NATURALLY-OCCURRING PREGNANCY TOXEMIA IN THE EWE AND TREATMENT WITH RECOMBINANT BOVINE SOMATOTROPIN

The control group (17 ewes) received daily i.v. injections of glucose and twice daily propylene glycol orally. Severely affected animals rec eived glucose twice daily. The treated group (17 ewes) received the sa me therapy plus a daily injection of recombinant bovine somatotropin ( rbST) at 0.15 mg kg(-1) BW (Somidobove, Elanco). Four ewes died within 24 h of start for unrelated reasons. Overall survival rate of ewes wi th pregnancy toxaemia was high, possibly owing to positive stockmanshi p. The overall lack of difference between the two groups showed that r bST injections had no obvious detrimental effect on ewes with clinical pregnancy toxaemia when also treated with propylene glycol and i.v. g lucose injections. Eleven treated (65% overall, 73% of those alive aft er 24 h) and 12 control ewes (71% overall, 80% of those alive after 24 h) survived. The control group produced 16 live and 14 dead lambs whe reas the treated group produced 20 live and 8 dead lambs (P less than or equal to 0.25). All live lambs survived. All but one ewe death occu rred after lambing, ewes in the treatment group tending to succumb lat er than controls (5.7 +/- 1.53 days vs. 2.7 +/- 2.08 days after lambin g) but the difference was not significant from complications of lambin g and metritis. The duration of therapy for pregnancy toxaemia tended to be shorter in those also receiving rbST than in the control group ( 6.5 +/- 2.02 days vs. 7.8 +/- 1.47 days). The rbST treatment had no si gnificant effect on blood plasma levels of glucose, beta-hydroxybutyra te, urea, total protein, aspartate aminotransferase or creatine phosph okinase. The high overall survival made it difficult to observe clear treatment effects, although somatotropin had no detrimental effect on the ewes, and numbers of live lambs were greater in the treated group. It is possible that rbST might be a suitable treatment for pregnancy toxaemia in sheep.