General sheep thread

Update on the sheep that was rejecting one lamb when she was put into the shed - must have been some smell in the shed that totally upscucctled the sheep. Left her in the halter for the night in case she would beat lamb, took off halter in morning, washed both lambs with warm water and soap, left in another pen so they were crying to the sheep for 15 mins then let them into open pen outside the shed and she took to them and let suck straight away and then let them out the field.

Wonder was there some smell of cleanings in the shed that caused the sheep to flip literally the moment she walked into the shed - hard to know what goes on inside these animals heads.

Will be hard get newborn lambs out for the rest of week with the weather that's promised.

What's the best orphan lamb feeder available or what would people recommend?

Found a ewe had slipped her lambs today in the shed. I’m feeding slot of old bales of hay at moment and I know a few cats have been up there. Hope it’s not the start of anything. Was a bought in hogget and not vaccinated.

a month out from lambing. She was in a pen that was a bit crowded so that did t help either

Are they mountain sheep?

Hi. I’m thinking of getting a sheep race and scales and gates. I’ll fill in the TAMs meself. Has anyone bought equipment from Buffalo in Wicklow? They have everything but just wondering on quality. Fox are also in that corner of the country. Thanks

Have bought from both. Both very good quality and sound lads. So what ever is cheaper and handiest for you.

early Easter and Ramadan this year. Will the inevitable downturn in price soon follow, to what level is the question

Not many looking for the hassle of lambing ewes nowadays. The pay would want to be good!

Hopefully the weather improves soon. It’d be as good as a few cents/kg.

Any recommendations for tidy EID tags to put on lambs at 2 days old?

I tried the Alflex bubble rags for first time this week on young lambs look good

Two week into Lambing and its been a mixed bag so far, lost 2 sets of triplets and 1 ewe last Saturday, I had been treat one for suspected twin lamb and the other was trying to push out the reed bed a week before so she had the rope on her. All lambs bar 2 were pulled out dead but these two didn't last long.

I have lost 9 lambs from the 11 that have lambed so far which is the worst start I have had to a lambing season. Have 6 triplets left to lamb so let hope they go well.

Keep the head up, we all have spells like that where things go from bad to worse not matter what you try! Don’t let it get you down too much, take note of what the causes were and make any changes you can now and anything that’s outside your control forget about it and focus on keep as many of the remaining alive as possible

Keep the head up. Every farmer goes through a bad patch and learns lots from it.

Hi all, I only had 20 ewes to lamb down this year, only new to lambing sheep, this is the third year, the last two years no major problems with lambing other than ewes lying on lambs and the odd lost lamb but this year I had 6 out of the 20 lambing down with mastitis, some with full mastitis both sides others with blood only coming in teat and others with blood mixed with milk. What could be causing that amount of mastitis ? When I was weaning them last year I was just pulling off the lambs for the factory and leaving the ewes out where as other years I would have put the ewes into the shed on Hay for 2 weeks. I checked their elders before the ram was let out and didn't notice anything major wrong with them. Thanks James.