“Hi Kimberly. When you put your sheep out on really green grass like the video shows do you worry about the sheep bloating?”
This is an excellent question & very timely. I did recently share a video of my ewes & lambs going out on some very green grass. Please note before we start that I’m not a veterinary. I am providing my own experience & research: nothing more. Bloat is a medical emergency & it is always best to involve your vet.
Let’s begin with the grass or pasture. I was letting my sheep out into woodlands so I didn’t have the concern of high percentage legumes & there was zero chance of alfalfa. But the early growth of all plants is higher risk & it pays to follow a couple cautionary steps.
Feed the sheep hay in the morning (this trick works really well for a few days until they figure out they have better feed in the afternoon & stop consuming as much) but the rule of thumb is that if you can have them consuming at least 1/3 or more of their diet in hay it will help reduce bloat.
Put them out in the afternoon once the dew has dried.
Whenever possible start in small increments. Some people will say 15-30 minutes at a time multiple times a day. That sounds ideal, but has never worked with my schedule. I try to start on a weekend when I will be home & put them out for an hour or less each day. After that I’ll time things to let them out when I’m there, even if that has to be after 4-5 pm for a couple hours. It’s best to try & adjust them as slowly as your schedule allows. The rule of thumb is that it takes about 10 days to change over the bacteria in the rumen. This is most evident when transferring from winter hay to spring pasture. It’s always best to be cautious!
If you can be home & move them multiple times during the day then that’s great. If not, work around your schedule as best as possible to go 1-2 hours a day for 7-10 days.
Always have sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) available. People who call sheep stupid haven’t seen them self-medicate. It’s basically the equivalent of humans taking a Tums.. & your sheep will often take care of any tummy rumbling before it’s an issue.
So in answer to your question, woodlands don’t usually concern me, but remember my flock is acclimated to its environment. Pasture can be an entirely different experience especially with sheep that aren’t accustomed to your farm or returning from winter hay.
Sheep bloat is often caused by lush pastures (especially in the spring or even occasionally when rotationally grazing during the summer). Pastures heavy in legumes, particularly clover, & alfalfa can cause issues. This type of pasture ferments quickly & produces gases more quickly than the sheep can digest.
Before you go out & dig up all your clover I will say that my pasture is at least 50% legume with some alfalfa interspersed. Legumes form a mutually beneficial association with rhizobia bacteria that “fix” nitrogen from the air and share it with their host plant. This capability can enrich the soil & balance nitrogen without requiring nitrogen fertilizer. If you read that again, it’s amazing! Grasses cannot do that. Legumes are also highly nutritious and provide the diversity sheep need to thrive. They also remain tasty during periods when grass may not be as palatable. I can’t imagine running a grass fed program without legumes. There are many non-bloating legumes: Sainfoin, crown vetch, milk vetch, fenugreek, lespedeza and birdsfoot trefoil are some of them. Legumes that contain condensed tannins, such as birdsfoot trefoil and sericea lespedeza, not only don’t cause bloat, because their protein is digested more slowly, but they also have an inhibitory effect on gastro-intestinal parasites!
I’ve introduced trefoil & chicory (not a legume but benefits greatly from the nitrogen provided when planted with legumes) for this purpose but with varying degrees of success. I still depend heavily on my clover.
Now we know what causes bloat? Not entirely.
There are actually 3 types of bloat which can occur in small ruminants: frothy bloat (primary ruminal tympany), free-gas bloat (secondary ruminal tympany) and abomasal bloat (abdominal tympany). This is why I think there is so much confusion when bloat presents. You end up reading a stream of contradicting advice. Some people say tube, others say drench… & the only agreement is ASAP. While it turns out both work, but for different types of mature rumen bloat (yes, the third bloat usually only occurs in lambs with not fully developed rumens). If you’re feeling confused about bloat, that’s okay.
In order to get you the best explanation possible I will pull out a Laura Lawson book.
Laura Lawson identifies two different presentations of what she calls “rumen bloat”. This is important to note! The two types are “free-gas bloat” and “frothy bloat”.
The simplest explanation is that sheep bloat is an excess of gases in the rumen of sheep. This presents itself as either a persistent foam mixed with the ruminal contents (this is primary or frothy bloat) or as free gas separated from the ingesta (this is secondary or free-gas bloat).
Frothy (or primary) bloat is associated with the ingestion of legumes (alfalfa and clovers), cereal crops, or lush pasture. As mentioned above, even just a wet pasture can contribute to bloat. I learned the hard way that not only pasture can cause bloat, but an increase in dry hay. I’ve only lost one sheep to bloat & it wasn’t legumes. I’d gone out of town & the person feeding my sheep needed to set out a big bale to free feed the sheep. It was only going to be a couple days until I got back & they were still eating pasture at the same time (it was early fall). I was shocked when one of my best ewes succumbed to bloat apparently caused by overeating the grass mix hay. I still can’t believe it, but it happened so quickly the only diagnosis was bloat. She was a large ewe & I’m guessing she got herself cast after overindulging. It was a good (tough) reminder to always make changes gradually even it looks like a green pasture to grass hay shift.
Frothy-bloat is caused by entrapment of gas produced from fermentation of readily digestible feeds. This fermentation causes the formation of a stable foam that prevents the release of fermentation gas by eructation.
This is what happened in another personal scenario that taught me to always move VERY slowly when you add sheep from regions outside your own. This is always a challenge whether it be fodder (alpine meadow vs legume heavy pasture) or parasites (high & dry with no barberpole vs hot & humid with parasite pressure) or climate (cold mountain summer nights or lucky to reach 70 summer nights). Always remember that sheep do not transition easily. Observe & support them through the transition (in regards to parasites this can take a year or more). In the case of this ram, at 16 months old he’d most likely never eaten clover. After quarantining him for 3 weeks I let him out on what I would have called tired Sept/Oct pasture. I hadn’t turned my back for more then 30 minutes & he looked like he’d swallowed a beach ball! Literally the Titantic tipping so hard to the left that it was a marvel he could still stand.
My brand new, fancy ram was on the brink of succumbing to bloat. I didn’t trust myself to come up with a solution. You know those moments when you need confirmation? I called another shepherdess & she sent me a recipe for baking soda & oil. It was what I would have done, but it felt good to collaborate. I could not afford to lose this ram.
He was a big ram, even as a yearling, so thankfully he could still walk. I made up a solution of 1 cup vegetable & 1/2 cup baking soda.
I’ve seen this recipe provided where they used water, but below is an excerpt from Merck Veterinary Manuel:
A variety of antifoaming agents are effective, including vegetable oils (eg, peanut, corn, soybean) and mineral oils (paraffins), at doses of 250–500 mL. In general, any nontoxic oil that is not rapidly metabolized is effective, because they all reduce surface tension and foam. Dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, a surfactant, is commonly incorporated into one of the above oils and sold as a proprietary antibloat remedy, which is effective if administered early. (Please ignore dosage. Most of this article addressed bloat in cattle.)
I slowly drenched my ram with the vegetable oil/baking soda solution. I did not give it to him all at once, but took breaks to keep him walking & massage/thump gently on his side. The aim here is to get them burping. I will caution you that keeping their heart rate down is important especially if you come across a sheep that is already highly effected by bloat. Bloat will often kill a sheep by suffocation & the danger is hastened if the sheep panics. Keeping the sheep calm is important.
In the case of my ram, I kept drenching him with small quantities & rubbing his left side. Thankfully he began to shrink & he survived. There are commercial products that you can buy to have on hand. They would replace the use of my oil/baking soda solution. You can search bloat guard & most the big feed stores & companies sell something. I think they’re mostly off label, for cattle, but you can work out dosage. I believe Rumen-Eze is sheep specific, but hard to find because of it.
Remember that keeping them moving after you give your choice of anti-foaming agents (store bought or homemade drench) will help break down the foam and hasten the expulsion of gas.
Now for the secondary type of bloat. “Free gas bloat” occurs with grain diets. I don’t feed grain, but this is the emergency scenario when you read about the sheep breaking into another animal’s (horse, chicken etc) feed. Gas bloat is also what happens when there is a physical obstruction in the esophagus stopping the gas from being expelled. I have not dealt with this type of bloat (aka- seek other help!) but here is a quick summary on stomach tubing to treat.
“The use of a stomach tube is the most effective treatment for free-gas bloat. This technique will also distinguish between free-gas and frothy bloat. Once you place the tube, the gas in the rumen will escape and relieve the pressure. Often the tube may need to be repositioned repeatedly to release all the gas. After the tube has been placed and the gas released, then the cause for obstruction should be identified. If no gas escapes and a foamy substance trickles out of the tube, then the animal has frothy bloat.”
Lastly, since we’re on the subject the final type of bloat is: abomasal bloat, sometimes called abomasitis, is a disorder seen in lambs and kids that are generally under three weeks of age. I may have experience with this from the early days when I thought bringing a lamb inside to bottle feed & use artificial milk replacer was a good idea. Usually this bloat ends in death so it is difficult to always diagnosis what exact factor kills a 1-3 week old bottle fed lamb, but many are associated with abomasal bloat.
There are many factors to this bloat, it is a bacterial problem. Some are lack of proper colostrum, poor hygiene, feeding warm milk, vitamin/mineral deficiencies & feeding large quantities of milk 3-4x a day versus the numerous small feedings lambs usually world consume are all potential causes. Here’s a quick summary;
“When young ruminants are not fed at regular intervals throughout the day but fed a larger than recommended milk meal two to three times a day, the emptying of the stomach (abomasum) can slow. This delayed emptying of the stomach allows more time for the sugars in milk to ferment, causing an over- abundance of gas to be produced more rapidly than it can be released. When this happens, the abomasum bloats, often resulting in a quick, unpleasant death.”
These are a few symptoms to look out for, but I have to add that whenever you can avoid artificially rearing a lamb it is far better for them.
Lambs with abomasal bloat will have swollen bellies that make a splashing sound if picked up and shaken softly, be dull & lethargic, have abdominal pain, grind teeth, & eventually die.
Back to mature sheep with frothy bloat or gas bloat. Here’s a overview of bloat symptoms just in case (despite a multitude of careful preparations) a sheep still wants to try to die on you.
Swollen left abdomen.
Restless behavior characterized by a lot of getting up & down.
Sometimes they’ll kick at their extended belly.
Occasionally they stretch oddly, extending their head & neck out, sometimes grunting.
It is not unusual that as the pressure builds they will lay down & not be able to get back up.
Ears can be droopy & eyes glassy.
From Dr. David C. Henderson’s The Veterinary Book for Sheep Farmers:
“If bloated sheep are still on their feet when found, they may stand very stiffly with their legs wide apart. They may pant excessively and stagger about if moved. They urinate and attempt to dung frequently. Swelling will be seen in the animal’s left flank and also on the right side in advanced cases. The pressure of the swollen rumen presses on the diaphragm, causing difficulty in breathing and finally suffocation and heart failure.”
And lastly, I feel it’s important to provide a completely different, common-sense secondary opinion from an experienced shepherd.
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