Sponging ewes

DJ98

Anyone in here sponge ewes and have early lambs, any pros and con's to this, was thinking of sponging 15-20 ewes this year and lamb them in early January

wrangler

DJ98 wrote: »

Anyone in here sponge ewes and have early lambs, any pros and con's to this, was thinking of sponging 15-20 ewes this year and lamb them in early January

Yea, we used to do it, it's simple enough, they'd need to be weaned shortly, sponges in around the 20th july, removed twelve days later, and served 36 -48 hrs after, lamb then around 1st jan.
PMS is given at sponge removal, it improves the chances of conception and increases the crop so don't overdose it or you'll have ewes with fours or fives even

Buford T. Justice XIX

DJ98 wrote: »

Anyone in here sponge ewes and have early lambs, any pros and con's to this, was thinking of sponging 15-20 ewes this year and lamb them in early January

All earlys here, suits the workload. We did it the lazy mans way, let the ram off with the ewes early and kept the ewes that lambed early and their ewe lambs for the next year. MarkI belclares though so the lambs were very fertile anyway. Mountain crosses and Suffolk crosses wouldn't be as fertile, lower numbers able to breed naturally out of season.

Can I ask how you're planning on finishing them? If you're going on grass for the ewes, you'll need to be closing up early and have a few sheltered paddocks of fields for them. If weaning early and ration finishing, I'd be thinking again, tbh.

Just take care you're not sacrificing the main flocks feeding by allocating too much grass to the earlys because they can eat a hell of a lot of grass, big appetites and numbers with not too much growing till later in the spring. Been there and it's not a very profitable place.

Sheep breeder

DJ98 wrote: »

Anyone in here sponge ewes and have early lambs, any pros and con's to this, was thinking of sponging 15-20 ewes this year and lamb them in early January

To sponge 15- 20 and the work involved they would not pay, better to do 40-50 and have a decent return, a friend does about 50 Christmas week for a long number of years and uses the oldest ewes and kills them out with the lambs at good money.
The cost of the pms is the biggest part and would be better work out the amount of ewes per bottle and do that number to match and not waste the pms.

_blaaz

How many ewes per ram are lads using


Realistically long term il.be sponging all animals as im only part time

orm0nd

_blaaz wrote: »

How many ewes per ram are lads using


Realistically long term il.be sponging all animals as im only part time

You will have to hand mate them, very minimum 1 to 8, ideally 1 to 5 or 6.

Sponged for years for early lamb, but gave it up about 15 years ago.

Found approaching the factories end of march with a bunch of springs for sale was quite a humiliating experience.

_blaaz

orm0nd wrote: »

You will have to hand mate them, very minimum 1 to 8, ideally 1 to 5 or 6.

Sponged for years for early lamb, but gave it up about 15 years ago.

Found approaching the factories end of march with a bunch of springs for sale was quite a humiliating experience.

Whats the viability of sponging with a lambing date circa end of 2nd week feb??



Or Would it be pure waste of money??....ive googled the hell outta this and mixed info is what i seen


Kinda enjoy holidays so dont want to use all mine from work lambing sheep!!

wrangler

_blaaz wrote: »

Whats the viability of sponging with a lambing date circa end of 2nd week feb??



Or Would it be pure waste of money??....ive googled the hell outta this and mixed info is what i seen


Kinda enjoy holidays so dont want to use all mine from work lambing sheep!!

It'll concentrate your lambing alright, we used to sponge 50 here and about 20% wouldn't go in lamb, but they were lambing before Christmas which is way out of season, I'd imagine that lambing them mid feb would see the majority holding to first service.
Mating is important, we used to put the fifty ewes in pens of ten and a ram to each pen, when the ewe was served twice we'd take her out. when they were all served then we'd let them out in the field with their ram. I think it's important to supervise the mating, I've seen rams concentrate on one ewe after letting them all out after mating and ignore the rest.
Even with our sheep it meant that we were lambing for 5 or 6 days and then get a break for 10 days before the repeats.
There's no magic bullet as regards lambing, using the ram effect really works but the lambing is still spread out over 17 days which doesn't suit you. Ram effect done right will concentrate the lambing over a week in the 17 days but you won't know which week unless you use a ram harness and change colour every 6/7 days.

_blaaz

wrangler wrote: »

It'll concentrate your lambing alright, we used to sponge 50 here and about 20% wouldn't go in lamb, but they were lambing before Christmas which is way out of season, I'd imagine that lambing them mid feb would see the majority holding to first service.
Mating is important, we used to put the fifty ewes in pens of ten and a ram to each pen, when the ewe was served twice we'd take her out. when they were all served then we'd let them out in the field with their ram. I think it's important to supervise the mating, I've seen rams concentrate on one ewe after letting them all out after mating and ignore the rest.
Even with our sheep it meant that we were lambing for 5 or 6 days and then get a break for 10 days before the repeats.
There's no magic bullet as regards lambing, using the ram effect really works but the lambing is still spread out over 17 days which doesn't suit you. Ram effect done right will concentrate the lambing over a week in the 17 days but you won't know which week unless you use a ram harness and change colour every 6/7 days.

I never actually taught of penning sheep with the ram before letting out....good idea


The ram effect is a good job....we do that here and found like we have maybe 80% of em.on the busy week...rest split roughly equal week before and week after it tbf it deos suit and work is sound enough as regards holidays too (taking extra 3 weeks unpaid this year for holidays)



Only thing catching me is capacity for lambing pens and rams....but hope get at least 1 sorted this year and scrimp.through on other!!..sponging will be long term method realistically

wrangler

_blaaz wrote: »

I never actually taught of penning sheep with the ram before letting out....good idea


The ram effect is a good job....we do that here and found like we have maybe 80% of em.on the busy week...rest split roughly equal week before and week after it tbf it deos suit and work is sound enough as regards holidays too (taking extra 3 weeks unpaid this year for holidays)



Only thing catching me is capacity for lambing pens and rams....but hope get at least 1 sorted this year and scrimp.through on other!!..sponging will be long term method realistically

Yea, I think that was what Ormond was referring too with 'handmating'....the mind boggles if it's not
If you were short of rams take the sponges out of half of them one day and half the next day, they'd be well fit to serve 10 ewes each day

Siamsa Sessions

Would I be right in saying sponging costs around 5-6 euro per ewe?

Looked into it here before (40-ish ewes) but decided it wasn't worth the effort given the weather and misery of feeding ewes and trying to mind small lambs outside in Jan/Feb.

But I changed off-farms jobs recently and holidays are scarce so I might have to consider compact lambing again.

stantheman1979

We had a bfl ram get in with Lanark ewes in August last year. Thought nothing of it. We found about a dozen heavy in lamb in January when we were scanning. They lambed 20 jan to 1st February. Worked out well we’ve ewe lambs of them 55-60 kgs now. Should be worth a nice few quid at breeding sales coming up.

Sheep breeder

_blaaz wrote: »

Whats the viability of sponging with a lambing date circa end of 2nd week feb??



Or Would it be pure waste of money??....ive googled the hell outta this and mixed info is what i seen


Kinda enjoy holidays so dont want to use all mine from work lambing sheep!!

For lambing like this we use to sponge ewes and give no pms injection, we would try to have a Friday as our 150 day to lamb over the weekend to save time off work, then two weeks of a break and go again with the repeats from the previous batch lambing with the second batch,
We use to sponge ewe lambs the same way with good results.

Sheep breeder

wrangler wrote: »

Yea, I think that was what Ormond was referring too with 'handmating'....the mind boggles if it's not
If you were short of rams take the sponges out of half of them one day and half the next day, they'd be well fit to serve 10 ewes each day

We usually take out on day 12 and 14 and get two uses out of the rams and the older rams 10/12 ewes and younger 8/10 ewes.

_blaaz

Sheep breeder wrote: »

For lambing like this we use to sponge ewes and give no pms injection, we would try to have a Friday as our 150 day to lamb over the weekend to save time off work, then two weeks of a break and go again with the repeats from the previous batch lambing with the second batch,
We use to sponge ewe lambs the same way with good results.

I apoligise....i only have vague idea about sponging....whats the idea behind no pms??(im.assuming this is the hormone)

orm0nd

Sheep breeder wrote: »

We usually take out on day 12 and 14 and get two uses out of the rams and the older rams 10/12 ewes and younger 8/10 ewes.

One thing to remember (and I got caught rotten with this one of the first years) is that some rams will not be fully active and are lazy early in the season.
Probably varies from breed to breed, or from ram to ram.

reason for hand mating (yes wrangler I'll leave you boggle on) is that a ram could get very attached to 1 particular sheep and forget about the rest

Siamsa Sessions

Any opinions on what ram breed to use for early lambs?

All generalisations but are Texel slow growers and Charollais too light-wooled for early lambs?

jd06

Sorry don't want to derail your post
But I was wondering how to actually sponge a ewe

I have 5 pedigree ewes to do shortly and I can't find a good video on YouTube on how to do it, I asked my vet one day and he said you tube it!
I want to do it properly I have krono gest sponges. Thanks

Siamsa Sessions

jd06 wrote: »

Sorry don't want to derail your post
But I was wondering how to actually sponge a ewe

I have 5 pedigree ewes to do shortly and I can't find a good video on YouTube on how to do it, I asked my vet one day and he said you tube it!
I want to do it properly I have krono gest sponges. Thanks

I remember my father and a neighbour having to sit down with laughing when I said, "I thought you dosed them with it".

That's 30 years ago now - holy sh*t I'm pushing on in years!

And here I am, going to do yet another thing my father was doing a generation ago.

Ard_MC

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

I remember my father and a neighbour having to sit down with laughing when I said, "I thought you dosed them with it".

That's 30 years ago now - holy sh*t I'm pushing on in years!

And here I am, going to do yet another thing my father was doing a generation ago.

Funny enough. The tried and tested methods that work for generations before. Seem the best at times.

wrangler

jd06 wrote: »

Sorry don't want to derail your post
But I was wondering how to actually sponge a ewe

I have 5 pedigree ewes to do shortly and I can't find a good video on YouTube on how to do it, I asked my vet one day and he said you tube it!
I want to do it properly I have krono gest sponges. Thanks

Just put the sponge in the narrow end of the applicator making sure that the
string goes in first, put it into the ewe and push the plunger, the string should then be hanging out of the ewe.

Buford T. Justice XIX

wrangler wrote: »

Just put the sponge in the narrow end of the applicator making sure that the
string goes in first*, put it into the ewe and push the plunger, the string should then be hanging out of the ewe.

*string goes string first into the applicator, non string end goes into the ewe first.

Hard Knocks

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Any opinions on what ram breed to use for early lambs?

All generalisations but are Texel slow growers and Charollais too light-wooled for early lambs?

Have used Suffolk & Texel different years, did ok
Bought a 1/2 bred ram last year (purebred Texel father & purebred Charolais mother) who’s working a treat for the early lambs & easy lambing for the ewe lambs too

Siamsa Sessions

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Have used Suffolk & Texel different years, did ok
Bought a 1/2 bred ram last year (purebred Texel father & purebred Charolais mother) who’s working a treat for the early lambs & easy lambing for the ewe lambs too

Thanks. That’s an interesting mix - any pictures of him or the lambs?

Hard Knocks

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Thanks. That’s an interesting mix - any pictures of him or the lambs?

Not the best pics as they do have great length
The 2 ram lambs are off last years ewe lambs (1was a twin) in mid April & were weaned 3 weeks ago