How's lambing going for ye?

arctictree wrote: »

And one of these abandoned her lamb.

I put a big "C" on their back's. And the C doesn't stand for cull, but she'll end up in the same place as the rest of the C's.

Nearly finished here.4 ewes and a ewe lamb left.All were marked dry at scanning but will lamb before end of month.
Nice feeling to gather up the culls(9) and shift them to the factory.One put out roll pre lambing and then aborted 2 rotten lambs,4 lambed down with no milk,1 went dry outside after a week,1 with mastitis and 2 dry ones too old to bother keeping.

Overall an average year with a good crop but more losses than normal.Most losses were at birth to a day old with a lot of those being a double bearing ewe losing one weaker lamb at birth(born dead)or within a day or two.

Had 60 bought in ewes along with my own and they went ok with a goodly amount of trebles and 4 quads.Bit softer than my own so rather more work with them.
No fox losses (I think!!) and about 20 ewes with lambs still loose in sheds and 7 in pens still.

Time to think about cleaning out sheds for next year!!

As regards scanning rate I always count in all the sheep ie dry ones,anything that died between scanning and lambing etc.
Using different criteria can skew figures eg.
100 ewes to ram.
scan 99 with 30 single/55 double/10 treble and 4 dry(170)
lamb 97. lose 1 treble/one double(165)
let out 155 lambs(155)
sell 152 lambs(152)
Depending on where you take each figure(ewe .lambs) rate would vary.See fellows quote rate using scanned lambs divided by ewes lambed which would give 1.75 above.I usually measure it as lambs let out divided by ewes to the ram for lambing rate or lambs found by scanner divided by amount of ewes scanned for scanning rate.
A lot of dry sheep/losses can skew figures a good bit and some people forget that the most important thing is total lamb sales minus costs.Anything else is paperwork exercise.

Username John wrote: »

Well - after a good enough lambing, I went out this morning, and found one of the dry hoggets after hanging / choking herself in sheep wire... :mad:

Sickening...

Hard luck there John, sometimes I'd swear sheep spend their day going around looking for a way to die.

Picked up a dead lamb in field today, caught mother and she had mastitis on one side, normally you would find a hungry lamb beside mother but in this weather they have no chance

sea12 wrote: »

Ewe always get better if she has a lamb to look after. Still they are surprising green. Give her a bit of ivy, bit of meal Hope she gets better for you.

Just give ye an update lads, on the ewe that lost her lamb the other day after a hard lambing

ihatewinter wrote: »

I have a lamb who is about 2 weeks and is very stiff when walking and standing. No sign of leg problems just stiff. Any ideas.

Joint ill ?

lost one here too, she had a good pair of twins too at least now we've one for the dept to do their test on

Username John wrote: »

So does everyone have mag buckets out or what do ye do?

I've a mag bucket out. Suppose it's dependant on all the ewes licking it regularly. Mine don't seem to like the taste of the himag one as much as the regular one,