Letting ewes and lambs out to grass

Jack180570 · 04-04-2016 01:14PM

Username John wrote: »

Heard it done before, and its prob a good job.

But my facilities wouldn't as sophisticated as that. There is no set lambing area, with the lambing pens just put together in the bigger pen where the ewes are.

Think we're stuck with buckets for a long while to come yet...

It's all about what works and what can be justified... we had a disused shed in the lower yard, about 60x18 and we built block pens and installed the sewer pipe for water at the time. It works well and at least its one less job to do during lambing.

Username John · 04-04-2016 01:19PM

Jack180570 wrote: »

It's all about what works and what can be justified... we had a disused shed in the lower yard, about 60x18 and we built block pens and installed the sewer pipe for water at the time. It works well and at least its one less job to do during lambing.

Well - you have my numbers (30 ewes)

Maybe 6 in pens at any one time, so 6 buckets... tisnt exactly hardship with those numbers Jack

with big numbers tho, I can see how the sewer pipe would be a good job, to be fair...

Jack180570 · 04-04-2016 01:51PM

Username John wrote: »

Well - you have my numbers (30 ewes)
Maybe 6 in pens at any one time, so 6 buckets... tisnt exactly hardship with those numbers Jack

with big numbers tho, I can see how the sewer pipe would be a good job, to be fair...

Absolutely John... have to have a system than can be justified on cost too, we love the sheep but its about trying to make a bit of a living out of them too.
We started with 30 ewes also and its grown over the years. We lamb about 210 and carry about 120-140 ewe lambs to yearling stage. We joined organics last year and we sell about half the yearlings and keep the best half as replacements. A lot of work in it but we are getting there! :-)

rangler1 · 04-04-2016 02:33PM

Very bad conditions here now, land has gone into muck and paddocks only lasting half what they should.
Dairy farmers moaning about having to put cows back in........at least they have that option.
One group has about a weeks grass left in this rotation, but they;ll probably walk it into the ground by thursday
the other group has two weeks left. putting nuts out on the ground with the snacker really isn't working either
Not much joy in the weather forecast also.
rant over.....

Green farmer · 04-04-2016 04:22PM

One minute it's lovely here. No wind sun shining, twenty minutes later the wind has changed direction, Tis freezing and raining heavy, like 4 seasons in one day. Very low on grass here. Put more fert out earlier today, how long it will take to grow , anybodies guess !!!

Jack180570 · 04-04-2016 05:06PM

rangler1 wrote: »

Very bad conditions here now, land has gone into muck and paddocks only lasting half what they should.
Dairy farmers moaning about having to put cows back in........at least they have that option.
One group has about a weeks grass left in this rotation, but they;ll probably walk it into the ground by thursday
the other group has two weeks left. putting nuts out on the ground with the snacker really isn't working either
Not much joy in the weather forecast also.
rant over.....

Just heard FC on RTE1 now forecasting it to get colder from tomorrow evening on...
grass beginning to get tight here now and dont have the option to put out fertiliser as we are in organics...
last few days we had a bit of growth but fingers crossed that we will get some heat next week and growth will take off...

eorna · 04-04-2016 05:48PM

Was going to divide ( in 1/2 or 1/3) last field of first rotation..
There is a lot of grass in that particular field but utilisation will b ****e so hoping by dividing it will somewhat minimise the damage... Hard to call.. Condition poor..

Birdnuts · 04-04-2016 07:36PM

Jack180570 wrote: »

Just heard FC on RTE1 now forecasting it to get colder from tomorrow evening on...
grass beginning to get tight here now and dont have the option to put out fertiliser as we are in organics...
last few days we had a bit of growth but fingers crossed that we will get some heat next week and growth will take off...

Fairly grim my end too. All the rain recently knocked back any benefit from the few dry days over Easter. I won't be bothering with fert either atm as the outlook and soil temps over the coming week are simply too cold to get a decent response.

Green farmer · 07-04-2016 01:41PM

Sheep eating their way through the small bit of grass I have very quickly. All paddocks ahead have stalled. Thinking about reintroducing ring feeders to field with bales of silage. Don't think they'll be impressed with me. Don't want ewes to run dry.

arctictree · 07-04-2016 08:26PM

Have started feeding the ewes nuts here as what little grass there was is gone. Hopefully only a week of this....

razor8 · 07-04-2016 09:04PM

Fingers crossed, set stocked all over farm and giving nuts, grass totally stalled here and some fields will take awhile to get going again

orm0nd · 07-04-2016 10:09PM

rangler1 wrote: »

Very bad conditions here now, land has gone into muck and paddocks only lasting half what they should.
Dairy farmers moaning about having to put cows back in........at least they have that option.
One group has about a weeks grass left in this rotation, but they;ll probably walk it into the ground by thursday
the other group has two weeks left. putting nuts out on the ground with the snacker really isn't working either
Not much joy in the weather forecast also.
rant over.....

with the exception of about 10 days in March, we are at this crack since the 20th January , disaster of year thrive wise for early lambs, & 4 times the work keeping strip wires moved, only feeding creep to the earlies

however the effort has been wothwhile and we are getting quality regrowth especally on recently reseeds,

midseason flock are on the out farm and getting moved every 10 days, ewe lambs & their offspring are cleaning up after cows

we're up in numbers both in sheep & cows, we sure picked a good year :rolleyes: keep an eye on Donedeal if you want a bargain

razor8 · 08-04-2016 12:00PM

orm0nd wrote: »

with the exception of about 10 days in March, we are at this crack since the 20th January , disaster of year thrive wise for early lambs, & 4 times the work keeping strip wires moved, only feeding creep to the earlies

however the effort has been wothwhile and we are getting quality regrowth especally on recently reseeds,

midseason flock are on the out farm and getting moved every 10 days, ewe lambs & their offspring are cleaning up after cows

we're up in numbers both in sheep & cows, we sure picked a good year :rolleyes: keep an eye on Donedeal if you want a bargain

grass a big problem now for most sheep farmers I would think

which county on done deal should we be looking at?

Green farmer · 08-04-2016 05:16PM

Was getting meal in a large manufacturers today. Turns out they'd run out on 18% ewe and lamb ration. Cannt make it fast enough to keep up with demand at moment. First time ever couldn't get the stuff fresh off machine.

Jack180570 · 09-04-2016 10:08PM

Ground is in s###e after the snow last night
2-3" of rain forecast for tomorrow
regrowth is hopeless
and the week ahead is looking distinctly poor for growth
No choice but to rehouse the 60 yearlings and 10 cull ewes tomorrow
Its a bad year for growth

Green farmer · 10-04-2016 09:33AM

A right dirty day here. Looking at hunched up lambs here in the corner of fields. All we can do it try and get food of any description to the ewes and hope that they can do the rest.

rangler1 · 10-04-2016 09:58AM

Green farmer wrote: »

A right dirty day here. Looking at hunched up lambs here in the corner of fields. All we can do it try and get food of any description to the ewes and hope that they can do the rest.

Have lambs here now over a mth old,mothers milk really isn't enough now,

they really should be getting creep......still hoping for growth

razor8 · 10-04-2016 10:09AM

Put a creep feeder out with one batch yesterday and have a few bales hay on standby

Lambs looking very dirty looking and odd ewe getting sore teats

paddysdream · 10-04-2016 11:56AM

rangler1 wrote: »

Have lambs here now over a mth old,mothers milk really isn't enough now, they really should be getting creep......still hoping for growth

In the same boat here.Early lambs grand,well as good as can be expected in this weather but March lambs under pressure.Between weather and lack of grass lamb thrive has stopped.
Herding this morning and depressing to see sheep sheltering around hedges with hunched up lambs.
Not feeding nuts out but another week of this and might be forced to.
Few left in the sheds are grand.Was going to evict them last week but glad now as no point.

sea12 · 10-04-2016 01:39PM

paddysdream wrote: »

In the same boat here.Early lambs grand,well as good as can be expected in this weather but March lambs under pressure.Between weather and lack of grass lamb thrive has stopped.
Herding this morning and depressing to see sheep sheltering around hedges with hunched up lambs.
Not feeding nuts out but another week of this and might be forced to.
Few left in the sheds are grand.Was going to evict them last week but glad now as no point.

Yep terrible weather for lambs. In fact being a terrible 4 months for sheep. Constant rain meaning no thrive in sheep.
I have half lambs out and the still have half them in. Couldn't let them out in that. Running out of space in shed now so hoping for a dry bit of weather next week.

The lambs that are out are all hunched under hedges. Ewes on alright grass but running tight. Introduced some meal yesterday to try stretch it out a bit. It's being one horrible Spring

eorna · 10-04-2016 07:53PM

Still at grass here but will need to start feeding if things dont change fast..
For late feb early march lambs will i be better off feeding lambs creep or ewes at troughs? ( most lambs will b 5-6 week old by time will start feeding)..

Jack180570 · 10-04-2016 09:30PM

Rehoused the hoggets and dry ewes today... brutal day in West Limerick... sheets of water flowing over the fields.
Had moved a few groups to the last of the fields yesterday and day before
Fingers crossed now that we are going to get the improvement in the weather over the next 10 days, drier and warmer
http://www.yr.no/place/Ireland/Munster/Limerick/long.html

Only upside of all of this is that there should be very good silage made as the fields will have been grazed to the butt! :-)

Green farmer · 10-04-2016 09:42PM

That gale force east wind really drove the rain into them today. Spent 2 hours rounding up sheep and moving them around to sheltered paddocks in the rain, after finding one lamb falling victim to the cold.

rangler1 · 11-04-2016 09:14AM

Here's an excerpt from the teagasc sheep newsletter i got this morning.
Sounds like they're in a different country

'' On some farms, due to the very mild winter
grass covers were very high in spring. Dense
swards must be grazed before they get too tall.
In a dense sward, light is shut out from the base
of the plant and leaves decay at a lower sward
height. Due to the very mild weather over the
past few months there has been an exceptional
build-up of grass. You must now be aware that
this may lead to grass quality deteriorating
quickly over the next few weeks. You may need
to remove some grass at an early stage in the
form of silage to get back in control.''

Green farmer · 11-04-2016 11:51AM

pull out last years report, change a few words, and away you go. Shir aren't all spring times are the same every year !!! No one will ever even notice !!!

sea12 · 11-04-2016 09:50PM

Have a blind lamb. Only a day old. It's ok in the pen but gets completely lost out in open.
Any ideas?

rangler1 · 11-04-2016 10:04PM

sea12 wrote: »

Have a blind lamb. Only a day old. It's ok in the pen but gets completely lost out in open.
Any ideas?

We had lamb with no eyes two years ago, we put the ewe and lambs with a small batch in a 2 acre paddock and the ewe minded him.
Even after weaning he stayed with his brother and he'd stick to him when we be rounding them up, we sent him to the factory with his brother even though he wasn't heavy enough, so hopefully yours will be the same

Green farmer · 11-04-2016 10:51PM

Had a blind ewe lamb here two years ago as well. It's all down to the ewe how well the they would mind them. lamb grew up same as rest of them. Only thing was kept banding into things , fences , posts etc, so whenever rounding up sheep your have to take extra time and round her up separately and catch her, walk her to new paddock etc. Went to factory same as rest in end.
Forgot to mention in our case the ewe that raised her was a foster , as original ewe had mastitis and lamb got off to a bad start. I dont know if lamb was born blind or if it picked up something in the shed when it was weakened from the rough start .

Green farmer · 13-04-2016 07:40PM

Weather picked up here for last two days. Grass still very scarce though. Anyone willing to hazard a guess as to how much of this mild weather would it take before we'd get a burst of grass ? I know it's like how long is a piece of string question, but anyway !!!
Also tied to buy lamb starter pencils, every merchant within 20 mile of me either doesn't stock them or is sold out, will be next week before I can get a few bags, which doesn't help lamb thrive.

Letting ewes and lambs out to grass

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