[farmvet]

I agree - think very carefully before deciding not to vaccinate.  Clostridial disease and acute pasturellosis usually kill sheep before you have a chance to treat any clinical signs.  You can often get away free for a couple of years & then have a disaster.  Pasturella seems to often kill the best thriving lambs at 4-8 weeks old with another blip in the autumn.  Clostridial diseases are soil borne & lay dormant in the sheeps tissues.  Once condtions are right they multiply rapidly & produce toxins which kill the sheep extremely quickly.  Different clostridia have their specific target organs but all types multiple rapidly in damaged tissue eg fluke damaged liver ( black disease), mastitic quarters ( black garget) tups fighting ( big head) muscle damage after eg injections ( black leg), tetanus etc etc.  The incidence has increased dramatically in both cattle & sheep in the last couple of years with increased rainfall meaning soil contaminating grass & forage plus increased fluke.

[Tim W]

This is exactly why I am vaccinating for the first time----having farmed on dry chalk soils for many years the mortality rate from clostridia has been minimal but with the last few wet years in the valleys this has increased dramatically
Interestingly my neighbour who vaccinates for pasturella losses the same number of lambs (proportionally) as I do ---slightly different variety of infection not covered by the vaccine?