How To Treat Joint Ill in Lambs Naturally Using Colloidal Silver

Here at Secret Life of Homesteaders, we understand the importance of keeping livestock healthy. That’s why knowing how to treat joint ill in lambs is such important knowledge to have for anybody who is raising sheep.

Do you want to raise your sheep naturally but don’t know how? You’re not alone!

Joint ill is a common problem faced by many flock owners and can be difficult to deal with.

If you’re looking for an effective and natural solution, colloidal silver could be the answer.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss the amazing benefits of using colloidal silver to treat joint ill in lambs – so keep reading if you want to learn more about this amazing natural remedy!

We’ll look at what exactly joint ill is and what causes it, before diving into the specifics on how colloidal silver can help cure it.

So grab a cup of your favorite beverage, sit back, relax and join us as we explore the wonderful world of natural remedies for joint illness!

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What Is Joint Ill?

If you’re raising sheep, you’re going to come across the bacterial infection joint ill at some point in your career. It’s important to know what joint ill is, how to recognize it, and of course, joint ill treatment.

Joint ill is a bacterial infection disease that affects the limb joints of young lambs. This infection is typically caused by the strain bacteria streptococcus dysgalactiae.

This bacteria enters the lamb’s bloodstream and travels about the body until it settles in the joints. Infected joins will be swollen and sore, making it difficult for the lamb to get around. If not treated, this bacterial infection can be fatal.

What Causes Joint Ill In Young Lambs?

Joint ill tends to affect young lambs, particularly newborn lambs. The bacteria that causes joint ill can enter your young lambs via a number of routes, including but not limited to the naval (umbilical cord), ear tagging sites, castration wounds, and docking sites.

 

Even if you don’t castrate or dock your sheep and you wait until they are older to tag their ears, every newborn lamb is born with an umbilical cord so every newborn after lambing has the potential to have this bacteria introduced into their bodies. This is why this infection is also referred to as naval ill.

What Are The Symptoms Of Joint Ill In Lambs?

If your lambs are afflicted with joint ill, you will start seeing a few symptoms. Affected lambs will be tired and begin spending a lot of time lying down. Often times, their joints will swell, particularly the joints in their legs.

Because this infection typically shows up within the first few hours or first few days after birth, it can be difficult to differentiate the slow or tired lamb from a typical sleepy newborn so it’s important to be vigilint.

Lambs will still be happy and playful but they will struggle move about quickly. Your young lambs will limp and hobble around and their knees may become bowlegged. Affected joints may become painful and visibly swollen. Swollen joints may also be hot to the touch, but this is not always the case.

Joint Ill Symptoms At A Glance

To recap, if your young lamb has joint ill, you will see:

• swollen joints
• trouble walking (lameness)
• bowed legs
• sitting or lying down more than usual
• slow to run
• struggle to get up to drink

The good news is, if caught early, treating joint ill is easy.

Control and Prevention of the Bacterial Infection Joint Ill

The easiest way to take care of joint ill is by prevention. Boost your young lambs immune systems by ensure they get plenty of colostrum, either from the mother ewe or from a bottle. (Colostrum provides plenty of natural antibodies for your newest flock members.)

Additionally, keeping lambing areas clean and dry is the best way to keep your young lambs healthy. Clean and change bedding frequently and refrain from touching open wounds with dirty hands.

The best way to prevent bacteria spread is by making conditions less than ideal for bacteria to thrive in. Failure to keep things clean and dry will just result in prime bacteria breeding grounds, resulting in bacteria spread.

Many farmers prefer to keep the naval clean by dipping umbilical cords in iodine but this does not have a perfect success rate in preventing streptococcus dysgalactiae. With tail docking and castration sites, it is important to keep the area clean and dry.

Unfortunately, even the most properly managed farms and homesteads will still experience joint ill at some point. This is why it is important to be familiar with treatment options.

Conventional Treatment Of Joint Ill

Because joint ill is caused by a bacteria, the best treatment is antibiotics. Your vet can prescribe antibiotics that you can give to your affected lambs. Penicillin is the most popular option and all you need to do is give your afflicted lambs a shot in the butt a few times per day for up to 2 weeks.

I am not a vet so that is as far as my advice goes on that topic. Consult your vet for official treatment options.

Natural Remedies For Joint Ill In Lambs

On our homestead, we tend to lean towards natural remedies as often as possible. This is partly due to the fact that we can’t find a sheep vet in our area who is willing to come to our farm.

We live in a very rural area close to several state lines. No vets in the other states are willing to cross state lines to come and visit us and we can’t take our sheep over state lines to get to them. Going the other directions, we would have to travel for more than an hour and a half to get to a ruminant vet so unless it’s a dire situation, we tend to try and do things ourselves.

We also understand the benefits of taking the natural route as often as possible. While we are not against chemicals or conventional medicine, we want to work with nature as much as possible and take advantage of the natural options available to us.

So on to our natural remedies for joint ill in lambs.

 

When we had a newborn ewe become infected with what we thought was joint ill, after doing a bunch of research online, we decided that instead of opting for conventional antibiotics, we would try our hand at a natural antibiotic instead.

We have already had experience in treating pneumonia in sheep with colloidal silver so we figured it couldn’t hurt to use colloidal silver to treat joint ill in sheep.

I am thrilled to say we experienced success!

We made a concoction of vitamin B12 and colloidal silver. I just got a small plastic container, poured in some silver, and then added a vitamin B12 capsule that I had crushed up. (Why vitamin B12? Because we weren’t 100% certain this was a joint ill issue so we decided to treat for energy and vitamin deficiency as well, just to be safe – besides, vitamin B12 is good for producing new blood cells and DNA as well as the development of brain and nerve cells)

Our young ewe, Blueberry, began limping and hobbling on her second day of life. By the time she was 4 days old, she was really struggling to get around.

(I’ve uploaded a video where you can see Blueberry limping and hobbling along)

At the end of her 4th day of life, we began dosing her with 3ml of colloidal silver. We did this orally using a syringe.

After the first dose, her limp dramatically decreased. By the tail end of her 2nd dose, she was running around after her mother and sister.

By the end of her 4th dose, she didn’t even look like she was any different from the other sheep and lambs in the pasture. Infected joints were no longer swollen and she no longer had a limp of any kind.

We will still continue to treat young Blueberry for around 2 weeks, just because we know this particular bacteria can be a tough one to overcome. We definitely do not want it coming back with a vengeance. But I am thrilled to say we saved ourselves an expensive vet bill and a whole lot of stress by treating our girl with colloidal silver.

It’s amazing what the correct treatment can do on a farm or homestead!

Where To Get Colloidal Silver

Where do you get colloidal silver?

Nowadays we make our own colloidal silver using a galvanizer kit I bought online. Unfortunately, the store I bought it from is no longer in business so I can’t share that link.

If you don’t have a galvanizer kit or you don’t want to make your own, there are plenty of places to buy colloidal silver as well.

 

We used to buy our colloidal silver from Amazon because it was convenient. Many health food stores also have some available.

Other Uses For Colloidal Silver On The Farm Or Homestead

We are definitely fans of colloidal silver. There are so many ways to use this natural remedy on your farm or homestead!

Here are some that we’ve tried (and had success with)

• Treating pneumonia in sheep
• Disinfecting open wounds in sheep, animals, and chickens
• Treating water to boost herd immunity during parasite season
• And now – treating joint ill in lambs

Joint ill is a persistent and painful condition that can cause considerable distress to your newly born lambs, so it’s essential to ensure proper treatment. Using penicillin prescribed by your vet is likely to be effective in treating the bacterial infection, but colloidal silver offers a natural remedy alternative.

So if you’re looking for an alternative way to treat joint ill on your homestead, then give colloidal silver a shot! It’s worth a try when you want something that doesn’t require external influences.

Who knows- it could work wonders for you and your animals alike.