Lambing 2017

rangler1 wrote: »

Have you much straw, if you increase the meal and bed them with some fresh straw every day, they'll have enough.
half a kilo of ration plus a bit of straw has the same feed value as silage

I as planning on wrapping the twins over to meal and straw alright, but hadn't considered the singles. 1 bag would do 50 ewes ? Know what, it's no more expensive then paying a lad €25 for a bale of hay. And many of those lads want cash, so that could be as much as €50 when taxes are factored in, as you don't have the deduction.

I feed my singles about .4kg head for last few weeks as I have lots of triplets and want singles to have enough milk for adoptions

mcgiggles wrote: »

have a funny one, twins born this morning, we just noticed each of them have a patch on one of their ears that looks red and exposed like the wool came off? also one of them the other ear looks kind of folded like he was lying on it funny for a while.. literally born this AM, ewe lambed quickly and was cleaning them off when we had to go to work, the mother in law said they were fine all day and when we went to mark them we noticed the patch on their ears.. they seem fine apart from that and ewe in fine form..

the folded ear might come right, but its not major if it doesn't and the bare skin might have been the ewe a bit over eager when lickin the lamb, a bit of sudocream would help it if its sore looking

Had a ewe lamb last nite. Nothing both sides at first. After a bit more trying got stuff out that was like toffee on one side and still nothing the other side. Fed the lambs myself. The next evening it was all normal.
Some say it can happen if they are cold but she was inside so not sure.

Either way she's grand now. If there is no lumps and feels full I'd say it will come with time.

MeTheMan wrote: »

Had a ewe lamb last nite. Nothing both sides at first. After a bit more trying got stuff out that was like toffee on one side and still nothing the other side.

Has anyone come across a situation where the lambs were unable to suck the ewe's colostrum as it was too thick ?
I had twins last week that lambed no problem and I seen them suckling the ewe. Both were dead within 48hrs.
I checked the ewe after lambing and she had milk in both tits but it was very thick

Ya that's what happened me. It's best just check every ewe for milk. Even if you see a lamb sucking and wagging its tail.

Hadn't seen it before myself. Thought it was infection at first but no smell. Best described as caramel really. Just really thick colostrum. Not really sure what the cause is.

I must have a ram with sexed semen! 22 Females and 10 Males so far!

Lambing away here too, had losses at the start with premature lambs and that but seen to be settled into it well now, around 200 lambed since the weekend, 260 roughly so far, 3 25 kg bags full of dead ones mostly down to the premature ones, lambs coming very big now, weather seems to taking a turn for the better finally

cattle man wrote: »

What age you letting them out to grass at ?
Any meal when they go out. ?

24 to 48 hrs old once theyre healthy, no meal once theyre out, the hoggets with lambs will get nuts with the snacker for a few wks and their lambs will get creep

With the weather improving for a few days at least I'm tempted till lamb outside always did but used a charrlois ram on half the hoggets this year and worried it's still a bit cold if they got wet at all with it could be the end off them. My question is are they really as soft as there made out till be and secondly the hoggets are texel x Suffolk so will the lambs still be as bare as purebreds or will they have a bita wool cover?

davidk1394 wrote: »

Lambman wrote: »

With the weather improving for a few days at least I'm tempted till lamb outside always did but used a charrlois ram on half the hoggets this year and worried it's still a bit cold if they got wet at all with it could be the end off them. My question is are they really as soft as there made out till be and secondly the hoggets are texel x Suffolk so will the lambs still be as bare as purebreds or will they have a bita wool cover?

They'll be lovely lambs. That's what we use here. Just keep an eye on them lambing. Charollais are known to throw the odd big lamb especially with Texel x Suffolk mothers

Do yous lamb in or out? I was thinking off lambing the doubles out definitely putting trips in and maybe a few singles aswell that's close looking around same time as trips till swap a few lambs onto them...and what about the wool covering?

davidk1394 wrote: »

I was in the cousins place next door getting a trailer off them. They always had a massive number of ewes to lamb as they graze on a mountain. I asked them how many are due to lamb their response was 5,000. I don't know how it's done

My god, that must be the biggest flock in Ireland, are they all horned ewes?

arctictree wrote:

I'm only lambing about 30 ewes but right in the middle of it they've decided to take a weeks break! No lambs since Sunday but the rest of them are definitely in lamb. Took a few days off work too....

Snap! We're lambing the same number now and more later.. looked at the dates before Christmas, decided this and next week would be the busiest.. I took this week off himself took next week off.. ended up having to go to induction for a new job Monday and Tuesday and had lambs morning and night then.. been properly off since Wednesday and feckin nothing. I swear they are crossing their legs to spite me :-) himself has to go to Dublin for a course Monday and I'm back to work so no doubt they'll all pop then!!!