I have sheep dying for no obvious reason. I'd like to hear thoughts on what's wrong. I may rant.

I had newborn twin lambs die first, on 1/21. It was really cold, and they weren't sharing body heat with the others, so I assumed they froze to death. It sucks but it happens.

Patrick was born 1/24 and died 1/27. Again, it was cold and he wasn't in the huddle with the others. He was less agressive about nursing than his twin Kelce. I assumed hypothermia. I found Kelce dead on 2/24. Not in the huddle. It was 18°F when I found her.

Their mom "Momma Sheep" died the next day, 2/25. She was a little sluggish that morning and didn't want to get up. She was the first to give me any heads up, and the first one with too much thermal mass for me to believe the cold killed her.

Bourbon and Whiskey were born 7/7/21 to Momma Sheep. On 2/25 or 2/26, one of them didn't show up to be shut in the barn. I failed to record which twin. I found him/her the next day, sluggish and tired. Finally laid down while I was trying to push him/her to where I had just put out hay. (At this point I was trying to rule things out. I thought they were getting enough to eat by grazing, but I wanted to be sure I wasn't starving them.) I brought a little hay to him/her. It was chilly, but above freezing. The next day I had to start burying. I put it off because I was sick, but the days were getting above freezing, so it had to get done. I collected Kelce and Momma Sheep, and went and searched for the missing twin. Found nothing until I went back to the flock and realized everyone was there and nobody seemed to be sick.

Last night, 3/7, Bourbon didn't show up. I walked the pasture and didn't find him. I found him today, dead, in my other barn that's fenced off. In the barn that I actually shut them in, Artie (born 1/4/21) was dead. He showed no signs or symptoms last night when I shut them in.

These are hair sheep. (I don't know what breed.) We don't worm them. They don't seem to suffer from it all spring summer and fall. I really doubt that it's parasites now, for that reason, and because most of the ten day span when nobody died the nights were above freezing and the days were in the 60s 70s and 80s °F. It's my understanding that below freezing the worms die and only the eggs survive, meaning whatever the sheep eat in the cold actually pushes parasites out of their system without putting any back. So I would expect parasites to cause problems when it's warm that stop in the cold. I seem to have the opposite.

Most winters the cold doesn't seem to bother them. Their barn is only open on the south, and has sufficed through winters much colder than this one.

If I need a vet, I'll be dealing with an unkown. There are only two locally. Our current one has always been great for pets and large animals, but for sheep and goats, he could easily be replaced by a poster that says "It's worms!" I've never done business with the other one.

Probably irrelevant fact: I've not been tested, but the same "cold" has gone through our entire household. Most of us have either mostly or fully recovered. However, one of us (the oldest) wouldn't get up, wouldn't eat, wouldn't take either cold meds or previously prescribed meds, and would barely drink. About 4 or 5 days of that went about as well as you might expect. Got admitted to the hospital, and subsequently covid tested. Came back positive. So we're all assumed to have had covid. (The hospital says our self quarantine for the "cold" was long enough. With the exception of the member in the hospital. Hers is still active. (It's not the covid symptoms that got her admitted, it's the dehydration and the failure to take blood thinners or insulin for almost a week. Since she's in the hospital, obviously, they're treating the covid as well.)

I bring this up because the internet says sheep can get covid and spread it. All I could find was a little out of date, but the consensus at the time was that it had little effect on them. If nobody knows any newer intel, I'll consider covid to be ruled out.

Can anyone detect anything I might be missing? Or should I just hang in there, knowing I'll have to make a decision about whether I want to continue keeping sheep? Do I need to involve the other vet? (Pending spousal approval.)

Thanks for reading.

Sadness.

It's sad, but it sounds like it would be worth taking one of the dead sheep to the vet for dissection to find the cause of death.  That's going to be cheaper than taking a live sheep to see them.  Then you can make changes based on what they find.  

If you don't worm, the flock will carry a subclinical load - this means there are worms in their system but not so much that it harms the sheep unless something else goes wrong. A change in the weather, diet, light, noise... any change at all can stress them enough for worms to become a problem.  The worms alone won't harm them, but worms plus something can make that something deadly.

I worm on demand, so I am careful to check under the eyelids of a random couple of sheep (usually whoever looks the least happy) at least once a week.  

But that's a lot of work and why most people worm on a schedule (and build up resistance to wormers).  A bit like antibacterial soap and humans.  There are times when this is useful, but not healthy when used daily.

You don't mention what mineral supplements your sheep are on.  (not just salt, the minerals).  It could easily be an excess or deficiency.  

Or it could be any number of things.  It's hard to say without being there.  Do you have a local sheep guru you can consult?  Or failing that, your sheerer.  

r ranson wrote:It's sad, but it sounds like it would be worth taking one of the dead sheep to the vet for dissection to find the cause of death.  That's going to be cheaper than taking a live sheep to see them.  Then you can make changes based on what they find.

I think I'll ask tommorrow if either of these vets do that and what it costs.

r ranson wrote:I worm on demand, so I am careful to check under the eyelids of a random couple of sheep (usually whoever looks the least happy) at least once a week.

Since getting everything in black and white above, I've been thinking of this. Since the first symptom I can see is usually death, I need to check whoever will let me catch them, even though they don't look sick.

r ranson wrote:You don't mention what mineral supplements your sheep are on.  (not just salt, the minerals).  It could easily be an excess or deficiency.

Salt is the only mineral they're on. What do you recommend? A premade mix? Free choice? Blend myself based on a soil test or the autopsy results above?

r ranson wrote:Do you have a local sheep guru you can consult?  Or failing that, your sheerer.

I don't have a guru, unfortunately, and no sheerer. They're hair sheep. They grow a little wool in the winter but shed it in spring/ summer.

You've got something moving through the flock.  I would worm everyone at this time and then work extra hard so that I can go as long as possible before I have to worm again (better minerals for the location, other prevention...)

Their mineral needs depend on the soil they are on, the time of year, their condition (pregnant, nursing, whatever), the place where their hay comes from... so many factors.  Your feedshop will be able to help with the generic mix for your location.  I would give it free choice in a bowl in a dry location.  They might also sell a tub lick.  The sheep know when they need it.

I have mine on a tub lick this time of year that is high in SE because that's the big mineral they need locally.  The weather right now is high risk for pneumonia (which you won't noticed unless you get close enough to a calm sheep to hear them breathing) and when the spring grass starts to flush, they can get bloat.  Having the extra minerals this time of year seems to prevent both issues and less the wormload in the summer.  

But it's really hard without seeing the flock.  

Personally, I try to interact with my sheep daily so I can brush my hands on their ears for temperature checks (some things like milk fever shows up easily in ear temp), smell them (they smell different when ill - but only if you know what they smell like when happy), things like that.  But we don't have access to a vet here, so it's entirely down to me.  If one sheep dies and I don't know why, I have to do my own dissection to see why, otherwise it can take out the whole flock.  If two die and I don't know why I pay the money and send the carcus off to the government to get them to do the dissection.  

I know the daily interaction isn't possible for everyone, that's what I think caused so many people to medicate on a schedule instead of as needed.  Most farmers around here have to work a full time job in addition to tending to their flock.  

Later on, when things are more stable, see if you can get a copy of Pat Colbey's Natural Sheep Care for more details on different free-choice minerals.  

https://farminence.com/famacha-scoring/

Are you familar with FAMACHA scoring?   It's a lower/inner eyelid you can check to determine parasite load causing anemia.   It's very useful for monitoring.   I didn't look at your dates closely,  it's unlikely newborns die from parasites, but are you stripping the ewes after they give birth to make sure they are producing adequately?   I had a year with bad hay and a calcium deficiency in my flock that went unnoticed until we started lambing.

Also thinking about the weather aspect of this.   If they have a heavy parasite load they could be only able to manage nutrition for themselves and parasites when there is no additional burden on their metabolism, like staying warm.

Lol, one more.  I was also looking for an article that describes a drop in parasite resistance in ewes right after lambing.   I can't seem to find it quickly, but it might to another avenue to explore.

The 3 survivors won't let me catch them for eye/gum checks.

I spoke on the phone to the other vet. I think he may be in favor of worming on a schedule, but he's at least open to the idea that being a sheep is not a symptom one can use diagnostically to determine parasites as cause of sickness or death. (that they can get sick or die for other reasons as well) He seems to be willing to perform a necropsy, on a fresh enough animal, but he thinks there's probably too much tissue damage by now to get a meaningful result. He's open to testing feces. (I guess a Fecal Egg Count, though he didn't say that.) He suggested we do that. I can only identify who produced the material in one instance. Apparently, that's the last thing Artie did, and it literally made a ramp back to the source. He said ideally he'd like a sample from one of the survivors, but I couldn't pair up any other samples witht their owners, so I grabbed the freshest I could find, and told his office that.

I plan to worm them, but he's gonna tell me what I'm hunting before I go buy bullets. Since I can't catch them yet, I'll either have to get some feed and stantion train them or have him come out here to worm them. I have an old stantion mom and dad used for cows. I may post back with pictures and measurements to see if it's good for sheep.

I also plan to pick his brain about minerals. Fat lot of good is does right now, but I've been meaning to get some chickens anyway. Now I plan to tractor them across the pasture to break pest cycles. Feels a lot more permie than getting on a worming schedule.

Moe did let me feel his ears this morning. They were different temperates, like one had been in the sun. The warm one felt about like an acceptable body temperature. I do get to interact with these guys almost daily, but it's usually a few minutes letting them out in the morning and a few minutes locking them up at night. Would it be reasonable to suplement that by having frequent FECs? How often should I do that? Monthly? Quarterly? At first sign of trouble?

Our state ag school does free necropsies.  Maybe yours does as well.

I'm glad you can get a necropsy

I want to stress that worms on their own is not normally a cause of death.  Normally (in conditions where they have ample pasture) worms are subclinical, meaning there are no symptoms.  But they are there.

Where worms become a problem is when there are other stressors.  The sheep now loses it's ability to fight the worms, so the worms multiply.  This causes more stress... and can add to a downward spiral.

The worms themselves aren't likely to be a primary problem.  But they can make other problems worse.

If there is a problem in the flock, worming is one of the first things vets here suggest so that they don't have the added stress of fighting worms and fighting the other thing that is wrong.  

Having the vet come out - I doubt he'll be willing to catch them.  Or he will charge a few thousand dollars extra for that task.  Or he'll come, see the sheep running around in the pasture, then turn around and leave - and still charge the call out fee.  It's the expectation that the shepherd has the sheep ready for the vet - like you do for sheering time.  

Or you can save some money, catch them, take one to the vet.  That saves a lot of money on the call out fee.  

Can you set up a  squeeze pen type arrangement?   If you grain them or give them loose minerals or some apples in a dish in a corner of a pen,  and then set up a long cattle panel on one side,  you can slowly bring it closed around them without getting too close before they run.   You might need to feed them a treat a couple times a day for a few days first.  

(or I'm just seeing you put them in at night?  maybe you can get a vet out early and just keep them in until the appt.  Or set up a small pen while they are inside and let them into that?)

Turns out the new (to me) vet actually prefers to worm as needed, on the basis of fecal egg counts. Like me, he doesn't want to landrace super parasites resistant to everything. He has some wormer put aside for me to pick up tommorrow. Wants to sample again in 10-14 days to evaluate how it works. Once everything is under control, he says to test again in the fall. At this population density, he thinks 2 or 3 times per year is okay. At higher density, he wants to sample more often. He charged $15 per sample. I've never priced, but that feels pretty reasonable.

The results:
Artie, who died: Loaded. Probable cause of death.
Random fresh sample, surely from one of the last 5 survivors, hopefully from one of the current 3: 1 egg in the sample.

My load is a little uneven. Later, I'd love to learn how that could be. They all live and eat together.

I picked up a sack of feed and a sack of ready mixed minerals. I've lost the light now, but tommorrow we start taming, and I build a mineral feeder. (They're tamish, because I'm near them twice a day, but I need to be able to touch them and mess with their lips and eyelids.) Gonna try to pick the vet's brain about any specific mineral(s) that should be added to the mix.

Thank you for the help so far! Sheduled worming just feels wrong, like knowingly showing the enemy all my weapons and strategies and training them to beat me next time. The only options I could see before were a) nuke the parasites constantly until they're immune to everything, and I can no longer keep sheep alive. or b) Put my head in the sand and hope nobody dies. Continue until I magically breed sheep 100% immune to parasites, or until they're all dead and I've learned I can't keep sheep alive. (I totally believe breeding for resistance works, but not with a genetic base of only two parents. I'm already technically inbreeding and need to liquidate one gender and bring in some new blood. I probably shouldn't expect any miracles until I resolve that.)

You guys and the vet have helped me get my head around a way I can manage these guys, which isn't designed to fail.

I'm interested to see your results.Out here in southwest we use a mineral salt block it's the reddish iodine salt.What kind of hay our you feeding them?Sometimes we have sheep that will bloat.especially with alfalfa.Good luck on your research i'm sure you'll figure it out.It's a hard lesson to learn but you'll be able to help someone else.

It's common for the worms to be uneven in a flock.  

If a sheep has been ill a while, they lose the natural defence against worms and the worms multiply.  In my flock, a high wormload is usually a symptom of a bigger problem.

But getting rid of the worms means the sheep can focus on the issue that's bugging them.

I love doing an egg count.  No one here will do it anymore, or if they do, they wait a few days so the test is less accurate than if it's still steaming (if you catch my meaning).   But you can buy kits to do it at home if you have a microscope.  

Ben Skiba wrote:What kind of hay our you feeding them?

It's just some king of grass hay. Bought it at the farm store last year because I was kinda desperate. Right after that, I found out they loved eating the leaves off of my bamboo. I didn't know if that was enough nutrition, so I put a little hay out too. As long as they had bamboo leaves, they mostly ignored it. I've not done much of that this year, because a really cold snap came just before spring and killed everything above ground. The leaves fell off. It's come back from the roots, but only ⅓-½ as tall. But I came into winter with a decent stockpile and two bales of that grass hay. Right now I'm finishing the last one.

The plan is to buy a few bales of decent grass hay this summer from a local farmer. Should be a better price, and I'll be able to confirm that it's not sprayed with grazon.

Trying to remember what my deworming schedule was for my hair sheep. It was pretty minimal.  I did small cell rotational grazing on a 45 day cycle too.    If I remember right,  I dewormed each ewe after lambing,  and the whole flock in the late fall when I pulled them in for the winter.   Then lambs I think at weaning.  

Any further info from the vet about the possible cause?  

I think the worm part is distracting.  They wouldn't normally get that high unless something else was going on.  

Anything more you can tell us about the symptoms?  

Heather Staas wrote:Trying to remember what my deworming schedule was for my hair sheep. It was pretty minimal.  I did small cell rotational grazing on a 45 day cycle too.    If I remember right,  I dewormed each ewe after lambing,  and the whole flock in the late fall when I pulled them in for the winter.   Then lambs I think at weaning.  

If you're not going to do fairly regular fecal tests that is probably the most sensible schedule.  Ewe's are vulnerable after lambing due to the stresses of birth and lactation, and lambs are vulnerable when stressed by transitioning to just pasture and losing whatever protection they were getting from the milk.  And when pulling the animals onto their sacrificial paddock for winter any parasite load will get highly concentrated, so worming when pulling them in minimizes the load from that.

When I finally get my fencing done and have a basic shelter built for them (and feed storage) and I actually buy the sheep I want,  I'll probably get some training (YouTube if nothing better is available) on doing my own fecal tests.  DW is a science nerd and we homeschool, so we have a few microscopes.  I'd prefer to minimize the amount of deworming I have to do for several reasons.  Cost (while minimal if I can save a few bucks that's still helpful), not producing drug resistant local parasites, and just not needing to spend the time doing it (you need accurate weights on each animal in order to properly dose them, so it can take a while depending on how flighty they are) being the primary motivations.  

r ranson wrote:Any further info from the vet about the possible cause?

He acknowledged what you said about sub-clinical load only becoming significant in the presence of another stressor. He said that definately happens, but didn't indicate if he thought that was the case now.

He liked that I was talking about minerals. I've picked up some loose minerals. I put a little on some feed yesterday. I hope to get a free choice feeder built today.

r ranson wrote:Anything more you can tell us about the symptoms?

No, in general, the first symptom visible to me is death. The only ones to give me a heads up were Momma Sheep, who only acted tired and lethargic, and the twin I didn't record (presumably Bourbon) who also seemed tired and lethargic, but less so. He/she was still mobile, and the next day showed no symptoms. Everyone else seems fine until they're dead.

I still can't catch the other 3 to worm them, but made some progress yesterday. Once Moe got his head in a tub of feed, I was able to approach him, just a little. Never got a look at his gums, but under his eye was the pinkest I've ever seen. (I really had no good comparison, but looking in the mirror, I show more white than he does.)

Belle and Whiskey were so spooked at first they were climbing the walls at the far end of the barn if I was in there. I grabbed a chair and hung out with them for a while. They stayed at the far end, but did calm down. After they laid down, if I apoached very slowly, they'd tolerate me being closer. Finally got within 4 feet or so. I predict worming could happen in 3 to 4 days.

More progress with taming today. Everybody ate from a tub near enough to my chair that it could've been a footstool.

Maybe I'm not giving them enough credit for intelligence and being observant, but I was able to briefly pet each of them when their head is down in the feed. They act as if they don't mind, until they look and notice it's me, then get scared and back off. (Sometimes Moe tolerates it and goes back to eating.) Belle was coming close enough to sniff my hand, if I was very still.

I think I may have been able to grab one and get her down to treat, but I'm too old to try to rodeo. I also think that would severely damage my trust building efforts.

Yesterday, Belle and Whiskey didn't seem to know what to think of the feed. Today everybody likes it. Everybody had a little bit of mineral visible on their noses.

See if you can feel their ear temp tomorrow.   Is there much difference?

T Melville wrote:More progress with taming today. Everybody ate from a tub near enough to my chair that it could've been a footstool.

Maybe I'm not giving them enough credit for intelligence and being observant, but I was able to briefly pet each of them when their head is down in the feed. They act as if they don't mind, until they look and notice it's me, then get scared and back off. (Sometimes Moe tolerates it and goes back to eating.) Belle was coming close enough to sniff my hand, if I was very still.

I think I may have been able to grab one and get her down to treat, but I'm too old to try to rodeo. I also think that would severely damage my trust building efforts.

Yesterday, Belle and Whiskey didn't seem to know what to think of the feed. Today everybody likes it. Everybody had a little bit of mineral visible on their noses.

When I did the experiment with 3 lambs a couple years ago it didn't take long to get them to accept me if I had a bucket of grain.  Once one discovered the grain the rest got excited for it, and within a couple days they'd let me pet them while I had grain.  Never worked with them enough to get them to accept me without the grain, but that was OK.  I only intended to keep them around for a few months anyway, so it wasn't worth the effort to tame them more than that.  When I get breeding quality sheeps that will change, and I'll need them to be touchable even without treats.

Obviously if you have even dozens of sheep, let alone hundreds or thousands that isn't feasible.  In that case you need the ability to drive them into a chute where you can pin them and medicate them one after another in rapid fashion.  That's where a sheepdog, and appropriate infrastructure earns their keep.

I did specifically ask about covid. He said that what I found online was still the current thinking: They can get it. They can spread it. They don't much care, because it has almost no effect on them. He said he could "nearly guaranty it's not of clinical significance."

I'm guessing if you aren't handling and hugging them daily, the chances of cross-species transmission of anything are tiny.  

r ranson wrote:I'm guessing if you aren't handling and hugging them daily, the chances of cross-species transmission of anything are tiny.

It's just gone through our house, apparently. I was more afraid I'd made them sick. I feel better now, knowing that even if I might've given it to them, it's likely not what's been killing them.

There's not a lot that passes from humans to sheep (more likely to pass the other way, especially with parasites as we tend to raise our kids in a much cleaner environment - aka, we don't eat where we poo).

When it does cross-species, there does need to be a considerable load (viral, parasitic, bacterial...).  Aka, it needs a lot of contact and usually contact in a way that will pass through the skin barrier.  mouth, nose, eyes, blood, poo...

My first thing to look at is minerals.  One of the early signs of milk fever is a dramatic difference in ear temp from normal.  This means we need to spend a lot of time teaching our hands what a normal ear temp is for a sheep.  That way we can run a hand over it and rule that out quickly.  

r ranson wrote:See if you can feel their ear temp tomorrow.   Is there much difference?

I suspect your hands have already learned what normal feels like, and mine really haven't yet. I was able to feel all 6 ears. All cool out away from the head, warm at the base. The warm part feels a little cooler than when I felt Moe's before, but it was cooler outside today. I'd say the bases were just a little cooler than my body temp. All 6 very similar.

I was just able to check Belle's and Whiskey's eyelids. I need to do it again in daylight, (rather than a luminoodle) but I saw pink in both. I think Belle may have more pink. Wouldn't be surprised if I can worm 'em Monday or so.

They're wormed! They aren't so tame that they thought that was cool, but they did cautiously approach me again after. Ears all mostly matched each other. They felt warmer today, but it's warmer out. Yesterday I layered to keep warm enough. Today I wore a cheap hoodie, hood down, unzipped. In the sun I could've taken it off.

Free choice mineral station

A product we've been using, with good results, is Chlorine Dioxide, also known as MMS. Never specifically for parasites, but any type of infection we've thrown it at immediately begins subsiding. There's scare literature on the internet about it, but doesn't seem to amount to much, when you strip away the husks...basically, high potency can cause issues (is there anything that really falls outside of this?). I'm getting info from the "The Universal Antidote" webpage. Best of luck to you, with all that you're trying! Disheartening to lose animals, and especially when the reason is elusive!

The best way to keep worms in control without using wormers is rotating pastures. I don't know if you have enough land, but fencing so you have 4-5 areas to rotate will keep worms under control. I would still worm them in the spring. I would also buy and keep available a loose mineral salt (with selenium if your area is deficient in it).

A good source of experienced sheep raising, hair sheep,  with no worming is Greg Judy http://greenpasturesfarm.net  he has lots and lots of videos on Utube also and explains his methods and the reasons why clearly. He gives minerals separated so the sheep can choose what to take and how much and has info on what his sheep mineral feeder is like and why. Also Justin Rodes had his sheep die and then got sheep from Greg Judy to replace those and has some good info on his raising of the second try as well and has a small scale homestead but also no worming method. Those two might be helpful sources for you. So sorry to read of your troubles! So frustrating!! Just want to encourage you to keep on! When I had sheep I had four and found as it sounds like you are finding that if I took the time to just go stand near them they would gradually get used to me being there and would come to me. Sounds like that is what yours are doing. It's key to be able to talk to them, touch them without them freaking out.

I don't have sheep, but I do have goats.  Each goat or sheep can have more or less resistance/resilience  to worms. I would suggest you go here https://www.sheepandgoat.com/ (maryland sheep and goat page) and then go here https://www.wormx.info/ (great info about worms and how to combat them in sheep and goats).   So following research I have read, I do look at my goats eyelids but I have not taken the course I use the eyelid color to determine if I should deworm a goat or not. I only deworm if they need it. I do not deworm on a schedule, I do not deworm does right before or after they give birth unless they need it.  When I do deworm, I deworm with three dewormers at a time.  A dewormer from each class of dewormers. I use Prohibit, Ivermectin and Safeguard.   I do have to deworm once each year to stop menningeal deer worm. So when I do that, I use all three dewormers.    The three dewormers at a time is what is being suggested. I also use rotational grazing and I graze my horses and cows behind the goats to help break the parasite cycle.

I live in Ohio, used to live in Northern Arkansas. Your winters do not get cold enough to kill off the worms in Southwest Missouri.  Winters  hardly get cold enough here in north central Ohio.  

You could be dealing with not only worms but coccidia on top of worms.  The vet should be able to tell if they have coccidia with a fecal.   I don't like to have to do it, but I will feed medicated feed with decox (decoquinate) if I have to. I buy the medicated feed at the local feed store if I need it.  Doesn't get cold enough to kill off coccidia either, it does go dormant in the cold but we have had enough warm weather in February and March to make it a problem.

You can get some very reasonable trace mineral pre-mixes specifically for sheep at https://www.premier1supplies.com/c/shepherds-choice/mineral-premixes-feed-supplements .  I use the goat trace mineral mix and the vitamin mix. $15 for the trace mineral mix and you buy the 50 lbs of salt locally that you mix it with.  Makes enough mineral for 10 sheep or goats for one year. Premier bought Pipestone veterinary which was a sheep supply. They even have people you can ask specific sheep or goat questions.  

Goats can get CAE which is a virus that can cause a sudden death in young goats by encephalitis, it cause arthritis in some older goats and some goats are carriers and show no symptoms but pass it on in their milk. I think sheep have a virus which is similar but cause a progressive pneumonia.  It doesn't sound like your sheep got that, but you should learn about it.

Anyhow, I know how much it sucks to lose your livestock that you work so hard to keep alive and you get attached to.   You should also learn about Johne's disease. I just learned about it the hard way. Johnes.org has  a lot of good info.  Sheep get Johne's so do cows and goat and other ruminants.  So best of luck, and I hope that you get through this with your animals and rebuild your heard.  

Wormers are the last step in a parasite prevention/treatment plan, but although a heavy "weapon" it has its uses. Apply when needed rather than either just every X months or never.

Fecal egg counts work IF! done more days in a row. Like 5 days even twice daily and every 6-8 weeks as long as the grass grows and worms are not hibernating in soil (as eggs) or animal (larvea in intestinal wall usually). Pitfall 2 : only worms in the egg shedding stage are found this way, all ages of worms inside an animal can/will make it sick when there are enough of them. So yes if you want to go this route for prevention learn to do it yourself. It also means that no eggs found in an animal that is sick is no indication of no worms being the culprit. Eyelid check can help for extra indication, but more exact if you have the time is to do a bloodtest. On the whole when an animal has problems along failure to thrive lines and a mineral deficiency is not blatantly obvious, deworming is a logical start.

Basic feed i feed my sheep hay + mineral tub as a foundation, grass and pellet on top depending on what condition they are in and how much grazing i have at the time. I also rotate the grazing areas often! (flexinet that can be electrified) and rest/graze with horse to suppress the worm loads of both species, since these intestinal worms are species specific and don't survive in another host. My pastures are more likely slightly undergrazed rather than overgrazed so worms don't get to their hosts easily anyway and the grass grows back quicker and handles dry spells better, it also gets opportunity to set seed and resow itself with what grows best rather than just have a weed (any plant the animals won't eat) seedbank in your soil.
So walk your pastures daily to know when to move, what grows where, pull seedheads from weeds before they resow themselves and know your land and how well or not it handles being grazed. Watch your animals closely and see what and how they graze an area. For instance in a dry spell a few years ago i realised that my horses where not eating the long, dry hay on stem stuff, but the very young grass plants from the seeds of that standing hay that protected the soil and trapped enough moisture (dew) to sprout those seeds. So i took them off pasture, cut the standing hay at half height/4 inches and fed that on paddock. If i hadn´t they would have wrecked that pasture and i would have had to resow/fight loads of weeds. Now it recovered when the rains started again. Saved me a fair bit of work, time and money even with feeding more hay.

The latest FECs came back "fairly clean". Vet wants to check again in 6 - 8 weeks. I feel ears most days, no obvious change there. I need to do the FAMACHA test again. They seem pretty happy, but complain when the feed runs out. They're still eating the minerals, I've had to top it up about 3 times.

I'm obviously way late in replying to this, but I did have some thoughts on it, so I figured I'd share anyways. Firstly, the fact that the ewes died within days of the lambs is a really interesting point. Babies (lambs, calves, kids, humans, etc) inherit their toxin load from the mother. If she had an issue, be that worms, a deficiency, a disease, a toxin, whatever, she'd pass it on to her lambs. The fact that the lambs and ewe died at the "same" time makes me think that they got their heavy worm load from her or from a very contaminated environment. It's pretty hard for a lamb to handle a heavy worm population and so it makes sense that they didn't make it. Ewes are much more susceptible to worms soon after lambing, so it sounds like the perfect storm for a disaster. One thing I will say though is that the ewes you had survive demonstrated a resistance and strength that you want to retain in your flock. I don't want this to be negative to people who do believe in consistent worming, but this is my experience and opinion. If you worm all your sheep, you mask the issue and over time you weaken your flock because you breed the weak and the strong. The reason wild animals are so tough is because nature doesn't let the weak animals live. Weak animals die off, and the population rebuilds from the strong animals. In our flocks and herds, we take over the position of nature in selecting for the strongest animals. If we get distracted by our desire to keep everything alive, we are doing a disservice to our animals, and creating a weaker gene pool. You kind of have to have a separate compassionate self and breeder self. You had a ton of sheep die from worms, and that's INCREDIBLY hard, but it's also presented you with a powerful opportunity. The sheep who lived are the strong ones, the ones who managed to survive even when others died. Utilize that knowledge, and use that to help build a stronger flock! Personal opinion here, but when you deworm constantly, and manually get rid of their worm load, you are masking the strengths and weaknesses in your animals. If you worm them, it's true that they won't die from a worm overpopulation, but it does mean that the animals who would've died from the worms are still in your gene pool. The strong and the weak are bred, and suddenly you loose the ability to select the strongest animals. FAMACHA testing is a really great way to gauge the worm load on your animals though, so if you don't want to rely on a vet, that's a really accurate way to gauge the worm levels of your flock. Know though that things other than worms can cause anemia. We lost a ewe once to a chronic kidney issue and the only indication was anemia.

Elena Sparks wrote:One thing I will say though is that the ewes you had survive demonstrated a resistance and strength that you want to retain in your flock. I don't want this to be negative to people who do believe in consistent worming, but this is my experience and opinion. If you worm all your sheep, you mask the issue and over time you weaken your flock because you breed the weak and the strong. The reason wild animals are so tough is because nature doesn't let the weak animals live. Weak animals die off, and the population rebuilds from the strong animals. In our flocks and herds, we take over the position of nature in selecting for the strongest animals. If we get distracted by our desire to keep everything alive, we are doing a disservice to our animals, and creating a weaker gene pool. You kind of have to have a separate compassionate self and breeder self.

I wholeheartedly agree.  If you don't want to kill things, don't raise livestock.  I don't mean that you need to be comfortable with it, but culling is a big part of good husbandry.

My practice is to take extra special care of animals that aren't thriving...and they don't breed, and get processed that year.  The ones that can make it on their own, stay in the flock.

Taking a "flock health" perspective feels wrong if we are human-centric in our worldview, but if you consider a more holistic perspective, a single sheep will fail to thrive without a flock anyways.  They are not an individual animal, they are a flock animal.  It makes much more sense to treat them as a flock.  Keeping a sickly sheep alive with the flock is just stealing energy from the flock.