General sheep thread

orm0nd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118152173#Comment_118152173

When we were doing shed we left a small gate on the inside of the centre walk through. The gate is too low and when the dung builds up it can't be opened.

It's invaluable as the shed acts as our handling unit in the summer months.

Been meaning to get the gates modified but you know yourself.....

Runswithfeet

Hi all, buy ewe lambs each year and sell as hoggetts following year.Would buy nice quality Suffolk x and mountain x lambs.

Have 1 Suffolk lamb roughly 38 kg that developed a brutal foot rot infection back in September,had to pare a lot of hoof off and give antiobiotics.She has come around well but walks with bit of a limp and I think that would spoil her for ‘breeder’ sales next year.

Have one other Mountain x lamb same weight that’s lame since she landed,even after treatment.

With the high prices for lamb now was thinking of shipping them on!……how long roughly would you have to feed them ad lib finishing ration and good hay in shed to get into factory fitness/weight?

Are healthy and on fairly good ground so have touch of feeding on their backs already.

Thanks for yere thoughts.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118183316#Comment_118183316

If they were able to eat a kg a day, you should have them fit in 4 -6 wks

Mad about baa baas

My ewes are due to lamb first week of February..would it be OK to dose them this weekend?

Country lad

of course it would as always dose mine for fluke the end of january when they are due to lamb mid march

RobinBanks

Hi all. Bought in some store lambs I'm Oct and yesterday noticed a few of them where 1 ear was drooping at the tip and there was a blackish growth around it. On closer inspection it looks like it could be an infection caused by the tagging. It's in the area where ear was tagged.

Any advice on what to do next

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118234637#Comment_118234637

I'd spray it with foot spray and give it a shot of penicillin. The inside is usually worse.

It's not uncommon and proves ear tags are unnatural to sheep.

Dinzee Conlee

I ended up dipping the tags in surgical spirits when I used to tag here as a few nearly always seemed to get some kinda infection…

As KK has said, put some kinda spray on em and see how it goes… make sure to get the spray in around the tag, so you might have to spray both sides of the ear… anytime it happened here, we didn’t inject, just sprayed em, usually with iodine and let em off…

are you sure it’s the tagging though? Your description of dropping at the tip sounds like it might not be?

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118237132#Comment_118237132

I've tagged thousands of lambs and no problems, the problems are with the operator

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118237384#Comment_118237384

I'd suspect photosynthesis, you'd see it in white lambs a bit that are on typhon, or white sheep injected with copper

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/swollen-head-crusty-eared-sheep.193322/

RobinBanks

I'd be aswell being them to the vet so. I will try to get close up pic.

farawaygrass

I bought lambs lately and reading in papers the advice seemed to be to isolate them and dose with twice, once with one of the new class of drugs. But any vet I ask around here days just to dose with one of the usual doses.

does anyone dose bought in stock twice, once with the new class of wormer (prescription only)?

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118243186#Comment_118243186

Yes, we've done it for years, but we've a closed flock and would only have to do breeding rams. We've no resistance problems while all around us are succumbing to it.

We do them with a zolvix and yellow wormer and leave them in 48hrs, and don't spread the dung from them then for a few mths

Dinzee Conlee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118243246#Comment_118243246

Given I now know I have resistance problems with white dose anyways definitely - what can be done to improve this situation?

Would leaving the ground without sheep for a while improve it - if so, how long? ( I suspect the true answer here is 2-3 years? But lets say if it were without sheep for ~6 months, would that help, or not really make much difference?)

Would grazing with cattle improve it?

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118243420#Comment_118243420

You won't improve the problem, all you can do is stop it getting worse. white dose will still kill nemotodirus in the spring when the lambs are six to eight weeks old so use it then as the more you use the yellow and clear dose the quicker resistance will develop to them, Do FECs after that to see how those are working for you, Do an FEC to make sure you need a dose and then do another FEC post dosing to make sure that 95% + of the worms are killed. Don't worm dose your ewes as their immunity will control their worms, thin ewes with poor immunity could be dosed but they'd probably have another problem, worms wouldn't cause them to be thin.

Mixed grazing with cattle will reduce the challenge which in turn will mean less dosing and slow down the progress of the resistance.

A neighbour in his first year in sheep here has resistance now, he could've avoided it had he quarantine dosed every thing coming in.

The information I have is you can't get it out of land, people have had to get out of sheep, a farmer here was advised to dose all with Zolvix and yellow dose on housing but the worms will be there when they go back out in the spring.

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118243246#Comment_118243246

Thanks for that. Was it easy to get zolvix from the vet? And do you dose both doses at the same time?

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118243867#Comment_118243867

Would ploughing or discing a field and sowing a crop be off any help to press the restart button for want of a better phrase?

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118260102#Comment_118260102

We give both doses together and first Heptavac P to stock coming on to the farm.

Reeeding probably would help, but while you have two types of doses working you shouldn't be worried yet,

Kevhog1988

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118243186#Comment_118243186

I dose everything we buy and keep them in the shed for about a week before letting out. When is the best time to take the dung samples for testing?. id be interested in getting it done

jfh

I let ram off 25th Sept,when is the ideal time to scan?

Kevhog1988

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118261871#Comment_118261871

https://www.quinns.ie/index.php/toolbox/sheep-lambing-calculator/

I think the 80day is the point your supposed to scan

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118262170#Comment_118262170

Ask your scanner, some prefer them nearer to 100 days

Danzy

What are Suffolk hogget ewes scanned to twins going for roughly

Mad about baa baas

Is anyone having trouble with the lsl app lately.. watching a mart early in the week and an auction yesterday and can't get volume or any sound..have pictures coming in fine..

Have changed phone recently so maybe issue is my end...

DJ98

What do people use in a footbath that you find works well? Always used formalin here but trying to get away from it and looking for a new product.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359510#Comment_118359510

I think with every other product the sheep have to be left standing in it for 5mins and on dry concrete for 30mins after.

We use Zinc sulphate at 10% solution every time they're in and haven't pared a sheeps feet in years, copper sulphate is the same but splashes rots through galvanise and destroy gates

jfh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360612#Comment_118360612

Out of interest, would you run them through the footpath often, I've a good few lame since housing

jfh

I've taken over the sheep from the father, we never dose the ewes for fluke or worms, we do the lambs regularly. Without doing dung sampling, should we be? Is it usual practice to dose month after housing?

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118362348#Comment_118362348

we'd usually footbath once a month, they'd be out for scanning 1st january, vaccination 10th feb and sometimes we'd have to do them carefully before lambing, They'd be footbathed anytime they're out of the shed for something.

We feed straw and ration here, no silage, so bed is always dry, but last year we fed silage for 4 weeks and had to foot bath every fortnight, silage was wet and bed was wet. Lameness is an awful problem if it gets going.

Our footbath is indoors and costs €20 to make up the bath and it'd easily do the 80 ewes 3 times, maybe 5 times

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118362366#Comment_118362366

A lot of farms don't have a problem with fluke and obviously your farm doesn't.

Mature ewes don't need worm doses unless they're thin, healthy ewes are immune to worms, but if there's an odd thin one give them a dose.