibiotic, preferably penicillin but sometimes oxytetracycline. By milking out the ewe, you can relieve pressure on the udder and help clean the infection. The antibiotics can help save the ewe and can also help the ewe raise her lambs.
Many folks administer antibiotics marketed for dairy cattle that are infused into the teat, that also helps.
To dry off your ewes and minimize the incidence of mastitis, remove the grain for two weeks before removing the good hay and remove the good hay for a week before weaning the lambs. Some remove the water for 24-48 hours while weaning the lambs, we don’t
As noted earlier, we’ve lost sheep to mastitis and too many lambs born to ewes with no udder, so cull ewes that have mastitis or that show any damage to the udder.