Dealing with Grain Overload in Lambs (BLOATED!): Vlog 108 

Real respect for not hiding this. I can’t imagine how upsetting this was for her or how much sh*t she’s given for stuff like this. I think it’s vital to be honest when educating others or yourself

I love how not only do you show the good day, and the bad days but how humble and how you admit on what you've done wrong. Then you show us how to try to correct it, cudos to you Sandi and ty for teaching us all.

Wow! Thanks so much for being humble enough to share. We can all learn from our own mistakes, but it's really helpful when we can learn from people who are brave enough to share their stories. Thank you! Hope the coming year is successful!

We always regret not listening to that little voice earlier. I'm a Vet, Actually what happens with grain overload it's an over production of gases but mostly acid in the rumen that attracts water from the body to the rumen, dehydrating the animal. Also some of the acid is absorbed into the blood, so it's a combination of dehydration and metabolic acidosis. I have my sheep here in Argentina, and what I do, depending on the case, is: if I know that some animals had eaten to much grain ( it happened to me that some sheep had scaped and went into my barn and found the corn) I separate them, and leave them with a lot of hey and water. I check them every half an hour. If I found a sheep dull ( knowing that she could have eaten to much grain) I tube it, pass on some warm water and pump out the rumen content. I repeat this till the water comes out clean and put the sheep in a pen with only water. Next day tube a healthy sheep, pump out a quarter of litre of the rumen fluid and pass it to the sick sheep through a tube. This is important because when the rumen is washed, it losses all its bacteria and the sheep is not able to digest neither hay nor grains. Then I feed it hey and reintroduce grains very slowly ( a third of the total every week for three weeks) If the sheep is too depressed, I wash the rumen and give it fluids intravenously using lactate ringer solution. It's a laborious treatment, but very effective in my experience. All this if there is not a vet around (mostly with the sickest sheep that needs immediate treatment) just need to learn how to tube and pass intravenous fluids, it's not hard Hope this is useful for you. Keep on your great job!

My dad had a tool that he punched into the sheep and let the bloat out. I’m not sure of anymore than what I just texted. My dad grew up farming. He told me never to farm sheep. You love them and loose some to different issues. Plus they often need help lambing and it’s exhausting. But he did say that the little ones just run away with your heart because they are so cute. You do a hard job. And from what I’m watching you do it well. Oversights happen. I’m sorry for your loss.

Thank you for the bravery in posting this. I know it wasn't easy

Rewatching this tonight! Lost a ewe earlier this week and went out today to find another not doing well. Realized it’s bloat due to bedding with a new straw bale. They usually have barley straw and this was oat straw. Tried all the things tonight to save her, so here is to hoping tomorrow she is doing better! Thanks for sharing this Sandi, raising animals isn’t always easy!

Needle into the rumen trick works great, it'll usually smell like she belched in your face when you do it right. Even prostrate sheep will literally jump up and run off relieved and happy, no other treatment necessary. Maybe because even a large gauge needle is relatively small compared to internal organs, we never lost one when we perhaps 'did it wrong' and didn't hit the rumen just right.

Thank you for sharing this. My 2 boys have a small flock and their breeding ram broke into the feed this summer. We tried all the same things you did and with no luck. They were so disheartened and felt terrible about it. Your video helped them to see that it can happen to anybody. All you can do is learn from it and move on.

Just started watching your vlogs. Thanks for keeping in real and honest.

Oh Sandi, how terrible for you and the lambs. I realize this video is 2 yrs old but I just got around to watching it. You are doing so much better now.

One of my cows pushed her head through the gate into the feed bay where I kept several tons of range pellets. She lifted the gate off the hinges and the rest of the cows got into the feed. 1 died of overload and 15 were really sick. The only one without some scours was the one with the gate stuck on her neck. I had been planning to turn the top hinge on the gate so it wouldn't lift off. I got busy. Its so frustrating when you know what you didnt get done causes havoc. Lovely ewe lambs by the way.

Yes, that's the way it goes here sometimes too. I just keep it out free choice. Along with loose mineral...but you have all that in your TMR, and I am pasture based. You're doing a great job! I love your vlogs. Thank you for taking the time!

This just happened to me this week. I had a shortage in grain and stopped feeding the grain base diet to the sheep thinking that they could wait a week only on alfalfa and oated hay. Finally I gave them their diet the night before and guess what, the next morning 3 of them became bloated and 2 of them are now dog food. Strange thing is that I just woke up an saw your video right on top of the recommendation list, talk about synchronicity. I am taking your first aid recipe into my vet kit. Greetings from Mexico.

I’ve had great success with puncturing the rumen with an 18 gauge needle with the syringe attached but plunger removed to let the gas out of the rumen. Granted I’ve only done it on goats but I figure it’s about the same. Sorry for your loss. Love your content lots of good info

Through out the self feeders a long time ago after finding 5 of my nicest lambs dead at the the waterer. Now we bunk feed 2 times a day, problem solved. May sound like more work but it's not compared to all you go through with a situation like yours. Love the way you keep your cool!!! I share and carry on and on, bothers me forever when we loose lambs. Keep up the good work!!!

Thank you for being so open and honest in everything you do. I've been watching your channel for a while now and I am so inspired and slightly in awe of your resilience and willingness to always want to learn and better yourself. I'm no farmer by any means but I've read and seen people tubing a calf with bloat to release some of the pressure in the stomach. Would that not ease that symptom and give them a little longer for the other medications to work?? I have absolutely no idea if it would work but who better to ask than you!! X

Thanks for posting this. Helps me remember bad days happen to us all.

“I WAS WRONG!” 😂 seriously though this is stuff is so upsetting, especially when they’re in pain

Sandi, All said and Done, it is about the Animal, not our feelings. I have had to put down many of my hunting and farm dogs for various reasons. Best reason is super old age, but we don't get to choose. There is nothing more egregious in my book, than not doing the "Right Thing" for an animal, to appease our own silly guilt. Ya Dun Gud Goil!

Love your Cody the Cow Vet hat 🙋🏻‍♀️ !

Thanks so much for sharing this! You are so helpful. Greatly appreciate it.

Sorry for your loss. It’s always a shocker when this happens cuz it progresses SO FAST. I don’t feed much grain but feed lamb grower pellets so haven’t had much of this type of bloating, but had LOTS of bloating of bottle baby lambs. Seems to happen to the biggest and fastest growing ones at the point where they’re still getting milk and eating lots of solid food. I usually feed high alfalfa hay and sometimes the combo of the milk and alfalfa triggers it in the bigger ones. Also found that milk made with powdered lamb replacer seems to produce more gas than real milk (I now use goat or cows milk or cut the replacer with real milk). Have had very little bloat in lambs since switching. I’ve tried commercial bloat medication, tubing the gas off, and rushing them to the vet. Nothing worked until I used the baking soda and water (usually tube fed). This is the ONLY thing that has worked for me. They will froth at the mouth as the soda seems to bind with the gas and brings it out of them (scientific explanation welcome). What I found: The real key is to treat them as soon as you suspect bloat. They tend to bloat after the last bottle feeding of the evening. You find them dead in the morning. The baking soda works if you get it into them fast. It’s far more common in sheep than goats. Sorry I’m so wordy.

use any vegetable oil works like a charm, from one farmer to another you can use about 40ml

So very sorry, Sandi. You’re human and sadly humans mess up sometimes. I know it hurts. Much love.

Total bummer! Sorry that happened. Tfs though. Stay safe. 🙏

the gases causing the bloat pushes the rumin against the lungs causing labored breathing that cause them to die. releasing the pressure will help in recovering .

I have used this routine quite often! I found some other stuff call Therabloat that is AMAZING! It will literally knock out bloat in 15 minutes! If you can get it, honey GET it! Love using it!

Thanks for the honesty Sandi. I lost 2 lambs this week. I’d changed their ration to a barley one & two were poorly after day 2. I tried drenching them with a baking soda mix but sadly it didn’t work.

Dealing with this on my pricey goat buck right now. My vet said 1tsp baking soda drenched every 3 hours with some anti bloat or an oil to cut down foaming. I added penicillin to the drench and milk of magnesia. The acid in blood can cause neurological issues so she said injection of b complex or thiamine every 6 hours. You can also inject a pocket of sterile saline under the skin for dehydration. The rumen uses mostly gram negative bacteria and the acid producing bad bacteria is gram positive. penicillin kills mainly positive bacteria so given orally it can kill back the acid producing bacteria without killing all the rumen ones. A local farmer here just grabs fresh cud from another goat’s mouth and soaks it in water then drenches the sick goat to help re-inoculate the rumen. Day 3 and my buck is alert and eating hay now.

Ugh, Sandi....I’ve been there. Damned sheep. My ewe flock busted out and got into distillers grains a couple years back and I lost a bunch, super frustrating and disheartening!

We had a goat die of bloat as we were out of town and our neighbor was used to feeding horses, but we ended up saving one by using a 16 gauge needle to release the air from the gut just halfway between the last rib and the flanks on both sides. I almost had to do it all by myself today as we just switched from 3 string bales to 6 and my kids aren't used to the new measurement conversion. Luckily, she wasn't as bloated as I thought. I'm not sure if the trick works for lambs, though.

I have been told to add Laundry detergent😲 to their drinking water and tube with the same to those who are not so good. It worked and out of 5 ewes I didn't lose a one. 🤷💁‍♀️🙆 I realize it sounds crazy but it works.

Was that a Cody Creelman toque you were wearing ??? Awesome. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ 🇨🇦

Would have been a great time to have a guess spot for Cody Creelman, the Cow Vet to explain bloat. :)

i cold not be a sheep farmer because i dont have the strength to cull or sent to slaughter the lambs or watch them die from many issues when there is nothing more you can do to help and when i watch the lambing seasons on channel every time a lost a ewe or lamb i get sad but im so in awe of you and all you do on your farm

I used to use a device that you punched into the rumen and the nastiest smelling gasses resulted but they survived.

I had no Idea that sheep are definitely a whole lot of work!!!

I had goats and had only 1 instance of bloat. It wasn't bad and was able to handle it with just massaging the rumen. She was also pregnant! When you pulled that very sick ewe up to a sternal position I was cheering as with goats laying on their left side is bad for the rumen.

Hi Sandi! I'm backwatching ur vids and found this. My baby lamb has scours and I don't know what to do. Could you please tell me the proportion of the baking soda to the water? And is it safe to give it to the kid?

I keep a supply (1 gallon jug) of Bloat Eze on hand for just such occasions. Baking soda doesn't really work as a treatment, it is more of a prevention to leave out free choice during periods of grain transitions.

In this situation I have given the antitoxin. Pen G SC as well as orally. If the animal is easily sat and held on its rump, I do this for as long as I can to let as much air out as I can. Enterotoximia kills fast. Its how we learn Sandi. Sometimes the hard way, with livestock that always seems the way it happens. Vets are not always available when we need them.

I had a vet inject penicillin straight into one of my lambs gut. You can puncture the stomach to let gas out to. Mostly this is done in cows but it can save a sheeps life too. You can get a special knife and it actually has a kind of sheath that stays in and releases the gas. Probably requires vet assistance after though to close up properly. But as bloat happens fast this can save a life.

Hi sandi its Tabish from pakistan when we have blowing problems we give use mobile oil about 5cc and we have seen magical results try that next time you can take it out from any engine

I am actually treating one right now for grain poisoning and a friend of mine told me to use bicarb of soda mixed with water I have done this on a cow and it has worked wonders so fingers crossed

What do you do with the sheep who die? Just wondering, if you use them and/or donate them.

Just a thought on bloat i had a cow that was chronic and one day i had the vet out he suggested a magnet. the thought was when you're sick it hurts to cough image a animal with a sharp object inside and it will fight the reflex to cough. That cow never bloated again i have used this several times and i don't know if it will work on sheep and in your case unfortunately on grain bloat it won't but something to keep in the background for a chronic. Take care

Hi sandi Brock! I have a Question. If I have my replacement ewe lambs out on unlimited pasture and I have them on a creep feeder will they get too fat?

Can you use a gastro tube on sheep to relieve the pressure?

Sandi. Thank You very much for the video. Take Care, You Are great person and all of use make mistakes. You are very truth full Persons good, bad, ugly or what ever comes down the pike you show use out in the many viewers will not make that same booboo.😁

This reminds me the time when i was about 15 and i forgot my guinea pigs outside and it rained during the night, next morning they were all floating drowned, my female had just given birth to two colorfull babies, the memory of it still haunts me till this day :(

We keep sodium bicarbonate out free choice at all times. They eat it if they need it. I've also put a tube down to release gas. It's carry over from dairying. I'm so sorry. It's always the good ones.

This question comes from reading a lot of James Harriot. Do you call a "Knacker Man" when a recently healthy sheep dies? Or can you harvest the meat when it dies from bloat? How do you dispose of a large carcass?

let me give you a tip Sandi anytime you have this problem with any of your sheep just get a bottle of 7up or canada dry and give it to them, let them drink it all and watch them get better, you will hear them burping like they gonna make you laugh. remember, you lift their head and empty it all cuz they won't drink it on their own. there aren't many people know about this. this works for goats too best of luck

It might sound cruel or severe but the best chance for them is to use a large needle to release the gasses from the rumen and follow up with baking soda and liquid paraffin this is what I use to cure mine and I should know I did the same thing in my first year with sheep

Love your hat, sorry you had a crap day

Thank you for trying

Miss Sandi, What do you do with the dead, cremate or bury

Sorry if the question is insensitive, but if they die to this and aren't left out long, is the meat still any good or does it become unsafe?

so sad see it happen seeing them die before your eyes and knowing did treatment to late

You also need to burp them after you give Sodium Bicarbonate, (very important) this means you need to lift their front legs up (so that they are sort of reaching up, persist, you will hear them belch ) it is quite physical but do-able! this will bring up the gas in their tummies (it is very important to get that gas out) and repeat this often over hours. I haven't lost one yet.... So, Bi-carb first then burp, repeat, repeat, repeat till they seem settled.

That sucks royaly so sorry! I've been there once with one of our ewes.

Don't forget to push in, up and around (massage) that air out! Frequently!

So they need an antibiotic for bloat?

The fans are LOUD!!

Metacam is comparable to advil in pain relief, so I'm curious how much pain relief it would offer to the animals in this state. I use sodium bicarb pills for my acid reflux. It's the only thing that works well.

Shit happens to all of us. Don't beat yourself up. Put on your Big Girl Pants, learn from the past and think positively ! Bulldog

can you not tube them into there ruman to release the bloot like we do with steers, bulls and cows, when some get into feed, (grain) i have to tube a few times a year as you get a few that hog the grain and head butt other off? i have even had to cut them open, on some that just keep reblooting, to let the presser steady let out

Stuff happens. We do our best and learn from our mistakes. We haven't had this happen yet, but I could write a book on all of the other fun stunts our sheep try to pull on us. ;-) We no longer try to save a sheep that is down on their side like that. It never, ever works, they will die anyway. It just causes them more stress and is a poor use of resources. If they go down and can't get up within the day, we go ahead and euthanize. No more stressing/drenching/medicating (for both you and the sheep, ha) and dragging out suffering for days.

but i thought grain was part of their feed. still dont get how it just kills them

so sorry about your lambs it bad but you have done your best thats all anyone could do

Oh yes….I remember my moms rotors of having to stick bloated lambs. 😞

I always use CD Antetoxin when my lambs bloat. It's an injection.

Baking soda and water - has this ever been used on dogs? Example.. Great Danes and Dobermans can get this if they eat or drink hard after working hard (exercise). I wondered if just baking soda and water would help these breeds with this method. Most of us don’t have penicillin on hand but we might be desperate for a quick help before we can get our dog medical treatment. In 3 decades we’ve never had this with our dogs (praise God!) because I’m super strict on their daily routine. But if this could help others that run into an emergency situation.. could it help them?

there is something called bloat-eze you can get in either in a 4L or 340ml containers only know this from my mom before she got out of sheep

Just give them kooking oil its helps to get rit of the wind inside them

Please what can I give my sheep is unable to walk please please

Hey I know that hat! Cody Creelman Cow Vet.

I have bought my Lambs back from bloat with a pro biotic and instead of Penicillin which is very rough on Sheep I use Bayatril 10% 1 ml per 40 lbs for 5 days and have bought them back from the brink.

Is there no way to puncture their stomachs to release the gas???

I just watched sheep being treated for bloat by stabbing a straw-like tool into their stomachs in the 1967 movie “Far from the Madding Crowd”. 😳😳😳😳

A sheep I’m watching ( for a friend I’m not a sheep person ) got about 4-6 extra bites on top of his regular grain today. Is he at risk of bloat?? I really know NOTHING about sheep so I’m worried about him. I came out 5 hours later and he’s standing up and moving around. I didn’t see him drink water or poop but he wasn’t laying down and I couldn’t view him from the back because he’s still scared of people so he would just bolt

Do you butcher the lambs that pass away?

It can happen so easily and quickly. It's happened to us with the fats. One year dad thought he'd be nice and roller mill some grain. That was a bad bad morning after

Hi! I am a new hobby farmer an I was wondering if I let my sheep eat the grass (hey for the winter), and only let them eat grain for treats. How likely will Blot happen? And often. (2 sheep only pets) sorry if this seems dumb. (Have not started yet. Doing research first)

I have this in one of my really small lambs and I'm so worried

Shit will happen. It sucks but look at how well the rest of your operation is running. You're a true steward (-ess?). There are many folks that will learn from this video too. I know you have put this in the back of my mind now.

Thanks for info

That's heartbreaking to see Sorry it must be difficult for you. Accidents happens at least know you know

I use a Corkscrew Trocar.

Use a A choker?

Does it help to call the vet in this case? My sheep got corn stalks last night and was foaming at the mouth just a bit but is still walking around and eating and acting ok. His belly is big though. The vet told me to give him a tiny bit of soap water to break it down and abstain from feeding for 24 hours. Any advice would be appreciated as he is our pet and we love him.

I lost most of my replacement lambs this spring because of the same thing. Sucks.

شكرا

So that's what bloat is? I didn't know that it was grain overload

well shit... I hope everything turned out for you Sandra.

Do you give CDT vaccines to help prevent overeating disease?

Bloat is not an infection. Why the antibiotics?

Leave it to our animals to find that which you wish they wouldn't have found... We try so hard to control every particle and second of their movement and environment... kind of why animal husbandry is as much an art as it is a science, in spite of all we are told. Practise takes a lifetime to perfect.

Sandi, remember if farming was easy everyone would do it! Sucks that you have put so much work into them and this happens! I would go by a lottery ticket cause you have used up all your bad luck today!:)