General sheep thread

Horrific weather for lambing at the moment, luckily we're able to keep lambs in for a week and they seem well able for it after that. only on grass at the moment , Cobs wouldn''t be dear for the ewes in that weather.

Weather outlook isn't great either.

Yea, over sixty lambed out of seventy five, a lot are still in , only lambing a fortnight yet .

The neighbour that's renting my tunnel has 100 lambed in ten days, luckily he has sheds at home to bring them to after lambing

Nothing here yet which is just as well as we had biblical. levels of rain during early nights this week.

Fields that were nice and dry a week ago have a film of water lying on them now.

As a matter of interest, what date did you leave the rams out?

Ya would miss the torture if ya rented it😁

We use 147 days too, but our ewes started lambing at 142 days from ram turnout this year,

Pregnancy definitely are shorter this year here

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i've had them born with a blockage and soapy water put into the rectum ith the stomach tube sometime clears it but if they haven't s..t the muconium there's something blocked.

It's veryy seldom the arse is clean if they've passed the muconium .

Have a set of twins here that were born very small on Saturday evening. I had to tube both their first feed as they were so small and light/weak. One of them is sucking the ewe away fine since but the other lad is like he's brain dead. I had to tube him 3 times to get milk into him and tried the bottle a few times but he wasn't great to take that either. I am now lying under the ewe every 3 hours with him so as to latch him on and squirt a pull of the teat into his mouth. He'll take about 10 weak sucks and stop. He's then pucking the udder but can't find or latch on to the teat. Any advice of what to try next before I have all my hair pulled out?

With formalin you just run them through the bath. What kind of lameness does the flock have?

I gave up using formalin as it hardened the hooves too much and caused cracking along the nail which required pairing then. I now use zinc sulphate and find it much better. I'd say I wouldn't have 5 sheep turned in 2 years.

We stand them for five minutes, our footbath holds about nine ewes or equivalent,

The formalin makes the nails hard and they crack off if you use it too much. I have no experience of formalin but just going on what I hear.

Our footbath is indoors and we can use the same zinc sulphate over and over again whereas with the formalin the muck can neutralise it.

We footbath every time the sheep are in the yard which works out about every six weeks, we haven't pared a sheep in about 20 years. If you keep the four feet on the ground, as in not limping, the hoof won't over grow.

fumes off formalin are carcinogen , so wear a good protective mask or breathing apparatus

He doesn't need to suck both teats, you could've done harm by milking and breaking the seal of the one he wasn't going to suck.

€440 for quinns 20% supreme ewe bulk collected,grennans 20% elite ewe and lamb €500 per ton in 25kg bags collected..both are excellent nuts with plenty of soya bean meal

They can get very violent when they reject one.

Some liquid paraffin. Also have you checked gently with a cotton bud that he has an opening?

Have a few ewes in poor condition, thinking of giving them a fluke dose as I put them away to grass. What's best to go with and should i test them first.

Only dosing the few in poor form

Is it just a fec you do on them.

Was thinking of putting watered down Clik extra on the ewes soon to hopefully see them safe until searing time. Anyone do anything similar or use a different product?