Sheep and the cold weather

johngalway

Had to give the ewes their second injection today. I forget the name of the stuff, but it's instead of dipping (wouldn't fancy being dipped myself in this temperature). Checked teeth and condition as well, and they're in remarkably good shape despite snow, hard frosts and generally a lot of cold weather.

Even those that've lost two front teeth and would be well into their pension years.

I figure, they're grazing more as they're being less disturbed by rain and winds as would be normal in an Irish Winter. It was a nice surprise.

Thoughts?

LostCovey

johngalway wrote: »

Had to give the ewes their second injection today. I forget the name of the stuff, but it's instead of dipping (wouldn't fancy being dipped myself in this temperature). Checked teeth and condition as well, and they're in remarkably good shape despite snow, hard frosts and generally a lot of cold weather.

Even those that've lost two front teeth and would be well into their pension years.

I figure, they're grazing more as they're being less disturbed by rain and winds as would be normal in an Irish Winter. It was a nice surprise.

Thoughts?

I think a lot of people are pleasantly surprised at how sheep have come through.

It would knock a lot more out of them in February when the lambs are growing much faster inside them

LC

tabby aspreme

The ewes are looking well, i reckon it was the good grass growth last autumn , next tue they will be scanned then the truth will be known!. The ewe lambs which were shorn in september are also looking very strong, the cold weather had no effect on them hopefully the rams liked the look of them too.

snowman707

our first lambs of the season arrived to day, had twins when we got up and 2 more sets of twins since, these are from my daughter's flock, my own ewes aren't due for another week or so

looks like the holidays are well and truly over now LOL

our ewes are fit, not over fat which is the way i like,
we took heed of the weather warning and introduced meals and baled silage before the cold snap, had to change to hay though as the silage was too frozen for them to eat sufficient quantities of

we only housed the ewes a few days ago which spared some straw

Username John

Our first lambs arrived this morning as well - twins. Keeping my eye or a few others, but the majority wont be lambing for another 10 days or so. We kept in some of them there last weekend, the few early ones & the ones with triplets.

Have been feeding them ration about about 5 weeks now. They're outside on fields that have a decent enough cover of grass.
Majority of em are in good enough condition, not fat, not thin, just fine. I was a bit worried that one or two were a bit on the thin side, but I think we should be ok.

I have some ewe lambs, and they are doing fine on just grass (although we ran short there for a bit, so I gave em a few bales of hay) But they have more of a run now again, and so are just doing with grass again.

Just on the subject of dipping - I have a few of mine scratching a bit, even though I injected with Cydectin there a while back. They not bad, but you can see tis annoying a few of em. Was thinking of getting em dipped in the summer - does anyone do this anymore, or does everyone just spray / inject em now?

Ding Dong

silly question probably, but why do u lamb so early? i would of thought it would incur extra lighting heating and feed as opposed to later in the year?? just wondering...

Birdnuts

johngalway wrote: »

I figure, they're grazing more as they're being less disturbed by rain and winds as would be normal in an Irish Winter. I

Makes sense given that their Wild ancestors came from the Mtns of the Middle East so could probably handle the cold and frost much better then our rather damper climate:)

snowman707

Username John wrote: »

Our first lambs arrived this morning as well - twins. Keeping my eye or a few others, but the majority wont be lambing for another 10 days or so. We kept in some of them there last weekend, the few early ones & the ones with triplets.

Have been feeding them ration about about 5 weeks now. They're outside on fields that have a decent enough cover of grass.
Majority of em are in good enough condition, not fat, not thin, just fine. I was a bit worried that one or two were a bit on the thin side, but I think we should be ok.

I have some ewe lambs, and they are doing fine on just grass (although we ran short there for a bit, so I gave em a few bales of hay) But they have more of a run now again, and so are just doing with grass again.

Just on the subject of dipping - I have a few of mine scratching a bit, even though I injected with Cydectin there a while back. They not bad, but you can see tis annoying a few of em. Was thinking of getting em dipped in the summer - does anyone do this anymore, or does everyone just spray / inject em now?

we have a few thin ones and singled them out for a little extra tlc, our ewe lambs are on the outfarm and grass is getting tight so we are giving about .5kg of rolled oats daily , we held back stronger and older ewe lambs this year and hope to have most of them lambing late/ march early april

we still dip a couple of times a year mostly for flystike prevention

Ding Dong wrote: »

silly question probably, but why do u lamb so early? i would of thought it would incur extra lighting heating and feed as opposed to later in the year?? just wondering...

it suits our system we run about 330 ewes alongside 80 dairy cows , the majority of the early lambing will be complete before calving gets into full swing, hopefully calving will have eased off before the late lambing starts,

we hope to have over 80% of the early lambs sold by mid may and free up ground for silage . If we opted for later lambing we would have to reduce sheep numbers considerably and I agree early lambing is a high cost system, but it still leaves a profit

Username John

Ding Dong wrote: »

silly question probably, but why do u lamb so early? i would of thought it would incur extra lighting heating and feed as opposed to later in the year?? just wondering...

Lighting - not really, few hours more per day, but this wouldnt break the bank.
Heating - Hmmm...
Feed - Yes, lot more feed.

We used to have early lambs before (long long ago) , but we changed to a later lambing, just as it was easier in a way. But now that I am working, I want to bring it back to Christmas lambing, purely cos I will have holidays around this time, so it suits me.
This is my first year lambing early, so I'll see how it goes. I think the big thing isnt so much the lambing, its making sure the lambs are doing as good as they can all the way thorugh to Easter or thereabouts. So you can sell em as early as possible, and cash in on the best prices.
So we'll see how that goes...

On a negative note, lost a lovely hoggett Sat night. She went on her back, and was dead Sunday morning when I went out. They're in a field beside the house, so I can keep an eye on em. But between Sat evening, and Sunday morning, she managed to field a tyre rut, roll into it and the cold Sat night did for her. Sickening...

johngalway

Are you bedding John, or do you have them on some type of slats/mesh? Hay cost as well if they're indoors.

With the uppity downedy of prices I'll stick to later lambing and lower input costs

Sorry to hear about the hogget, it's a kick in the teeth when that happens. Lost a good ewe years ago as some tosspot had thrown out springs for under a mattress and she got tangled up in it.

Username John

johngalway wrote: »

Are you bedding John, or do you have them on some type of slats/mesh? Hay cost as well if they're indoors.

With the uppity downedy of prices I'll stick to later lambing and lower input costs

Sorry to hear about the hogget, it's a kick in the teeth when that happens. Lost a good ewe years ago as some tosspot had thrown out springs for under a mattress and she got tangled up in it.

We have em on straw. There is a bit of tillage done around us, so straw would be easy to come by.

Yeah, you could well be right to stick to later lambing. We'll see how we do this year. I dont have that many, so it wont that much difference to me really, but tis an interesting experiment