Joint Infections in Australian Lambs - Too Common for Comfort

Bacterial joint infections (arthritis) in lambs are painful and debilitating. Unfortunately these infections are widespread across all sheep-raising regions in Australia.

We recently examined 354 consignments of lambs representing 63,287 carcasses at a large export abattoir in southern Australia. The lambs included Dorper, Merino and Crossbred animals sourced from South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

50% of the consignments had at least one carcase with arthritis in the medium or large leg joints (hock/ankle, stifle/knee, carpus/wrist, elbow).

Most carcasses had only one infected joint

The most commonly infected joint was the hock

The most commonly affected joint was the hock/ankle (44%), followed closely by the carpus (wrist) of the front leg (40%). Lesser numbers of carcasess had infected stifle (11%) or elbow (5%) joints.