Sheep breeder wrote: » Pick a charollais with head cover and a beltex easier lambed!!. Good to see how the beltex do over the summer with the big lung capacity they have and grow into huge weight. Had a beltex once and never again little pigs that were always blowing under any movement and the ram a very poor worker.
Young95 wrote: » don’t go for a charolais if ur lambing anything outside there the coldest hoars because there so bald ! Getting rid of them this year and using beltex on first time lambers there easier lambed and hardier .
DJ98 wrote: » Not a great year here either, alot if doubles ended up as singles, any singles that lost lambs I bought a pet lamb and put onto them, added expense at 25 euro a piece. Alot of the ewes this year were 2 year old, first lambing they just didn't know what they were doing, lost texel lambs too big and a good few lambs born dead, Suffolk and texels. Space was also an issue. So like others I'm glad to see the end of lambing this year. Lost very little lambs once I got them out of the shed but now face the problem of having no grass . I am already planning for next year, considering moving lambing from March 1st to begin on paddy's day, lamb horned ewes outside weather permitting and use easier lambing breeds of rams on lowland ewes such as charollais
sheepfarmer92 wrote: » Don't be too hard on yourself you'll have good years and bad years, we had about a hundred ewes aborted they're lambs one year after a toxo outbreak, remember there's more to life, I wouldn't be too hooked on the type of ewe to be honest we have 2 flocks here the biggest flock lambs indoors they are mostly bred from a base of mule/greyface ewes and are belclare and texel crosses with some NC Cheviot and Suffolk crosses which are nearly gone at this stage, these 700 lamb indoors and scanned 1.8, iv 1.7 turned out never had such a good year with them, still have 24 of them left to lamb, lost 8 ewes from them and have 10 in a paddock with no lambs they will be going for the chop next week The other flock is made up of easycare crosses and Cheviot cross horned ewes lambing out side, due to having very little help we ended up selling half of them after scanning, kept 350 carrying twins the Cheviot horny crosses are going pretty well, the easycares are a mixed bag not sure if we'll bother continuing with them, definitely more losses with this flock and wouldn't know the numbers til they're weaned
Bleating Lamb wrote: » Doing ok as regards lamb losses but have had two in lamb ewes put out their insides,found dead in morning in each case,so not after they were fed nuts.Ewes are in v good condition so should I put it down to that?
kay 9 wrote: » Yep, can have a bad year now and then. It's not all roses, brings a person back to earth though. Here's to a good summer though.
charolais0153 wrote: » In the fpotwell of the car with the heat blasted up. Saved 2 nice lambs a few years ago doing it
Dickie10 wrote: » in and then out after a few days but were strong
kay 9 wrote: » Were they in our out? Sounds like hypothermia. Had it here twice and the bulb didn't do any good. It's hard to get ahead of it
Dickie10 wrote: » my ewes finished with 122 lambs from 70 ewes out of a scan of 1.95 i ended with 1.75 in field. higher mortality rate than last year and 5 very strange deaths. one ewe with tripets, they seemed to all get rattle belly or something , they got a hump on them about a week old and all died off over a fortnight one by one with all going down on the legs one by one i presume it was a mineral deficency maybe in ewes milk, she was about 7 year old ewe. another ewe lost her two lambs, one i found dead then about 5 days later i found the other with very little power in his legs and within a couple of hours he couldnt stand at all , he wouldnt drink milk from a bottle either and was dead the next morning. i wonder was it white muscle disease? its a selenium deficiency and drought condtions can bring a selenium deficiency.
FarmerDougal wrote: » Finished lambing at 10% losses from scanning, 1.67 on the ground atm Supervised from 6am to 11pm 5 lost overnight in 5/6 weeks Mainly small weak lambs not properly managed and some bad luck 2 pets Lost 3 sheep, hard lambing and 2 from Tetany Even with a high mag buckets out Quite disappointed with size of some lambs and milk from some ewes even though in very good condition and all fed heavily a month out, any ideas?? Happy enough overall
Dinzee Conlee wrote: » It’s tough to take Kay9, after a year of looking after em to lose so many... When we had ewes, we lost about 25% of the lambs one year... we only had about 70ewes, but it was sickening... But then, I think about 2 years later, we didn’t lose any lambs... Not 1 loss, from about 50ewes I think... Not much consolation I know, just some years are bad, some are good...
