Getting Started

Stationmaster

Looking to get stared with a few ewes and lambs. Have a few acres and not expecting to make money out of it - only looking for 2/3 ewes max. Presume donedeal is my best bet. How much grazing would you want for say 3 ewes and 6 lambs for the year?

foxirl

Stationmaster wrote: »

Looking to get stared with a few ewes and lambs. Have a few acres and not expecting to make money out of it - only looking for 2/3 ewes max. Presume donedeal is my best bet. How much grazing would you want for say 3 ewes and 6 lambs for the year?

A few acres should be plenty for 2/3 ewes and lambs. You will need flock number though. Done Deal or local farmers. Might be worth looking at easycare sheep if you only have a few as you will not need to worry . about shearing, dagging and less chance of do fly strike.

Stationmaster

Picked up a couple of ewes friday - both with triplets - and 2 pet lambs. Going to give the ewes and lambs a bit of feed twice a day - both to get them used to me and till the grass comes on another bit.

Siamsa Sessions

Stationmaster wrote: »

Picked up a couple of ewes friday - both with triplets - and 2 pet lambs. Going to give the ewes and lambs a bit of feed twice a day - both to get them used to me and till the grass comes on another bit.

Congrats - welcome to the sheep world.

Ask plenty questions on here and you won’t go too far wrong.

Rearing triplets is hard on ewes. Feed them well with meal (1kg per ewe) even when grass comes. Keep an eye on the lambs too in case one of the three starts to look slack or noticeably smaller than the other two. Could be sign it isn’t getting enough milk from its mother. If that’s the case, take away the biggest male lamb and feed him a bottle with the other pets.

Stationmaster

How much meal should I allow for the lambs? They're about 5 weeks old. All good sized, similar type build lambs so far and mothers have plenty of milk. I'm putting a bit of a homemade lamb creep together for them. Thanks.

Siamsa Sessions

Stationmaster wrote: »

How much meal should I allow for the lambs? They're about 5 weeks old. All good sized, similar type build lambs so far and mothers have plenty of milk. I'm putting a bit of a homemade lamb creep together for them. Thanks.

They won't eat much meal at 5 weeks but will pick away at it beside their mothers. Tis no harm to get them used to it. Throw in an extra 1kg between them all, so 3kg in total for 2 ewes and 8 lambs. I'm assuming the pets are in with the others?

Sheep don't drink much water but the meal will give them something of a thirst so make sure they have enough. Two bucketfuls per day would be plenty.

Kevhog1988

Best of luck op. I started out with just a few pets and asking plenty of questions on here