We always left out the rams for 35 days even when we had 5 -600 sheep, but using the ram effect we'd always have 90% lambed in the first 14 days.
It had to be that way as we were lambing 200 every 14 days, Luckily it always worked out oor we wouldn't have enough individual pens available
We're lambing 70 this year and only 50% have lambed in the first 16 days now. we'd have a high barren rate now if we puled the rams after 17 days or one heat
Lambing started yesterday here. Usually aim for St Patrick’s day start. This year with Easter being early makes it handier for taking time off work with the 3 bank holidays. Hopefully should be mostly finished in the 18 days up to the Tuesday after Easter apart from a few second cycle ones.
The weather looks like it’s starting to improve at the right time.
@wrangler , you have shared some lovely pictures of your ewes over the years on this forum, both in the field and in your tunnel. Have you any pictures of your rams that you could share with us.
Thanks for the compliments, but our rams aren't good, firstly they're fed on waste ground and secondly we buy mostly on figures now. so they never look well.
Just watching This Farming life on BBC 2 at the moment. Cammy Wilson from Youtubes' Sheep Game was shown scanning. Farm owners were thrilled with a scan of 125% in cheviots go figure.
Nice little program that
Wormer resistance is a huge problem now, and we had the foot rot problem last year which I put down to the wet year.
I'm keeping an eye out for a house in Tullamore, a single storey bungalow on a good sized site with a good BER rating and if it comes along my sheep will be gone as well
Unfortunately there is just too little income for the work required with in an intensive lowland system.
We had a worm resistance problem last year also. Sets the lambs back no end. We’ll see how this year goes with them.
thr wet weather is sure depressing. When the ground is all mucked up from wintering sheep then enough said. Older neighbour was telling me about wintering sheep in his youth. They fed the ewes mangolds and as they would be throwing them out to the sheep, the mangolds would break on the ground as it was so hard with frost.
Did you isolate which wormer is failing, most of the farmers we test for have trouble with white doses and ivermectin. A lot are using zolvix at weaning now, but like the others zolvix will fail if you use it too often
I vaguely remember those days as well. Old folk knew to how to rotational graze sheep on natural leys to control worms too. Sadly alot of that knowledge has been lost off the back of the 80's headage madness and associated excessive input model leading to such issues.
The vet thinks we had a case of ivermectin resistance. We had to dose them last year with zolvix too. I remember one day I said feck this and brought the lambs inside for feeding as they weren’t thriving. Within 30 minutes two had died, literally in front of my eyes. I brought them to the lab and they had a high worm count. But it was easy know as they were so dirty and a bad smell of them.
the guy at the lab said maybe I was running them too tight when grazing and I’m putting some of the problem down to that and maybe having one big group instead of splitting them up. I’m going to feed them more earlier this year too I think.
we’ll reassess then next year and see what improvements if any there has been.
Once you have resistance to ivermectin on your farm, It'll never work right again.
Best idea is to test for worms after every dose to ensure it has worked.
We had a resistance to noromectin dose,gave the lambs a drench of arrest (levamisole/albensole combi drench) and the count dropped to 120 from 2000, will use ivermectin for nematadiris this year and a combi drench for first worm dose
Arrest is a combination of yellow and white dose, white dose isn't performing on most farms now, but will kill nematodirus in april/early may.
You'd be better to use white dose for nematodirus and straight levamisole for worms in june /july. rather than the combination.
If you aren't getting a 90% + kill of worms ..,dose with zolvix,
Keep testing as it's easy lose a months thrive with a dose not working, A worm count of 2000 probably affected the thrive in your lambs for two months, we dose at a count of 500.
Some vets have very little interest in sheep and are giving out wrong information about wormer resistance.
A farmer came to us after the free worm count by the vet, their worm count was over 1000 and he recommended white dose, we tested them after the dose and the figure had actually gone up. lambs were actually losing weight. Every farmer should try to work out which dose is working on their farm
I’ll do that going forward too. Thanks
Anyone having difficulty getting Hi-Mag buckets for sheep? Never had any problem before. Now all seems to be available is feed buckets Was sure Dairygold would have them.
What's peoples thoughts.....Had hoggetts last year and let them run with a new ram, got on very well and ran the same sheep with the same ram this year and a good few cases of entropion eyes. I can't figure it out, lambs last year out of ram showed no signs of it were all perfect.
Had a Ewe lambs with twins this evening - lambed herself.
Both lambs were normal size and first lamb was fine. However the second lamb his head was very small and he had a big lump on his neck. It was like the neck grew bigger instead of his head. He died within a few minutes.
Anyone know what this might be and if it could happen to that Ewe again next year?
Tia
could be just the foetus got deformed for some reason or slight possibility of Schmallenberg , either way the ewe should be fine
Had something similar here but second lamb had no eyes and very short tail and died shortly after
Lost a lovely big single this morning. The bag never broke around its mouth and it smothered. I was with kids training and I’d say I missed it by about 10 mins. Sicker.
That's a scald..hopefully the rest of them go well for you
Are the lambs underweight in any way? Sometimes lack of fat can cause the eyes to be a bit sunken and lead to entropian
No all I great condition, too well cooked in most cases. Lookly caught them early in field and just rolled and flicked them back, that has seemed to work without having to inject
Anyone any tips or tricks to get lambs to suck a bottle, pair of 2 day old lambs, were never with a ewe and tubed and bottle fed colostrum when born but have completely stopped drinking from the bottle only taken about 20 ml each then spitting it out or just holding the teat but not actually sucking
Take their temperature. Sounds like they could be sick
Anyone know why this lambs has badly swollen lugs, thriving well a week old.
Still no joy here in getting one of them lambs suck either a ewe or a bottle and have been tubing since.
Have a lamb this evening, a big 2 day old single who is walking but then collapses on his side and struggling to get back up. Anyone any ideas what this might be?
Lost a young Ewe here last night. She had lambed the day before but didn't clean until yesterday. Was a difficult enough lambing as she was tight enough and one lamb was born dead also out of a twin.
So presuming she must have got hurt during lambing and maby got infected ?
I'm kind of blaming myself for perhaps pulling the lambs too soon as I found her lambing first thing in the morning and couldn't be sure how long she was at it. The lambs seemed to be in very far in and low down in belly.
Kicking myself now I didn't leave her longer to see what would have happened.
don't blame yourself, I'm 55 years at the sheep game and still make the occasional incorrect call
I've got ewe that's walking on the knuckle of one of her back feet. Doesn't seem to be anything wrong with foot itself. She's lame as a result and she's parked herrself in front of a bale of silage and is eating away. She still has to lamb and I'm afraid she won't stand long enough for lambs to drink. Any suggestions?
