SICK SHEEP EMMA

Originally from: Sue Burton
                        
Hi Folks,

Sorry for the dreadful delay in letting you know how EMMA got on at the Vets. Things did not go to to plan but at present EMMA is still alive and at the Vets.

Her op was booked in for 11 – 1. But we did not get started till mid day.The laparotomy took till 3pm. and showed nothing except whenever the rumen was touched she showed a lot of pain.The rumenotomy got underway and her rumen was totally cleared out – sadly no wire or foreign body came out. The Vet then felt around and at the front of her stomach he could feel a mass. He then scanned it and quite definitely there was a largish mass. Problem then was do we put her to sleep in case it was cancerous or do we check to see if its an abscess which we can help. At 6pm she went under general anaesthetic and the vet had to hunt for the mass. He found various masses and on opening them it showed total impaction.

The Vet feels that when she bloated her rumen stopped and then when it did pick up again she was impacted. He has now totally cleared everything out. The operation did not finish until 2.30 – so 13 hours of surgery. At 9pm and 12.30 we almost lost her but managed to revive her. Even under general anaesthetic every time the Vet touched the mass it would stop her from breathing as the pain was so intense.

It was one hell of a night. She was such a stoical little sheep. She has passed wee and last night passed her first lot of droppings. She is not out of the woods. We would not normally entertain such extensive surgery but until we actually opened her up we would not have known whether it was just a bit of wire. And then when the mass was found it could have just been removed and that would have been the end of it.

I have to say I was so impressed with the Vet. He worked on his knees on the floor in wet rumen and contents for 13 hours. He was absolutely soaked and then when we left at 3 am he was then going to sleep in a stable near to her to
 keep an eye on her.

So its still early days for EMMA and we may still lose her but hopefully being the strong girl she is she may just pull through. At the moment we are waiting to hear from our vet as to how she is today and whether we can bring her back home today.

On a slightly different note does anyone know how/where I could contact an agronomist to test our soil and grass.

Cheers

Sue