Lambing

Lambing a small few for the first time this year and aiming for mid april... reason being mainly due to lack of facilities so hoping to lamb outdoors if possiible and am using a charrlois ram so know they can be a bit bare so i suppose maybe a better chance of favourable weather. Other reason with the wettish ground i have i seem to be coming into peak grass growth from around then on, also as i will have a few days off work at Easter it will mean saving on annual leave days having to take. Another consideration is the longer days, if going to be lambing out the more daylight the better.

How is lambing going, Mainly going well here, had a twin last night and she pushed out her uterus after them, she looks in good form this morning.

The neighbour that has my tunnel rented is after doing 48 hrs straight until 4am this morning, he has half of 150 lambed in eight days.

The implications of whats happening around the world is massive, Merchants here have practially stopped selling fertiliser, they're telling farmers that they'll guarantee a ton of ration next winter for every ton of grain a farmer supplied...... terrifying if you're no growing grain.

Roundup supposed to be up from €80 to €240 for anyone thinking of reseeding

I went to buy 20 litres of Gallup XL yesterday but in the shop it was sold out. They had gotten in a pallet and it sold out in a couple of days at around €240.

Most ewes will lamb on their own as you say, but lambing in a shed there can be some right chaos some mornings if left unattended too long. We had ewe with rotten lambs tonight but a triplet lambed beside her and we got one of them onto her, and had a 7.5 kg lamb this morning that got too much hacking in the pull. The rest of the lambing so far is straight forward.

As for the cost increase, theres no point worrying about what you can't control ,

Lambing started here yesterday.Ram went out 20th October so wasn't expecting anything till Monday or Tuesday. Lamb outside here as only P/T and if lambing in shed you need to be watching them very closely to prevent mismothering etc....at least outside a ewe will go away and find a corner to lamb in.

Went to feed ewes nuts yday am and was met by a lovely pair born sometime during the night.Another ewe was also trying to claim them so I went down later in evening and knew by her she was thinking of lambing. Checked them on quad at 11 pm....was wet and windy but not cold....got her caught and handled her....she wouldn't have lambed them as two heads and one foot coming. After about 20 mins work I took a good set of twins from her.

Went down this morning and they had sucked but were a bit cold so brought them in for the day as fields flooded from heavy rain overnight......so a good start.....weather forecast looks good from Paddy's Day on so hopefully damn all lamb in next few days as land needs a chance to soak out badly.

Just wondering how you justify 2 vet students with 60 sheep. I have 200 and I'm part time and i never thought I'd have enough work except for the 5 or so busy days. How long do they stay with you for? Thanks

Ewe gave birth to a single yesterday. Lamb and her seemed ok. Ate her nuts last night and I go this morning and she’s dead. No idea what could have brought that on.

for anyone lambing at the moment, talk about an absolute amazing spell of weather for it. Snd it’s looking good all this week too. Didn’t have a jacket on me since I started. Makes the job a hell of a lot easier

I’m the same as you, holding off a few days with the hard breeze. Not stuck for grass thought luckily enough.

back when we scanned here,the scan man discovered a bit of an abortion issue,with a few ewes carrying a dead lamb and a high number of emptys.The vet did bloods on 10 random some of which were marked by the scanner as carrying dead lambs.Some showed antibodies to toxoplasmosis but no sign of enzotic.some of the ewes here we vaccinated for toxo when bought in as hoggets but most were not.

now half way though lambing im seeing the odd ewe having one strong health lamb and the other mumafied and not developed properly...currently waiting on a lab report on a sample i dropped to kilkenny a few weeks ago but im all but sure its an outbreak of toxo..anyone any thoughts or advice?

You can’t do anymore. Sounds like you’ve found the issue.

you can only plan for next year at this stage & get all young sheep vaccinated

You can’t do anything about it now for this year, but I’ll tell you my story with toxo.

we had an outbreak in 2020 and I enquired with a vet about vaccinating for the following year. His reply was that there was probably no need as all sheep would have been exposed in the sheds and there should be herd immunity going forward.

still had an outbreak last year so I ending up vaccinating for this year, for both toxo and enzo.

it was a big cost to do so, but in the middle of lambing this year and obviously I can’t say 100% it’s down to the vaccines, but there is some difference. Not only in the amount of dead or aborted lambs but also very few weak lambs or one massive and one small.

i definitely will be vaccinating going forward. The first year is the hardest as you have to do all breeding sheep but after that it’s just the younger stock Coming through or bought in stock.

finally, while it was a big cost I could safely say with all the extra healthy lambs on the ground it will well pay for itself this year alone.

"The first year is the hardest as you have to do all breeding sheep but after that it’s just the younger stock Coming through or bought in stock."

Is there a yearly top-up required?

Lambing here this year as been somewhat of a disaster. Have lost quite the amount of ewes and lambs. Only a small flock less than 100 ewes but have lost 3% of the ewes and almost 15% of lambs. Very few lambs were lost through fault of my own with the majority being born dead, the vet reckons toxo and Enzo. Have also had quite a few small weak lambs born but anything that is born strong and healthy is up and gone with no issues. A small proportion of the lambs were lost by a ewe lying on a set of twins, triplets with 1 weak small lamb or big lambs that got hardship being pulled. It's quite disheartening as every morning you enter the yard you are expecting to see a loss and its beginning to take a toll now bith mentally and physically. Especially with the year we are in with the increasing prices of inputs you would be hoping to maximise output ie through having the most amount of lambs available to sell as possible. I understand every one will have losses but for a small flock I consider the percentages above extraordinary.

I was beginning to think that I was the only one that ever got a year like that, Toxo/enzo are very common now, and I believe there are symptoms other than abortion with both. Enzo will kill ewes but toxo isn't so bad ,

My advice would be to do the vaccines, it's only expensive the first year, after that it's only the replacements need them.

Also if you're not using pain relief in the ewes with hard lambings, start now, you'll have far less ewes lying on lambs. It's unreal the way they brighten up after giving it to them