General sheep thread

Would agree…

What weight is she @Kevhog1988

once the weather starts to warm up a bit, that’ll be some mess… 🙁

Yea it can turn to gangrene if you leave it out too long, I'm sure it's damned uncomfortable too.

Vet stitched one here years ago on a good pedigree ewelamb, put a ring of stitches around it and tightened it in a bit but it just pulled through

Herselfs best friend is a vet and wants to stitch it. Will do that and see if it works. If not shell get the gate.

Is she inlamb

No just last years ewe lamb

I'd never feed them silage again but it's difficult to get the stocking rate right during the summer, I don't like selling silage either.

The guy that has rented my tunnel is getting plenty of hassle with lameness, probably footbathing every two weeks, yet his silage is dry......... Might have a convert to all concentrates next year

As you say, nice to see Darren promoting it

We cull 25% of our ewes every year, I think seven year old is the oldest we've had. Our ewes work hard, most have lambs at a year old so a five year old would have five crops

You'd need to be giving those amounts twice a day with average quality silage/hay

Increase it slowly now

Yea, .1kg increase every day, you're getting near lambing now and they'd need to be getting .5kg twice a day for doubles, 20% more for triplets and 20% less for singles by two weeks out from lambing. Make sure that they finish it in five mins, sweep it out if they don't finish.

We're feeding .5 kg three times/ day here with straw so you shouldn't have any problems at .5kg twice a day .

Last month of pregancy is the most important time of the year to feed ewe, most cost effective too, stronger lambs, better colostrum, ewes in good condition milk better too

If you have to help a Ewe to lamb say twins or triplets for e.g only head coming or coming backwards how long after getting the 1st lamb out would you go again to take out the 2nd and possibly a 3rd lamb.

Is there any rule of thumb ye use for this ?

Ordering lambing supplies from sheep products.ie just now, they have a wide range of artificial colostrum available, all from different brands, is their any better than the other, would usually always have just bought volac. They have others such as iomlán, provita, ark, monoshield, etc. Would there be any difference between them?

Also has anyone tried provita lamb response or kickstart? Did you find it to be any good? I see they are advertising it as an alternative to spectam.

(Usually milk ewes to get colostrum but likes to have some artificial for back up)

i have a ewe that prolapassed last year and unfortunately I never culled her which i had intended.

She was stiched last March.

Looking for advice how i will deal with her, she is scanned with twins to a beltex ram to be lambing around March 20th

I am 6 weeks out from lambing so going by the above does this sound right, from now at 6 weeks out concentrate feeds per day per ewe should be 0.1kg for single bearing ewes, 0.2kg for twin bearing ewes and 0.3 kg for triplets and build this up by 0.1kg each week to at lambing to 0.6kg for singles, 0.7kg for twins and 0.9kg for triplets per day. Also see alot of mention of hay and quality of silage, all mine are out on grass but do they also need hay or silage when out. Have plentiful enough supply of grass but not great quality.

How much are people paying for a good energy nut for ewes pre lambing?…..say 19% Protein…..would be buying loose by the tonne rather than in bags…..haven’t priced yet tbh but presume it’s up a fair bit since last Spring!

Will let ye know how I get on…..will price by tonne of small bags and loose price per tonne too.

Just be interesting to see any price differences nationwide.

Paid £313.00/T stg for 20% nut 3 weeks ago, was paying £286 for it in December for the early lambers.