[Ag-eq] Lambing

[Jewel]

I apologize if this is a repeat, but I don't see it in my sent box, although I thought that I had 
posted it.
I have 12 living lambs now with 2 premature still-borns and everything has gone, without a hitch 
until this morning when a lamb was born with a ruptured umbilical hernea.
I called the vet who came over and said that this was a hereditary congenital defect and weren't 
that uncommon.
I have had these ewes for a number of years and have never been aware of this defect before so it 
would seem that the ewe was a carrier of the defective gene rather than that she actually had a 
hernea herself.
Sometimes, the intestines can be replaced in the belly cavity and the lamb sewn up and will recover, 
but not in this case as the lamb's tummy was very bloated suggesting that there was a further 
blockage in the gut or the urethra.

         Jewel