Dinzee Conlee wrote: » If it is that eyelid thing - isn’t that an inheritable thing from the ram?
ganmo wrote: » About a week
Siamsa Sessions wrote: » I thought it was only 2-3 days? Would suit us here if it lasted a week as we’re still building numbers
DJ98 wrote: » Have a ewe that lost her lamb last week, is it gone too late to Foster a lamb onto her using adoption crate?
Sami23 wrote: » Do many of ye continue to feed concentrates to Ewes after turning them out to grass after lambing ? Also do many of ye intend to feed creep food to lambs this year. Reason I ask is I bought a 25kg bag of Red Mills creep for the suck lambs and its €11 this year so very hard to justify pumping feed into lambs at €11 a bag ? Interested to hear what other people's plans are.
Sami23 wrote: » Do many of ye continue to feed concentrates to Ewes after turning them out to grass after lambing ?lso do many of ye intend to feed creep food to lambs 2 year. Reason I ask is I bought a 25kg bag of Red Mills creep for the suck lambs and its €11 this year so very hard to justify pumping feed into lambs at €11 a bag ? Interested to hear what other people's plans are.
kk.man wrote: » I usually change to a cheaper ration once they get started.
stantheman1979 wrote: » Last year was the first and only year we’ve ever fed ewes at grass and that was only due to the crappy weather. We always make sure to have plenty of grass saved over the winter and try to get out early with fertiliser if the weather allows. We would feed the ewe lambs at grass after lambing for a few weeks. We do creep feed all our lambs though.
Sami23 wrote: » What cheaper ration would you feed - ewe & lamb ration ?
wrangler wrote: » If there's more than five centimetres of good quality grass ewes can milk well without concentrates but if there's less than four cms of grass it's physically impossible for a ewe to get enough dry matter in to feed two lambs and you have to supplement. Like you I'd try to have enough grass to let them out, before we retired our batches were circa 200 ewes and 350 lambs so, even with the snacker , it was chaos to try to feed them.
wrangler wrote: » We'd 3 abortions this year, first two were at weekends so didn't get to lab, last one did, result came back positive for Enzo and Toxo. They're all 2017 born ewes, so they were all vaccinated the same day with the same vaccine so the vets getting on to MSD. That was 3 abortions from 25 ewes that were vaccinated in 2017 i'd be interested to know did anyone have a similar experience
AntrimGlens wrote: » Have things straightened out Wrangler, or any more abortions? Last year the first four ewes aborted and lab results came back for enzo, so everything was vaccinated last autumn for enzo and toxo. This year is off to a horrible start here. Were due from today on but there's probably 15 lambed at this stage. So since last week: Ewe 1 scanned for twins, had two small lambs born dead and one decent lamb so away to the field with a single. Ewe 2 the same day scanned for twins lambed one good big lamb and one wee mumified thing fell out of her. I put this down to pre-lambing abortions or knocks at the trough etc. Since then I've probably lost ten lambs all from ewes that were vaccinated in the Autumn. Lambs that are small when born and just won't live, live for a while but make no effort to suck if they get up, and other lambs that are generally weak and need a lot of help latching on. Things appear to have straightened out today and all good strong lambs born. I've three lambs away to the lab for PM. I know vaccinating won't completely prevent abortions and i'm content to put the first two ewes down as aborting lambs, but all these weak lambs and poor doers, would this be a result of the ewes still carrying the virus as they didn't abort last year or possibly vaccine not working. All thoughts & ideas welcome to mull over while awaiting PM results.
wrangler wrote: » Even with the vaccine, we had plenty of cases following our first 'storm' for about two years, Once it's in your flock it takes a couple of years to rattle through it. If your problem is Enzo they were infected during last years lambing I hate to see it here on this farm now again, we've a couple more ewes that were scanned doubles and I don't think they're in lamb now and we also had a lot of small lambs in the same batch, Our sample was positive for both enzo and toxo, There's another prominent farm with the same problem as us but only half the flock was vaccinated, Enzo is very infectious and presents a huge challenge even to vaccinated sheep in the same flock, Your vet will probably blood test some of your aborted ewes now, you should blood test some healthy ones as well to see did the vaccine actually work. Your flock must have been very clean and then had no immunity to be so bad now....... I don't envy you
AntrimGlens wrote: » Thanks Wrangler, informative and helpful as ever. Hopefully it will settle, but i'm resigned to it now, whatever it brings it brings. Could be a lot worse.
FarmerDougal wrote: » I had a couple scanned for twins and now empty, only one abortion otherwise before the started lambing. Should I be worried?
Siamsa Sessions wrote: » Talking to a vet at the weekend and he reckons the longer a closed flock is established, the less issues there are with toxo since bought-in animals are the main culprits. Anyone have experience of this?
wrangler wrote: » Toxo is usually from cats and picked up on the farm, Enzo is usually bought in, the ewes i bought in were Enzo and toxo vaccinated
