Veterinary Advice for Basic Treatment of Common Health Problems in Sheep
with Dr. Angela Black
This seminar will explore basic fundamentals to help you recognize a sick sheep and tips to help you treat your flock. By understanding the signs and symptoms of ailments, you can successfully relay necessary information over the phone to your veterinarian. Topics will include:
- Lameness in sheep and how to apply a splint to stabilize a fracture.
- Recognizing signs of dehydration, heat stroke and shock
- Treatment for fly strike, bloat and bee stings
- General wound care and treatment for an abscess (including essential items for a Sheep First Aid Kit)
- Common plants that are poisonous to sheep
- Identifying and managing weak lambs
- Recognizing health problems in the pregnant and postpartum ewe (pregnancy toxemia, dystocia and mastitis) will also be discussed if time allows.
Bring questions that you’ve always wanted to ask your veterinarian.
About the instructor: Dr. Black is currently the attending veterinarian at the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences at the University of Maryland in College Park. Dr. Black provides veterinary care for animals housed in the Animal Sciences Building as well as at the Campus Farm, including a breeding flock of Katahdin sheep. She also teaches undergraduate classes (Anatomy of Domestic Animals, Laboratory Animal Management and individual lectures in Small Ruminant Parturition and Reproductive Endocrinology), is a co-advisor of the pre-veterinary club and part of the undergraduate curriculum committee. Dr Black completed her veterinary training at Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. She then completed an internship in large animal medicine and surgery at the College Of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University. While teaching and supervising fourth year vet students at WSU, she developed an interest in teaching at the college level and went on to earn a PhD in Animal Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Institutes of Health for five years before beginning her teaching career at the University of Maryland in 2005.
Dr Black and her family live on a small hobby farm in Southern Maryland where they raise a few goats, some Katahdin sheep and laying hens and are involved locally in 4-H. Dr Black also teaches in the University’s summer “Ag-Discovery” program for high school students and has taught large animal medicine wet labs (specifically on sheep) for commissioned veterinary officers at the US Public Health Service Scientific and Training symposia.
