Keep on hearing that lambing in doors is maddness... Is it as dangerou as made out,,,

derferjam

I mentioned lambing in doors next year to a neighbour and a few friends who are sheep farmers and all of them nearly shot me down as if I said the pope was not catholic...
Is it really this dangerous or wrong compared to out door lambing. Just I have had enough of looking at wildlife kill or main sheep or lambs. Crows pulling eyes out of the head of a sheep caught on her back for more than 5min. or foxes picking off lambs that can be up to 2weeks old.
Gut wrenching when you spent so long herding at all hours of the day/night
Bad herding is one thing but things out of your control is a killer.

Those of you lambing in door what do you make sure to look out for or do to make a sucess of the lambing season.
Whats a typical routine day for you in the shed with the sheep in the lambing season...
cleaning feeding sorting etc.
What do you do previous to housing.

All I hear is no! no! no! No!
Surely there is people making a sucess of lambing in door.

Birdnuts

I guess it depends on the standard of your facilities. Some of the lads here have posted pics and they have some really impressive accommodation for in-lamb ewes which appear to be lambing fine indoor. My facilities wouldn't be as impressive(smaller numbers too) but I've never encountered major issues in terms of disease etc. - if the weather is good I will lamb outdoors too in a small paddock adjacent to the lambing shed in which I have a few pens and hutches. Far from an expert but lambing lowland breeds outdoors in the type of weather we have ATM I'd say will certainly comprise lamb survival more than if you have decent indoor lambing facilities. As for your vermin problems I'm sure your local gun club would be only too willing to lamp the foxes and trap/shot crows for you. Also plenty of lads over in the hunting forum would be willing to travel to help you out.

Conmaicne Mara

derferjam wrote: »

I mentioned lambing in doors next year to a neighbour and a few friends who are sheep farmers and all of them nearly shot me down as if I said the pope was not catholic...
Is it really this dangerous or wrong compared to out door lambing. Just I have had enough of looking at wildlife kill or main sheep or lambs. Crows pulling eyes out of the head of a sheep caught on her back for more than 5min. or foxes picking off lambs that can be up to 2weeks old.
Gut wrenching when you spent so long herding at all hours of the day/night
Bad herding is one thing but things out of your control is a killer.

Those of you lambing in door what do you make sure to look out for or do to make a sucess of the lambing season.
Whats a typical routine day for you in the shed with the sheep in the lambing season...
cleaning feeding sorting etc.
What do you do previous to housing.

All I hear is no! no! no! No!
Surely there is people making a sucess of lambing in door.

Dangerous? Sure. If you overcrowd them, have inadequate ventilation and leave them on a wet ****ty bed, great way to kill sheep.

If you do it right it's grand. Plenty of ventilation, good bedding, adequate nutrition and feed space. All you want to do with a sheep house really is keep the rain off their backs, the bedding dry, and the vermin hungry, doesn't matter if it's cold inside.

COST....... do your figures, it's certainly more expensive to lamb indoors and out, added conc cost, added straw/hay cost.

Benefits are that you, as well as the ewes, are in out of the weather, can't beat a bit of comfort in bad weather. Depending on how long you have them inside it can give your grass a boost. I only plan to have mine in for a very short time.

As for crows, look up Larsen Mate and Larsen traps Foxes can be shot, or snared but only if the person setting the snares really knows what they're doing. Trapping the crows is very effective. The fox control less so.

eire23

Have sheep housed here from middle of december till they start to lamb. The majority start around the middle of march. Disinfect the shed and Footbath them when their going in and their on slats so no foot related issues to worry about.
Feed them morning and evening. After scanning group them according to numbers and feed them the required amount. When they lamb they are taken out of the pen and put into individual pens which are cleaned out once a day.

If you have all the things con mentioned above right you should have a very low mortality rate.

amen

Crows pulling eyes out of the head of a sheep caught on her back

Really ? Any photos of a live sheep with crows sitting on it trying to pull its eyes out ?

Is this only during lambing season or does it occur during other times of the year when sheep lie down ?

arctictree

I am looking at trying some outside lambing in a field behind the house but I have visions of me chasing a ewe around the field with a lamb half hanging out of her. Do you lads just leave them be or how do you help the ewes with problems?

Cran

arctictree wrote: »

I am looking at trying some outside lambing in a field behind the house but I have visions of me chasing a ewe around the field with a lamb half hanging out of her. Do you lads just leave them be or how do you help the ewes with problems?

Outside lambing needs to be low labour per ewe to work, unlike lambing inside you cannot be handling a high % of ewes at lambing. I think breeds , time of year & set-up are very important lambing out tbh. I lamb out starting last week March, would say get one bad week every 3/4 years but in general weather ok by that time and don't ever remember getting 2 bad weeks in a row (probably cursed that now)..... 90% lamb down in less than 3 weeks and about 8% of ewes are handled at lambing for any reason (has been lower in really good years). Must be noted my farm is well sheltered.

What I see as most important aspects of my set-up for lambing are:
Ewes here are either Mule (75%), Lleyn (10%), Mule X Lleyn(5%) and other 5%. The others 5% cause more work that nearly all the rest put together and only exist here due to my old mans fascination with marts and buying few ewes & lambs in the spring. I am moving more towards Mule x Lleyn btw

Crossed to Charollais rams (few with Lleyns for replacements), easy lambed and up quick. I understand some peoples concern on cover from Charollais outside, but I've tried them all (except Vendeen) and yet to find a breed more suited to a low labour outdoor lambing system. Find the Mule & Lleyn crossed with Charollais have loads of cover.

Quad trailer behind the jeep with 4 hurdles (hardly ever needed), chasing a ewe round the field is very very unusual and normal limited to 5% others mentioned above. I do have previous experience of this running before changing ewe breeds . Even though I have a very good dog can't really remember using him ever to catch a ewe lambing.....

Hope it helps a little, otherwise being totaly mad helps alot

ganmo

We have 2 ewes with one eye apiece...makes em fairly easy to catch

there's a saying lamb indoors is for the farmer outdoors for the sheep.
We do both and if you get the weather for it I'd lamb singles outside

Conmaicne Mara

arctictree wrote: »

I am looking at trying some outside lambing in a field behind the house but I have visions of me chasing a ewe around the field with a lamb half hanging out of her. Do you lads just leave them be or how do you help the ewes with problems?

I've always lambed my flock outdoors. Mostly they lamb themselves as they're blackface with a couple of cheviots thrown into the mix. Cran mentioned breeds, any breed that is known to require assistance won't be a good choice lambing outdoors, IMO. You can be there 23 hours a day and the other hour something will happen.

To catch them, can be a stroke of luck with the ewe mis-stepping, might have to go home to get dog to put her in the pen, a crook can be very useful. Nice and quiet approach always works better than the running and shouting approach. One trick which I like using on the approach to one of my pens is to have a length of fence out from the pen to act as a funnel. The trick is to leave the end of the fence by the pen open all year, so the ewes get used to walking past the pen to safety. When I want to pen them I just close up the wire and they're fooked That can be applied in any corner of a field or even along a straight run of fence.

Green farmer

amen wrote: »

Really ? Any photos of a live sheep with crows sitting on it trying to pull its eyes out ?

Is this only during lambing season or does it occur during other times of the year when sheep lie down ?

I've found a new born dead lamb with eyes missing in a shed last year that I had a pair of scrawl crows nesting in. I rang a hunter friend of mine, and asked him how could I tell if crow killed the lamb or just scavenged the lamb after death. I was told that if the post death then there would be very little blood as the heart would not be pumping. There was a lot of blood around eye. Question answered !!! Mother of lamb was very young and inexperienced. No other preditors could gain access.i was told they like new born that haven't stood up yet.

foyle

amen wrote: »

Really ? Any photos of a live sheep with crows sitting on it trying to pull its eyes out ?

Is this only during lambing season or does it occur during other times of the year when sheep lie down ?

Happens quite a bit with us, any shook ewe, one who is sick or dying can be a victim...we also have a few lambs lose eyes every year, and often a few with the tongues removed as they are born...all usually victims of grey crows, sometimes magpies for the old sick ewes.

Doesn't happen with healthy sheep or older lambs - or lambs with good mothers

Username John

Fcuking grey crows, hate em! ! !

They have taken the eyes out of ewes on their back here, one ewe I have has only one eye after em last year. They have pulled out intentines out of a few too, by holing the stomach...

Hate to see em around, durty b@stards of things...

Conmaicne Mara

Username John wrote: »

Fcuking grey crows, hate em! ! !

They have taken the eyes out of ewes on their back here, one ewe I have has only one eye after em last year. They have pulled out intentines out of a few too, by holing the stomach...

Hate to see em around, durty b@stards of things...

Used to love shooting them, don't have the time now to spend a couple of hours under a furze bush :pac: so trapping is a lot more efficient.

Lano Lynn

don't heed the naysayers
lambing inside requires organisation and preperation .
feed em right keep em clean.
keep layout simple ,plenty of small pens.
good supervision makes the difference.coming into shed with 4 or 5 ewes lambed n mixed up is very frustrating.
a little help goes a long way have had super guys with zero experience over the years even for an hour or two to water n feed individual pens giving time to get turned out or herd the rest.
mismothering can be a pain in the ass,sometimes an old matron decides she wants ever lamb as it is born even though she may not be due for weeks I just feck her outside and as far from the shed as possible:)

in or out lambing is a skilled job how hard it is has a lot to do with the choices of the flock master ,how often have ya heard 'the sheep went against me',in my experience more often than not 'they went against the sheep'

Lano Lynn

Cran wrote: »

Outside lambing needs to be low labour per ewe to work, unlike lambing inside you cannot be handling a high % of ewes at lambing. I think breeds , time of year & set-up are very important lambing out tbh. I lamb out starting last week March, would say get one bad week every 3/4 years but in general weather ok by that time and don't ever remember getting 2 bad weeks in a row (probably cursed that now)..... 90% lamb down in less than 3 weeks and about 8% of ewes are handled at lambing for any reason (has been lower in really good years). Must be noted my farm is well sheltered.

What I see as most important aspects of my set-up for lambing are:
Ewes here are either Mule (75%), Lleyn (10%), Mule X Lleyn(5%) and other 5%. The others 5% cause more work that nearly all the rest put together and only exist here due to my old mans fascination with marts and buying few ewes & lambs in the spring. I am moving more towards Mule x Lleyn btw

Crossed to Charollais rams (few with Lleyns for replacements), easy lambed and up quick. I understand some peoples concern on cover from Charollais outside, but I've tried them all (except Vendeen) and yet to find a breed more suited to a low labour outdoor lambing system. Find the Mule & Lleyn crossed with Charollais have loads of cover.

Quad trailer behind the jeep with 4 hurdles (hardly ever needed), chasing a ewe round the field is very very unusual and normal limited to 5% others mentioned above. I do have previous experience of this running before changing ewe breeds . Even though I have a very good dog can't really remember using him ever to catch a ewe lambing.....

Hope it helps a little, otherwise being totaly mad helps alot

while agreeing with you on type of ewe being vital n charollais have great get up an go.wish I had your weather we have to be careful with the quad wouldn't get out the gate with a jeep!

uck51js9zml2yt

My in laws lamb indoors in Slovakia. Sheep are in from end of September to March/April and lamb January/February.

As far as I know they've never had any deaths.

Conmaicne Mara

Miah Agreeable Tray wrote: »

My in laws lamb indoors in Slovakia. Sheep are in from end of September to March/April and lamb January/February.

As far as I know they've never had any deaths.

Got any photos of Slovakian farming

uck51js9zml2yt

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

Got any photos of Slovakian farming

Sorry. We normally go over when they are up on pasture in the mountains

AnFeirmeoir

How much straw would you use lambing inside ? Square bales per ewe

Outdoors I found feeding in a spot that can be fenced off if needed works for me . Ewes in trouble will come to trough with the rest and can be caught there and dealt with.

willfarmerman

The she'd is the best. Get the feeding right. Have them on a good shake of meal for weeks before you bring them in to lamb. Ensure there is calcium in it. And good hay for fodder is best.

Dickie10

Il prob just tell you what we do , you might gain something from it or maybe not.I have 100 ewes lamb them iside and out I raddle ewes fairly well 3 colours so I can break down into small groups of not more than 30 in the shed at the one time I have a 5 acre field which adjoins the shed I keep them in so I can let them out during the day usually 7 am and run them in at night I feed outside in troughs, they don't be long skinning the field but its a lot more heigenic than inside all day 24hrs a lot easier on bedding too. when they lamb I put them in a pen which are in the shed also and all goin well they go out after 36 hrs I try not to keep any longer for disease unless its real bad weather , but usually once lambs are full bellys they can withstand a lot of weather?? anyway I hope u glean sumthing from this I usually have a mortality rate in first few weeks of life at 5% approx.- touch wood!