Specimens were collected at slaughter from 100 ewes and their fetuses. The ewes originated from a paratuberculous flock in South Africa and were in the last 2-3 weeks of gestation with single, twin or triplet lambs. Tissues from all the ewes and fetuses were subjected to histopathological examination (HPE) and cultured for Mycobacterium paratuberculosis. Further tests included: examination of ileal smears (ISE) in all the ewes; fecal smears from ewes positive on ISE; and agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID) and Complement fixation (CF) tests in 85 and 80 ewes respectively; AGID on 22 fetuses from 16 ewes; and, CF on 96 fetuses from 67 ewes. True positive cases were taken to be cases positive on HPE or ISE or both. Twenty ewes were positive for paratuberculosis, 19 on HPE and 1 on ISE. Six ewes were positive on ISE, 2 of which were fecal smear-positive. M. paratuberculosis could not be cultured from any of the ewes or their fetuses. The AGID test was positive in 27 ewes, 11 of which were positive on HPE, giving a sensitivity of 55%. The CF test was positive in 6 cases, 5 of which were true positive cases, with a consequent sensitivity of 25%. No meaningful conclusions could be made from the results of the AGID and CF tests on the fetuses. Although only limited examinations were performed on the fetuses, the results indicate that in-utero infection is unlikely to occur in field cases of M. paratuberculosis in sheep.