Generally, healthy sheep do not cough, so you may be alarmed when yours start coughing, especially during the warm seasons, as that could signify a serious issue. However, before acting, you must ask yourself, why is my sheep coughing?
The common cause of coughing in your sheep are dust, dirt, and overeating feed. In addition, disorders affecting the respiratory system, like bronchitis, atelectasis, pneumonia, and airway obstruction, can make sheep cough. Finally, cold weather can exacerbate the condition.
It’s your responsibility to keep your sheep healthy, which includes figuring out why they are coughing and treating them. Keep reading to learn the causes of coughing in sheep and the treatments.
Coughing in Sheep (Causes & Treatment)
You shouldn’t ignore your sheep if they begin coughing incessantly many times a day, as they may be suffering from something that needs medical attention. Below are the conditions that could make your sheep cough.
1. Pneumonia and Pleurisy
Pneumonia is a respiratory disease that entails lung inflammation, and it occurs when non-infectious and infectious agents inflame your sheep’s lungs.
If untreated, it can cause pleurisy, the inflammation of the membranes surrounding the sheep’s lungs.
While these respiratory conditions commonly attack weaners in summer, they can affect all sheep. The causes of pneumonia are:
Pathogens
Many viruses and bacteria, whether secondary or primary, can cause pneumonia. For instance, primary pathogens such as Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae triggers mild pneumonia with mild or no symptoms.
This makes your sheep vulnerable to a secondary infection leading to a more serious disease. Moreover, parasitic infection stemming from lungworm can also contribute.
Environmental factors
Excessive crowding, hot weather, high humidity, subpar housing conditions, and dusty conditions can trigger pneumonia in sheep.
Animal factors
These comprise stress, inadequate nutrition, and concurrent disease such as internal parasites. These factors impair your sheep’s immune system, rendering them vulnerable to pneumonia.
In addition, substandard drenching techniques can also cause aspiration pneumonia. The risk of pneumonia in young sheep can also be increased by failure to take in sufficient colostrum (first milk) and bottle feeding.
Bottle feeding your lambs using a bottle with a huge cut on the nipple orifice will make the milk flow too quickly into the lamb’s mouth, making it get into the lungs via the windpipe.
Signs of Pneumonia in Sheep
Sheep suffering from pneumonia will exhibit different symptoms, including:
- Dullness (the earliest pneumonia sign)- your sheep will feel less alert and active than usual.
- Coughing.
- Fever- a rectal temperature of more than 103°F to 103.5°F (39.4°C to 39.7°C) may be a sign of pneumonia. Measure this temperature early in the morning before daytime temperatures and daily activity affect the sheep’s body temperature.
- A thick, white nasal discharge.
- Labored or rapid breathing. It is worth noting that sheep breathe rapidly when it’s warm, so it’s important not to mistake this for pneumonia.
- Decreased performance- You will notice the affected sheep fall behind their flock.
- Dizziness.
- Lethargy.
- Lack of appetite.
- Depression.
The severity of these signs will vary, so you should pay attention since your sheep may exhibit mild symptoms.
For example, some sheep will also display reduced weight gain without any respiratory signs, while others can develop coughing, nasal discharge, lethargy, inappetence, and raised respiratory effort before death.
Sheep die from pneumonia a lot before the owner observes the symptoms, so it’s essential to check on your flock daily.
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How To Treat Pneumonia in Sheep
There are no specific medicines to treat viral infections in sheep. Still, your vet will likely administer some antibiotics to treat bacterial pneumonia or prevent bacteria from leading to pneumonia as a viral infection complication.
Pneumonia stemming from parasites cannot be cured with antibiotics, but antibiotic treatment can help your sheep feel better. Prevention entails managing animal and environmental factors.
How To Take Care of Sheep with Pneumonia
You must accord a sheep suffering from pneumonia proper care to speed up its recovery and ensure they are as comfortable as possible. Here’s what to do:
a) Separate them from the Herd
Pneumonia can quickly spread between sheep, leading to deaths. Therefore, it’s paramount to quarantine the afflicted sheep, ensuring they don’t share water supplies, food, and grazing land with the rest of the sheep.
Keep the sick sheep in a dry and warm environment to aid their recovery. Doing so will help them deal with the symptoms more effectively, especially since excess humidity can aggravate breathing problems while extreme temperatures can impede recovery.
b) Contact Your Vet
Your vet can test your sheep for pneumonia through a blood test to check for some pathogens in their blood or do a chest x-ray. Then, they will recommend antibiotics to fight pneumonia caused by bacteria.
In addition, while there’s no medication for viral-related pneumonia, your vet can administer antibiotics to fight the complications.
c) Provide Proper Nutrition
Your sick sheep require a proper diet to boost their recovery, so ensure they are properly fed. Besides that, you can give them vitamin mixtures like SheepDrench, which you can get at any feed store to boost their immunity and speed up their recovery.
Moreover, give the sick sheep a probiotic paste to encourage good digestion as they use antibiotics and add beet pulp or soybean meal for a burst of nutrition.
Finally, give your sheep electrolytes (available in feed stores) forcibly using a syringe or bottle-feed (if it’s a lamb) if they aren’t drinking water.
Although, in extreme cases, the sick sheep might stop eating entirely. In that case, the vet will assess the situation and determine if inserting a feeding tube into the sheep’s stomach is necessary.
d) Test for Parasites
Parasites can cause pneumonia, and sometimes bacteria stemming from parasites can get into the body tissues, weakening the sheep more. Such an infection can be relieved through antibiotic treatment.
A parasitic infection is diagnosed through symptom observation and tests.
2. Lungworm
Your sheep can ingest lungworm larvae in their pasture, which will pass to their bloodstream through the gut to the lungs, where they will grow into adult lungworms.
Mature lungworms reside in the sheep’s bronchioles and bronchi, causing severe or moderate incessant coughing.
If left untreated, the sheep will cough out these worms, fall into the pasture then get ingested again. In addition, untreated lungworm infections will lead to respiratory distress.
Signs of Lungworms in Sheep
Coughing is the main symptom of lungworm infection in ranging with the cough ranging from moderate to severe. In addition, infected sheep may have lower weight gain.
Also, watch out for lethargy, pneumonia, and nodular lesions. Post mortem exam will show thread-like, white worms in the airway or shot-like nodules under the surface of the lungs, with some nodules having pus instead of worms.
Diagnosing lungworms isn’t easy, but clinical signs like coughing are generally used, or larvae recovery from feces with a Baermann apparatus.
Lungworms in Sheep Treatment
Lungworms in sheep are removed using all broad-spectrum drenches. The treatment usually depends on the severity of the infection, and you should administer the treatment as soon as you diagnose the infection.
Lungworm infection can be fatal if untreated. Therefore, a vet will use macrocyclic lactones (doramectin, eprinomectin, ivermectin, and moxidectin) and tbenzimidazoles (fenbendazole, albendazole, and oxfendazole) to treat your sheep from lungworm infestation.
While the market has numerous medications to treat lungworms in sheep, you shouldn’t treat it on your own because it’s a dangerous disease.
Therefore, you are better off letting a vet check your sheep and offer the appropriate medication.
The vet will recommend the most effective treatment based on your sheep’s condition. You should also prevent lungworms by administering regular medication.
3. Barn Cough
This is the most prevalent type of cough affecting sheep and is non-productive and hacking. You will likely see it more in growing lambs, and the chances of rectal prolapse are greater if the coughing is severe.
Barn cough is caused by damp weather, dusty feed, dust, or a crowded barn. Fortunately, your lambs will outgrow this condition.
Treating Barn Cough
Barn cough treatment is dependent on what’s causing it. For instance, if your lamb cough only when feeding, then dampen its feed.
On the other hand, if they cough after participating in an activity, the pens might be dusty and need to be sprayed with water.
However, if they cough all day, they might have an infection. In that case, administer antibiotics like long-acting tetracycline for six days.
If improving your sheep’s living conditions and antibiotic treatment doesn’t stop barn cough, your sheep may be suffering from a viral infection. They will ride it out with time but ensure they are calm.
READ ALSO: Do Sheep Smell Bad?(Can Or Should You Do Something About The Smell?)
4. Coughing when Eating
Sometimes, coughing in sheep results from eating and not an infection. The sheep can choke on its feed, leaving the chewed food stuck in its esophagus. This causes retching and coughing accompanied by heavy drooling and discharging from its nostrils.
Fortunately, this will resolve itself spontaneously in most cases. Still, the vet may want to examine your sheep for potential reasons the sheep choked and suggest ways of preventing it in the future.
In addition, your vet will check to see if your sheep inhaled food while choking. This is because inhaled food could lead to a life-threatening lung infection known as aspiration pneumonia. The risk of developing this pneumonia is reduced by initiating broad-spectrum antimicrobial therapy.
It’s also essential to monitor your sheep’s teeth. This will help you catch any dental issues that could prevent them from properly chewing their food, making swallowing fibrous feeds and hay hard to swallow. Swallowing unchewed or poorly chewed feed can make the sheep choke.
How To Prevent Your Sheep from Coughing
As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure, so it’s best to get ahead of the causes of coughing in sheep beforehand.
This section will explore the ways to fend off pneumonia, prevent barn cough, and keep lungworms away.
Averting Lungworm Infections
- Vaccinate the sheep- administering vaccines to your sheep will help keep diseases like lungworm infections away and help them stay healthy.
- Prevent potential infestations through monthly worm tests and checks.
- Separate the sheep in the feeding fields.
Preventing Pleurisy and Pneumonia
- Reduce dust- Any dust from the feed or environment should be minimized, especially when your sheep are in yards or feedlots. If possible, avoid yarding your flock, particularly when it’s dusty, dry, or hot. In addition, wet the yards before mustering your sheep, muster them slowly, and steer clear of over-enthusiastic dogs. Moreover, avoid dusty feed or consult a vet about additives to minimize dust levels.
- Monitor your Sheep After Transportation– moving sheep from one place to another renders them susceptible to pneumonia, especially if you transport them long-distance using multi-layered vehicles. Therefore, pay close attention to them upon arrival and lower dust, stress, and abrupt feed changes.
- Adopt a Good Dipping/Drenching Technique– avoid vertically shifting the head of the sheep into the air or plunge-dipping excessively-tired or thirsty sheep. Additionally, ensure liquid doesn’t enter the sheep’s lungs when using plunge dipping or oral drenches.
- Minimize Stress and Keep your Sheep Healthy– ensure your sheep receive proper nutrition (a well-balanced diet) and shelter them from extreme cold and heat with proper bedding. Moreover, conduct worming and fecal egg count to protect them from diseases. You should also vaccinate them against local diseases to avoid stressing their immune system.
- Ensure your sheep’s barn is not too crowded.
- Aerate the shelter, particularly in winter, to keep away humid and stale air.
- Avoid movement and yarding when it’s hot.
- Limit shedding and yarding events to a minimum.
Preventing Barn Cough
- Ensure your sheep’s feed doesn’t contain a lot of dust.
- Make sure the barn isn’t dusty by spraying water on it.
- Offer your sheep ample space to deal with heat stress.
Final Remarks
Unless your sheep is choking, the answer to why is my sheep coughing is either pneumonia, lungworm infection, or barn cough. Since coughing isn’t a normal occurrence for sheep, consulting a vet for diagnosis and treatment is a smart move that could save the lives of your sheep.
You should also be proactive by ensuring they receive proper nutrition, are vaccinated and stay in a conducive environment.
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