Pregnancy toxaemia is a painful and often fatal metabolic disease affecting ewes carrying multiple lambs, and it is almost entirely preventable through evidence-based nutrition management in late pregnancy.
Pregnancy toxaemia causes severe neurological suffering in affected ewes and is deeply distressing to witness: ewes become blind, unable to stand, and unresponsive while remaining conscious. The disease is almost entirely preventable through appropriate nutrition management in the period immediately before lambing. Pregnancy scanning to identify multiple-bearing ewes, combined with adequate supplementary feed for high-risk animals, removes most cases from even large commercial flocks. The welfare case for this relatively simple management intervention is overwhelming. Farmers who experience pregnancy toxaemia cases are investing insufficiently in prevention relative to the welfare and economic costs of treatment failure.