| Observations on the effect of adding water to feed to prevent lamb pneumonia
Brian H. Magee and Michael L. Thonney
Cornell University
Lamb pneumonia has caused death losses of 5 to 10% in the Cornell flock during the past 10 years. Many strategies have been used to try to prevent or control the pneumonia. These have included: better ventilation, more bedding, feeding the ewes better to provide more milk, pre-treating the lambing ewes with sulfamethazine, vaccination against PI3, vaccination using commercial vaccines, and vaccination using an autogenous vaccine. Although vaccination against PI3 had a slight reduction on overall lamb mortality (Thonney et al., 2008), none of these methods dramatically reduced the incidence of lamb pneumonia.
In late summer 2008, Cornell Sheep Farm Manager Brian Magee suggested that, although there was about 4% molasses in the lamb feed, our complete mixed feed was still too dusty. The options to test this were to: 1) add more molasses; 2) add to or replace the molasses with vegetable oil; or 3) replace the molasses with water. We removed the molasses and added 5 to 7% water which resulted in 12 to 15% moisture in the total feed. (Currently, we are using 5% water; click here for our current diet.) The feed was obviously not as dusty and it appeared to be more palatable when we did a simple disappearance test. Coughing in the pens of lambs on feed has essentially been eliminated. Treatments for pneumonia and deaths from pneumonia have declined dramatically (Table 1).
Table 1. Lamb treatments and deaths from pneumonia. |
|
Birth date |
|
Item |
8 Aug 2007 to 15 Apr 2008 |
8 Aug 2008 to 15 Apr 2009 |
Chi square
P value |
Lambs |
1085 |
835 |
|
Died |
85 |
8 |
|
Death rate |
7.8 |
1.0 |
< 0.001 |
Treatments |
79 |
18 |
|
Treatment rate, % |
7.3 |
2.2 |
< 0.001 |
Treated |
56 |
14 |
|
Treated rate, % |
5.2 |
1.7 |
< 0.001 |
Cornell lambs had not met requirements for kosher certification in the past due to lung damage. After we started marketing lambs raised on feed with added water, the local slaughter plant owner observed that the lungs of the Cornell lambs were very healthy. He purchased several Cornell lambs and sent them to a kosher slaughter plant near New York City where the lambs met the requirements for kosher certification.
Thus, it appears that adding water to dusty lamb feed can prevent inhalation pneumonia.
Literature Cited
Thonney, M. L., M. C. Smith, R. G. Mateescu, and C. Heuer. 2008. Vaccination of ewes and lambs against parainfluenza3 to prevent lamb pneumonia. Small Rumin. Res. 74:30-36. |
