Preventing Loss Due to Sheep Abortion

Preventing loss due to abortion:

People often confuse infertility and abortion, it would be useful to define the difference as both cause reduced flock performance.

Infertility can be caused by many factors such as mineral deficiency, poor nutrition, ram related issues and failure to hold to matings and remain pregnant until the lambs are born at full term.

Abortion is when the lambs are lost at any stage of pregnancy and this is just one aspect of infertility or empty ewes.
In a vast majority of cases caused by various disease causing organisms, it can also be due to stress and toxins in mouldy feed, the graph below shows the proportions due to each

As most abortions are caused by infections due to disease causing organisms, this is a good place to start look at the cases of abortion creating financial loss on farms. Actions can be taken to reduce these and improve profitability of the flock. They need to be identified and also in the case of disease diagnosed by testing the aborted material and / or taking blood samples for investigation. 

 Preventing abortions due to diseases is possible and can be very cost effective using commercially available vaccines. Try entering some data in to the calculator provided on this website to see how much it would cost to use vaccines. IN the case of abortions it is prudent to seek veterinary input and put measures in place as part of the overall Flock Health plan.