Lamb management/Dept tags and the flock register

Conmaicne Mara

Just making sure everything is up to date here, God I love paper work, where's the nearest bridge

I was wondering what everyone else does who does a bit of recording through the year.

At one of our STAP meetings one farmer used Dept tags on his lambs at one day old or so. Said it helped him keep better track of things.

I used small management tags.

In terms of making the flock register an easy job I figure I'll keep using small management tags because when I go to sell lambs I can allocate blocks of Dept tags say 925-940, instead of having to record 15 individual tag numbers with gaps between them. Some lambs might not be fit, or some lambs might be being kept for replacements etc.

What does everyone else do or are ye confused?

Did I mention I love paperwork, really, really love it like







:eek:

Username John

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

Just making sure everything is up to date here, God I love paper work, where's the nearest bridge

I was wondering what everyone else does who does a bit of recording through the year.

At one of our STAP meetings one farmer used Dept tags on his lambs at one day old or so. Said it helped him keep better track of things.

I used small management tags.

In terms of making the flock register an easy job I figure I'll keep using small management tags because when I go to sell lambs I can allocate blocks of Dept tags say 925-940, instead of having to record 15 individual tag numbers with gaps between them. Some lambs might not be fit, or some lambs might be being kept for replacements etc.

What does everyone else do or are ye confused?

Did I mention I love paperwork, really, really love it like







:eek:

Hi Con,

I do the same as yerself - only maybe worse ;
As lambs are sold they are tagged, so the correlation between management tags and slaughter tags is random.

I didnt like to use the dept tags on the lambs day 1, as i usually lose a lamb along the way, one would disappear, etc. which is then messy to account for...

But this year that didnt happen. So I am now thinking should I use dept tags...
But - for replacement ewes not sure what to do, as they would need EID tags.

Oh - and I should add re correlation between slaughter and management tags, is all on random bits of paper. Which I tell myself I will put into the PC someday, but I never have.

So - I too am in need of some help here

Conmaicne Mara

Haha, yeah, bits of paper, work of the Devil if ever there was. I bought a diary for 2014 the last day so I've no excuses now.

This is my plan for 2014. As the lambs are born write down the ewes tag number, and put in an Ardes (or similar) management tag into each lamb and write that down also. Then I can record weights, average daily gain, scour, lameness, whatever to a particular lamb management no., and be able trace that lamb back to his/her ewe. When it comes time for them to go, I can select the lambs I want to sell and batch tag them with Dept tags. I will need to match management tags to Dept tags, it is more paperwork but it's not important unlike the flock register.

Wooly Admirer

A good sheep software package would be a handy piece of kit for both of you. The TAMS grant is open to applications up to the end of December - you could get a 40% grant a handheld/PC package.

Permanently tagging lambs at birth does pose the hassle of accounting for dead lambs that die as they do. To make best use of the handheld it would be best to EID tag lambs at birth - but at €1.40 or so a tag set, this is unlikely to happen. Double tagging lambs is important I think because lambs can often loose the single management tags and depending on your numbers, you might have a job figuring out whats what.

A cheap EID slaughter tag would be a big step forward for recording farmers. I'm thinking about ordering a management tag that corresponds to my slaughter/mart tags. I'll put the slaughter/mart tag into lambs at birth with the management tag for safety. For my replacements I'll just order an EID tag to correspond with the single tag already in the lamb.

On the dead lambs, tags could perhaps be reused. Otherwise I would make a note of all of them and make a note in the flock register.

Conmaicne Mara

I don't qualify for TAMS, only allowed 40 ewes due to bureaucracy.

Lambs that die would be a PITA if Dept tagged alright, which is what puts me off doing it.

Surprisingly I have found excellent retention rates in Ardes tags, lost 0 out of my lambs this year. Where as I lost two Mullinahone electronic tags out of ears in the week I tagged the lambs with Dept tags. Also found excellent retention rates in the first Dept sheep tags which resembled the Ardes type tag.

Mostly I was asking just to make the job of filling in the flock register simpler. I think batch tagging with Dept tags before sale/9 months is the way to go and use management tags before that time.

foxylock

I tag the wether lambs the day before they go to the mart and will be tagging my seventy replacement ewe lambs tomorrow, don't use management tags but ya have me thinking now!!

Conmaicne Mara

foxylock wrote: »

I tag the wether lambs the day before they go to the mart and will be tagging my seventy replacement ewe lambs tomorrow, don't use management tags but ya have me thinking now!!

I'm in STAP so do a bit of recording. Otherwise I'd have just picked them out and tagged at selling and tagged replacements before 9 months really.

jomoloney

foxylock wrote: »

I tag the wether lambs the day before they go to the mart and will be tagging my seventy replacement ewe lambs tomorrow, don't use management tags but ya have me thinking now!!

much the same here,

all ewes are marked with a aerosal at lambing and their lambs to corrospondent

potential replacement ewe lambs are noted in a diary and tails ringed at turnout

at first and subsequent draftings the ewe lambs are monitored and if decided to retain for breeding are ear notched & separated

lambs are only tagged when loading for factory and ewe lambs eid tagged b4 going to the ram

AnFeirmeoir

Tag as they are sold - This means in the register, you can just enter the docket number instead of the tag numbers.
Tag replacements at 8 or 9 months.

I use the number i sprayed on the lambs and ewes to keep track of how a ewe is doing rearing her lambs. Its not great to be honest. This year i never got to take my notes before shearing so i messed up. It didn't really matter this year as my numbers are increasing so no real culling this year. Need a new system.

Tagging a lamb can cost a fair bit extra if it dies. Had one last year at around 10 weeks old.. he looked at the ear and wrote down "lamb" (free) . If it was tagged it would have been treated as a ewe.

What do ye do for medicine records ? There is no place in the flock register for this. I need to start keeping records of this ( i don't currently )

razor8

use management tags here at birth plus tgm software, know total sales of each ewe and how much lambs made, live weight gain etc, find it great for weeding out the poorer performing ewes and making sure all replacements are twin/triplets. even went the extra effort last year and single sire mated ewes so knew what ram bred what lamb.

tgm do a 30 day free trial. The more info you feed into it, the more you get back out of it

AnFeirmeoir

razor8 wrote: »

know total sales of each ewe and how much lambs made,

Jesus, that is great info to have... A € sales figure for each of your ewes.

Not big enough (yet) to justify the software / reader, but i could probably come up with some fancy excel sheets to do similar with some sort of manual recording.

My first new year resolution has been made.

MayoAreMagic

I do something similar to jomoloney. I dont see the point of tagging until it is required to do so. That makes the overheads involved with tagging easier also and eliminates issues with replacing tags etc. It is just putting more cost and work on yourself when you could do the same job with a spray can.

Also, I would be weary of what effects a tag would have to the ear of a day old lamb over the course of its lifetime. If it was a ewe you were keeping, would there be a big gaping hole in the ear by the time she was 4-5? Maybe that is just me being overly protective of my ladies

razor8

Used excel sheets for 10 years before I got the software so I had allot of data to input. Entering sale data and getting total weight sold per ewe was something I couldn’t manage in excel despite my best efforts

Lost only one tag this year compared to 40/50 last year by taking rancher’s advice and changing supplier, hadn’t a single incident of swelled ears either. You need to leave room for ear to grow

Conmaicne Mara

What tags are you using now Razor?

Cran

lambs are tagged heading off to the factory here, with exception of replacements and pedigrees. Replacements Lleyn crosses are tagged with 3 colours at birth green for twin, brown single and red triplet. Idea is they're culled on numerous traits and the tags help in indentifying them.
Expanding this year in going to record 50 ewes and their births, so probably tag their lambs with EID at day old to record the lambs and mothers to create a nucleous flock.... pipe dreams are great

razor8

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

What tags are you using now Razor?

CM I use Mullnahone Flexi Tags

link below

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.mullinahonecoop.ie/assets/common/themes/MTH1/images/sheeptagorderform.pdf

was using aluminium pig tags, waste of money!