I've experienced bloat before and recognized it immediately. I treated her with a cooking oil/baking sod/water combo. She took a full cup of the mixture so I waited for it to do it's job. However, she only went downhill. She refused to get up or eat so I administered another cup of the mixture before bed that night.
But when I went into the barn the next morning, we found her on her side and severely bloated. She had past away overnight.
My ewes do not have access to pasture as it is winter and they are given an equal amount of grain so no fear of overindulging therefore I couldn't understand how it had gotten so bad. Looking further into it, I've come to some conclusions. Amongst my new flock there were some older ewes who had at least one more year left for breeding. Part of the deal was that I was to take them along with the rest of the flock. They had pointed out this ewe with the white blaze down her face as being one that was an elderly ewe. I had noticed on a few occasions some of the older ewes would vomit up their grain after eating it. I have looked up whether it was a good idea to be feeding whole corn to an older ewe but haven't found anything that said it was harmful. I found more information saying it was more harmful to feed them cracked corn so continued to feed them the whole corn. Reading more on bloat today one of the ways they can bloat is having vomit lodged in their throat not allowing the gas in their bellies to escape. Bingo. I could easily see that happening. If I had read this last night perhaps I could have administered to her accordingly, helped her dislodge the vomit and perhaps saved her. The thought of calling the vet was immediately decided against as this ewe was older and not worth the vet bill. I am sad to have lost my first adult ewe, but it is something I realize comes with the challenge of livestock farming.
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