General sheep thread

Cyclist101

@wrangler , you have shared some lovely pictures of your ewes over the years on this forum, both in the field and in your tunnel. Have you any pictures of your rams that you could share with us.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121906454#Comment_121906454

Thanks for the compliments, but our rams aren't good, firstly they're fed on waste ground and secondly we buy mostly on figures now. so they never look well.

Just watching This Farming life on BBC 2 at the moment. Cammy Wilson from Youtubes' Sheep Game was shown scanning. Farm owners were thrilled with a scan of 125% in cheviots go figure.

Nice little program that

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121904901#Comment_121904901

Wormer resistance is a huge problem now, and we had the foot rot problem last year which I put down to the wet year.

I'm keeping an eye out for a house in Tullamore, a single storey bungalow on a good sized site with a good BER rating and if it comes along my sheep will be gone as well

weatherbyfoxer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121907060#Comment_121907060

Unfortunately there is just too little income for the work required with in an intensive lowland system.

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121904901#Comment_121904901

We had a worm resistance problem last year also. Sets the lambs back no end. We’ll see how this year goes with them.

thr wet weather is sure depressing. When the ground is all mucked up from wintering sheep then enough said. Older neighbour was telling me about wintering sheep in his youth. They fed the ewes mangolds and as they would be throwing them out to the sheep, the mangolds would break on the ground as it was so hard with frost.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121907986#Comment_121907986

Did you isolate which wormer is failing, most of the farmers we test for have trouble with white doses and ivermectin. A lot are using zolvix at weaning now, but like the others zolvix will fail if you use it too often

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121907986#Comment_121907986

I vaguely remember those days as well. Old folk knew to how to rotational graze sheep on natural leys to control worms too. Sadly alot of that knowledge has been lost off the back of the 80's headage madness and associated excessive input model leading to such issues.

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909274#Comment_121909274

The vet thinks we had a case of ivermectin resistance. We had to dose them last year with zolvix too. I remember one day I said feck this and brought the lambs inside for feeding as they weren’t thriving. Within 30 minutes two had died, literally in front of my eyes. I brought them to the lab and they had a high worm count. But it was easy know as they were so dirty and a bad smell of them.

the guy at the lab said maybe I was running them too tight when grazing and I’m putting some of the problem down to that and maybe having one big group instead of splitting them up. I’m going to feed them more earlier this year too I think.

we’ll reassess then next year and see what improvements if any there has been.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909560#Comment_121909560

Once you have resistance to ivermectin on your farm, It'll never work right again.

Best idea is to test for worms after every dose to ensure it has worked.

weatherbyfoxer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909709#Comment_121909709

We had a resistance to noromectin dose,gave the lambs a drench of arrest (levamisole/albensole combi drench) and the count dropped to 120 from 2000, will use ivermectin for nematadiris this year and a combi drench for first worm dose

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909918#Comment_121909918

Arrest is a combination of yellow and white dose, white dose isn't performing on most farms now, but will kill nematodirus in april/early may.

You'd be better to use white dose for nematodirus and straight levamisole for worms in june /july. rather than the combination.

If you aren't getting a 90% + kill of worms ..,dose with zolvix,

Keep testing as it's easy lose a months thrive with a dose not working, A worm count of 2000 probably affected the thrive in your lambs for two months, we dose at a count of 500.

Some vets have very little interest in sheep and are giving out wrong information about wormer resistance.

A farmer came to us after the free worm count by the vet, their worm count was over 1000 and he recommended white dose, we tested them after the dose and the figure had actually gone up. lambs were actually losing weight. Every farmer should try to work out which dose is working on their farm

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909709#Comment_121909709

I’ll do that going forward too. Thanks

MIKEKC

Anyone having difficulty getting Hi-Mag buckets for sheep? Never had any problem before. Now all seems to be available is feed buckets Was sure Dairygold would have them.

Jonnyc135

What's peoples thoughts.....Had hoggetts last year and let them run with a new ram, got on very well and ran the same sheep with the same ram this year and a good few cases of entropion eyes. I can't figure it out, lambs last year out of ram showed no signs of it were all perfect.

Sami23

Had a Ewe lambs with twins this evening - lambed herself.

Both lambs were normal size and first lamb was fine. However the second lamb his head was very small and he had a big lump on his neck. It was like the neck grew bigger instead of his head. He died within a few minutes.

Anyone know what this might be and if it could happen to that Ewe again next year?

Tia

orm0nd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932641#Comment_121932641

could be just the foetus got deformed for some reason or slight possibility of Schmallenberg , either way the ewe should be fine

gazahayes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932641#Comment_121932641

Had something similar here but second lamb had no eyes and very short tail and died shortly after

Tileman

Lost a lovely big single this morning. The bag never broke around its mouth and it smothered. I was with kids training and I’d say I missed it by about 10 mins. Sicker.

Mad about baa baas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933923#Comment_121933923

That's a scald..hopefully the rest of them go well for you

Mad about baa baas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121929849#Comment_121929849

Are the lambs underweight in any way? Sometimes lack of fat can cause the eyes to be a bit sunken and lead to entropian

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121934080#Comment_121934080

No all I great condition, too well cooked in most cases. Lookly caught them early in field and just rolled and flicked them back, that has seemed to work without having to inject

DJ98

Anyone any tips or tricks to get lambs to suck a bottle, pair of 2 day old lambs, were never with a ewe and tubed and bottle fed colostrum when born but have completely stopped drinking from the bottle only taken about 20 ml each then spitting it out or just holding the teat but not actually sucking

razor8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121936076#Comment_121936076

Take their temperature. Sounds like they could be sick

Jonnyc135

20240325_171444.jpg

20240325_171453.jpg

Anyone know why this lambs has badly swollen lugs, thriving well a week old.

DJ98

Still no joy here in getting one of them lambs suck either a ewe or a bottle and have been tubing since.

Have a lamb this evening, a big 2 day old single who is walking but then collapses on his side and struggling to get back up. Anyone any ideas what this might be?

Sami23

Lost a young Ewe here last night. She had lambed the day before but didn't clean until yesterday. Was a difficult enough lambing as she was tight enough and one lamb was born dead also out of a twin.

So presuming she must have got hurt during lambing and maby got infected ?

I'm kind of blaming myself for perhaps pulling the lambs too soon as I found her lambing first thing in the morning and couldn't be sure how long she was at it. The lambs seemed to be in very far in and low down in belly.

Kicking myself now I didn't leave her longer to see what would have happened.

orm0nd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121944391#Comment_121944391

don't blame yourself, I'm 55 years at the sheep game and still make the occasional incorrect call

clonagh

I've got ewe that's walking on the knuckle of one of her back feet. Doesn't seem to be anything wrong with foot itself. She's lame as a result and she's parked herrself in front of a bale of silage and is eating away. She still has to lamb and I'm afraid she won't stand long enough for lambs to drink. Any suggestions?

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121944844#Comment_121944844

Sometimes a lamb can be lying on a nerve in the ewe giving them a paralysis and a weakness, I've often seen it here and they get better after lambing.

Probably splinting the leg to keep it straight would be a help. If the skin breaks on the knuckle she'll be in a lot of trouble

clonagh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121945551#Comment_121945551

Thanks Wrangler, I'll try a splint.