Relationship of neonatal mortality in lambs to serologic status of the ewe for Toxoplasma gondii.

The indirect hemagglutination method was used to determine the seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in a random sample (250) of lambing ewes from a large (4,226 ewes) western range flock. Agglutination (greater than or equal to 2+) at the 1:64 serum dilution was considered a positive reaction; the seroprevalence was 20.8%. The neonatal mortality for lambs born to seropositive ewes was 30.7%, which was significantly greater than that for seronegative ewes (13.6%). The average age at death for lambs born to seropositive ewes was 24.8 hours, which was significantly less than that for lambs born to seronegative ewes (31.2 hours).