General sheep thread

MeTheMan

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

If it is that eyelid thing - isn’t that an inheritable thing from the ram?

We had this problem 3 years back after buying two new rams. Was told the same thing about it being from the ram. Same rams and ewe since and it hasn't happened again.

Although this year we have a bad dose of pink eye (starts with eye weeping and a small white patch right under the bottom eyelid, gets to a stage where the eye has like a pinkish growth on it) slow to clear but it does clear. It meant to be highly contagious but we have one triplet with it and the others are fine. Or one set of twins that when the shed was at capacity where left in a pen in the back corner of the main pen, never near any lamb that had it, and they got it. We were wondering if it could be in the hay or straw? Might be use with bad hygiene practice.

MIKEKC

How long will a silage bale stay fresh once opened. Have about 40 ewes left to lamb inside. Want to close pit.

ganmo

About a week

Siamsa Sessions

ganmo wrote: »

About a week

I thought it was only 2-3 days? Would suit us here if it lasted a week as we’re still building numbers

Green farmer

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

I thought it was only 2-3 days? Would suit us here if it lasted a week as we’re still building numbers

5 days here

Birdnuts

Neighbor of mine in the West having a tough time - 3 ewes down in the last week trashing about and convulsing(2 jacobs and one horny), all still to lamb:(. Sounds like some kind of mineral deficiency to me

kk.man

How many ml of noroclav do you give a day old lamb again (I forget)?

DJ98

Have a ewe that lost her lamb last week, is it gone too late to Foster a lamb onto her using adoption crate?

Western Pomise

DJ98 wrote: »

Have a ewe that lost her lamb last week, is it gone too late to Foster a lamb onto her using adoption crate?

You won’t know till you handle her,she may be well on way to drying off if not sucked in a week.

Sami23

Do many of ye continue to feed concentrates to Ewes after turning them out to grass after lambing ?
Also do many of ye intend to feed creep food to lambs this year. Reason I ask is I bought a 25kg bag of Red Mills creep for the suck lambs and its €11 this year so very hard to justify pumping feed into lambs at €11 a bag ?
Interested to hear what other people's plans are.

Green farmer

Would throwing the odd bag of oats at €5 a bag into a feeder help them along ?

kk.man

Sami23 wrote: »

Do many of ye continue to feed concentrates to Ewes after turning them out to grass after lambing ?
Also do many of ye intend to feed creep food to lambs this year. Reason I ask is I bought a 25kg bag of Red Mills creep for the suck lambs and its €11 this year so very hard to justify pumping feed into lambs at €11 a bag ?
Interested to hear what other people's plans are.

That is the rolls Royce of feed. At 440 per ton it's too expensive but it's great to get them started. I usually change to a cheaper ration once they get started.

charolais0153

Sami23 wrote: »

Do many of ye continue to feed concentrates to Ewes after turning them out to grass after lambing ?lso do many of ye intend to feed creep food to lambs 2 year. Reason I ask is I bought a 25kg bag of Red Mills creep for the suck lambs and its €11 this year so very hard to justify pumping feed into lambs at €11 a bag ?
Interested to hear what other people's plans are.

First year here not feeding ewes post lambing,few ones alrigjt that were poor on milk that got a bit o feding
Overall it worked well for is

stantheman1979

Sami23 wrote: »

Do many of ye continue to feed concentrates to Ewes after turning them out to grass after lambing ?
Also do many of ye intend to feed creep food to lambs this year. Reason I ask is I bought a 25kg bag of Red Mills creep for the suck lambs and its €11 this year so very hard to justify pumping feed into lambs at €11 a bag ?
Interested to hear what other people's plans are.

Last year was the first and only year we’ve ever fed ewes at grass and that was only due to the crappy weather. We always make sure to have plenty of grass saved over the winter and try to get out early with fertiliser if the weather allows. We would feed the ewe lambs at grass after lambing for a few weeks. We do creep feed all our lambs though.

Sami23

kk.man wrote: »

I usually change to a cheaper ration once they get started.

What cheaper ration would you feed - ewe & lamb ration ?

wrangler

stantheman1979 wrote: »

Last year was the first and only year we’ve ever fed ewes at grass and that was only due to the crappy weather. We always make sure to have plenty of grass saved over the winter and try to get out early with fertiliser if the weather allows. We would feed the ewe lambs at grass after lambing for a few weeks. We do creep feed all our lambs though.

If there's more than five centimetres of good quality grass ewes can milk well without concentrates but if there's less than four cms of grass it's physically impossible for a ewe to get enough dry matter in to feed two lambs and you have to supplement.
Like you I'd try to have enough grass to let them out, before we retired our batches were circa 200 ewes and 350 lambs so, even with the snacker , it was chaos to try to feed them.

wrangler

Sami23 wrote: »

What cheaper ration would you feed - ewe & lamb ration ?

Intensive lamb ration or lamb finisher ration,
Ewe and lamb ration might have magnesium in it which isn't good for lambs

stantheman1979

wrangler wrote: »

If there's more than five centimetres of good quality grass ewes can milk well without concentrates but if there's less than four cms of grass it's physically impossible for a ewe to get enough dry matter in to feed two lambs and you have to supplement.
Like you I'd try to have enough grass to let them out, before we retired our batches were circa 200 ewes and 350 lambs so, even with the snacker , it was chaos to try to feed them.

It was mayhem trying to feed them last year. We like you had groups of 100-120 and you’re surrounded the minute you enter the field. If you have groups in adjoining fields it’s worse. Then there’s large groups of lambs running around with suicidal wishes trying to get killed under the bike or plough through fences and gates. Also it’s impossible to check for problems as the second they hear the bike they leave lambs behind and rush to the gate. Never again!! If a maternal ewe in good condition can’t rear her lambs off grass forget about her!!

AntrimGlens

wrangler wrote: »

We'd 3 abortions this year, first two were at weekends so didn't get to lab, last one did, result came back positive for Enzo and Toxo.
They're all 2017 born ewes, so they were all vaccinated the same day with the same vaccine so the vets getting on to MSD.
That was 3 abortions from 25 ewes that were vaccinated in 2017
i'd be interested to know did anyone have a similar experience

Have things straightened out Wrangler, or any more abortions?

Last year the first four ewes aborted and lab results came back for enzo, so everything was vaccinated last autumn for enzo and toxo.
This year is off to a horrible start here. Were due from today on but there's probably 15 lambed at this stage.
So since last week:
Ewe 1 scanned for twins, had two small lambs born dead and one decent lamb so away to the field with a single.
Ewe 2 the same day scanned for twins lambed one good big lamb and one wee mumified thing fell out of her.
I put this down to pre-lambing abortions or knocks at the trough etc.

Since then I've probably lost ten lambs all from ewes that were vaccinated in the Autumn. Lambs that are small when born and just won't live, live for a while but make no effort to suck if they get up, and other lambs that are generally weak and need a lot of help latching on. Things appear to have straightened out today and all good strong lambs born.

I've three lambs away to the lab for PM. I know vaccinating won't completely prevent abortions and i'm content to put the first two ewes down as aborting lambs, but all these weak lambs and poor doers, would this be a result of the ewes still carrying the virus as they didn't abort last year or possibly vaccine not working.

All thoughts & ideas welcome to mull over while awaiting PM results.

wrangler

AntrimGlens wrote: »

Have things straightened out Wrangler, or any more abortions?

Last year the first four ewes aborted and lab results came back for enzo, so everything was vaccinated last autumn for enzo and toxo.
This year is off to a horrible start here. Were due from today on but there's probably 15 lambed at this stage.
So since last week:
Ewe 1 scanned for twins, had two small lambs born dead and one decent lamb so away to the field with a single.
Ewe 2 the same day scanned for twins lambed one good big lamb and one wee mumified thing fell out of her.
I put this down to pre-lambing abortions or knocks at the trough etc.

Since then I've probably lost ten lambs all from ewes that were vaccinated in the Autumn. Lambs that are small when born and just won't live, live for a while but make no effort to suck if they get up, and other lambs that are generally weak and need a lot of help latching on. Things appear to have straightened out today and all good strong lambs born.

I've three lambs away to the lab for PM. I know vaccinating won't completely prevent abortions and i'm content to put the first two ewes down as aborting lambs, but all these weak lambs and poor doers, would this be a result of the ewes still carrying the virus as they didn't abort last year or possibly vaccine not working.

All thoughts & ideas welcome to mull over while awaiting PM results.

Even with the vaccine, we had plenty of cases following our first 'storm' for about two years, Once it's in your flock it takes a couple of years to rattle through it. If your problem is Enzo they were infected during last years lambing
I hate to see it here on this farm now again, we've a couple more ewes that were scanned doubles and I don't think they're in lamb now and we also had a lot of small lambs in the same batch, Our sample was positive for both enzo and toxo, There's another prominent farm with the same problem as us but only half the flock was vaccinated, Enzo is very infectious and presents a huge challenge even to vaccinated sheep in the same flock,
Your vet will probably blood test some of your aborted ewes now, you should blood test some healthy ones as well to see did the vaccine actually work.
Your flock must have been very clean and then had no immunity to be so bad now....... I don't envy you

AntrimGlens

wrangler wrote: »

Even with the vaccine, we had plenty of cases following our first 'storm' for about two years, Once it's in your flock it takes a couple of years to rattle through it. If your problem is Enzo they were infected during last years lambing
I hate to see it here on this farm now again, we've a couple more ewes that were scanned doubles and I don't think they're in lamb now and we also had a lot of small lambs in the same batch, Our sample was positive for both enzo and toxo, There's another prominent farm with the same problem as us but only half the flock was vaccinated, Enzo is very infectious and presents a huge challenge even to vaccinated sheep in the same flock,
Your vet will probably blood test some of your aborted ewes now, you should blood test some healthy ones as well to see did the vaccine actually work.
Your flock must have been very clean and then had no immunity to be so bad now....... I don't envy you

Thanks Wrangler, informative and helpful as ever. Hopefully it will settle, but i'm resigned to it now, whatever it brings it brings.
Could be a lot worse. Fella local to here who has a daughter in the twins class did away with himself on Friday night and a girl i went to school with, her body was found on the isle of Mull on Saturday evening. It's only a few lambs after all.

charolais0153

AntrimGlens wrote: »

Thanks Wrangler, informative and helpful as ever. Hopefully it will settle, but i'm resigned to it now, whatever it brings it brings.
Could be a lot worse.

A lad near here had 75 ewes and zero lambs 10-15 years ago. Got out of ewes after it

FarmerDougal

I had a couple scanned for twins and now empty, only one abortion otherwise before the started lambing. Should I be worried?

wrangler

FarmerDougal wrote: »

I had a couple scanned for twins and now empty, only one abortion otherwise before the started lambing. Should I be worried?

As you know I'd always be advising postmortems , One abortion is nothing but if it's enzo her fluids have the risk of affecting the whole pen she's in.
Stupidly I bought in sheep last year and everyone of them has a story at this stage, however these are not the offenders so not having a great year here either.
Just edited to say the bought in sheep were purebred...... you'd think I'd know better, they're having crossbred lambs in case I'd be tempted to ever go back to purebred breeding :eek:

Westernrock

AntrimGlens wrote: »

Have things straightened out Wrangler, or any more abortions?

Last year the first four ewes aborted and lab results came back for enzo, so everything was vaccinated last autumn for enzo and toxo.
This year is off to a horrible start here. Were due from today on but there's probably 15 lambed at this stage.
So since last week:
Ewe 1 scanned for twins, had two small lambs born dead and one decent lamb so away to the field with a single.
Ewe 2 the same day scanned for twins lambed one good big lamb and one wee mumified thing fell out of her.
I put this down to pre-lambing abortions or knocks at the trough etc.

Since then I've probably lost ten lambs all from ewes that were vaccinated in the Autumn. Lambs that are small when born and just won't live, live for a while but make no effort to suck if they get up, and other lambs that are generally weak and need a lot of help latching on. Things appear to have straightened out today and all good strong lambs born.

I've three lambs away to the lab for PM. I know vaccinating won't completely prevent abortions and i'm content to put the first two ewes down as aborting lambs, but all these weak lambs and poor doers, would this be a result of the ewes still carrying the virus as they didn't abort last year or possibly vaccine not working.

All thoughts & ideas welcome to mull over while awaiting PM results.

Like wrangler says even if you are vaccinating after the infection has got into a flick it won’t protect them all. It’s to do with latency where a ewe could have been exposed last year before she was vaccinated and will still abort or have weak lambs this year. We started vaccinating the pedigrees as ewe lambs even though they wouldn’t be bred till hoggets and it seemed to help as we were still getting high barren rates in the hoggets 2-3 years after starting vaccinating. 🀷*♂️🀞

Siamsa Sessions

Talking to a vet at the weekend and he reckons the longer a closed flock is established, the less issues there are with toxo since bought-in animals are the main culprits.

Anyone have experience of this?

wrangler

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Talking to a vet at the weekend and he reckons the longer a closed flock is established, the less issues there are with toxo since bought-in animals are the main culprits.

Anyone have experience of this?

Toxo is usually from cats and picked up on the farm, Enzo is usually bought in, the ewes i bought in were Enzo and toxo vaccinated

Siamsa Sessions

wrangler wrote: »

Toxo is usually from cats and picked up on the farm, Enzo is usually bought in, the ewes i bought in were Enzo and toxo vaccinated

Sorry - I meant enzo! My brain is fried from the last few weeks.

arctictree

Lads, have a 3 week old lamb that's not interested in anything. Just heads off on its own and won't suck. I'm keeping it alive by tubing it. Any advice?

Young95

Well folks hope the lambing is going well just said I’d ask the question. I’m considering moving from lambing ewe lambs to moving them as lambing down at two year olds for labour reasons but I’m also wondering financially would I be nearly better off ? Ino everyone’s system is different but can anyone here shed a light if u compare the two like ? See the few of the bigger operators liked John large and them gone back to lambing them at two year olds so I’m just curious! Any feedback would be helpful.