General sheep thread

rangler1

Lambman wrote: »

Ran 1 lot off the ewes in today dosed them for worms with intention on doing lambs aswell but ended up leaving it as there are none dirty and some lambs are only a few weeks old oldest is 6 weeks roughly... wats the youngest you'd dose a lamb as everyone's lambing is roughly 3-4 weeks long so that's the gap in the age off the lambs and recommend dose lambs at 6 weeks but that means the youngest might only be 2 weeks...

If there was sheep on the land last year march, lambs need to be dosed at six weeks of age,
lambs will be grazing from 4 or 5 weeks old and picking up worms, if you wait four more week to dose the old ones they will have suffered. The first worms of the year are nematodirus and they are particularly harmful.
Ewes don't need to be dosed, they have dirty arses this time of the year from fresh green grass

rangler1

tomwaterford wrote: »

I wondered this too

As I went to buy a hogged ram before,but your man wouldn't sell him to me as it had pneumonia the year before and he couldn't gaunentee it



Any ever get rams fertility tested

Some vets fertility test, our vet does it anyway. he charges €50

connolly18

lads i have never used a creep feeder before are they any good at fattening lambs and what would u give them i also need some ideas for making 1 cause they r 290 euro to buy

tomwaterford

connolly18 wrote: »

lads i have never used a creep feeder before are they any good at fattening lambs and what would u give them i also need some ideas for making 1 cause they r 290 euro to buy

TRy donedeal I know a lad got 2 for e150 a few years ago off it



Though sheep soon get wise to them and some figure a way to get head in...by pucking lambe and charging I found

ganmo

Which type are you thinking of con?

DJ98

Anyone know the price roughly of one of these?

Green farmer

Maybe around €300. Cormac does them. Have one here. You'd pick them up secondhand on dd every now and again

Username John

connolly18 wrote: »

lads i have never used a creep feeder before are they any good at fattening lambs and what would u give them i also need some ideas for making 1 cause they r 290 euro to buy

I cant comment on your system - but I will comment on my onw... I bought a creep feeder years ago, thinking I was great. Lambs came on great as well - cos I was horsing feed into em...

After a while, I released, I was only using meal to replace good grass management.

The creep feeder is thrown in the yard a few years now... I keep meaning to get around to putting it up on donedeal...

In my opinion (for what its worth)
- Unless you are stocked very very high, there is no place for creep feeding in mid season lambing
- There is a place for creep feeding, for early lamb - but I would question the viability of this going forward

Maybe not directly answering your original question, but it might be helpful...

rangler1

Username John wrote: »

I cant comment on your system - but I will comment on my onw... I bought a creep feeder years ago, thinking I was great. Lambs came on great as well - cos I was horsing feed into em...

After a while, I released, I was only using meal to replace good grass management.

The creep feeder is thrown in the yard a few years now... I keep meaning to get around to putting it up on donedeal...

In my opinion (for what its worth)
- Unless you are stocked very very high, there is no place for creep feeding in mid season lambing
- There is a place for creep feeding, for early lamb - but I would question the viability of this going forward

Maybe not directly answering your original question, but it might be helpful...

I'd agree but I'd have 20% of my lambs here the 1st Oct on a good year so need the creep feeder at that stage.....the more land available to the inlamb ewes the better so I tighten up the lambs and feed ad lib.
Giving heavy lambs .5kg here in Oct worked well too...it doubled the performanace of those on grass alone.
No point in saying it doesn't pay to feed meals and then having lambs eating the pregnant ewes grass in Dec/Jan.
Do your best on grass quality and quantity right through the summer and then feed the stragglers then in the autumn

Green farmer

Lads, anyone know how to fix a weighting scale clock ? My clock won't go back to zero, I've the screw opened fully and this is as near to zero as it'll go. If I tighten the screw it just heads back down towards the 6 o clock position. Think the spring might have been strained or something ?

Westernrock

Green farmer wrote: »

Lads, anyone know how to fix a weighting scale clock ? My clock won't go back to zero, I've the screw opened fully and this is as near to zero as it'll go. If I tighten the screw it just heads back down towards the 6 o clock position. Think the spring might have been strained or something ?

Take the panel of the back and see has it jumped off the gear wheel, happened ours when we moved it in the trailer, might just need moved back a few nicks...

Username John

rangler1 wrote: »

I'd agree but I'd have 20% of my lambs here the 1st Oct on a good year so need the creep feeder at that stage.....the more land available to the inlamb ewes the better so I tighten up the lambs and feed ad lib.
Giving heavy lambs .5kg here in Oct worked well too...it doubled the performanace of those on grass alone.
No point in saying it doesn't pay to feed meals and then having lambs eating the pregnant ewes grass in Dec/Jan.
Do your best on grass quality and quantity right through the summer and then feed the stragglers then in the autumn

Yes - I would agree with that...

The only thing I would add, is its scale dependant.

I only have a few lambs / sheep - so feeding them in a trough is easy enough. I know you wouldn't be long getting into numbers where this isn't feasible tho.

But if its low-ish numbers - I would argue that feeding in a trough is a better way to go about getting meal into them

For any sort of reasonable / high numbers - then, yes, a creep feeder would be the way to go...

DJ98

Green farmer wrote: »

Lads, anyone know how to fix a weighting scale clock ? My clock won't go back to zero, I've the screw opened fully and this is as near to zero as it'll go. If I tighten the screw it just heads back down towards the 6 o clock position. Think the spring might have been strained or something ?

I bought a clock just like that one last summer, it never went back to 0 and I can't figure out how to do it, so now when weighing lambs we have to start at 15kg get the weight and then subtract the 15. Need to be good at maths to use it properly

Lambman

Probably just not a heavy enuf clock for your weighbridge is same problem bought a clock that goes till 100kg but old one was 250kg so new one didn't go back till 0 when on my weighbridge

razor8

Have one of these this 4 years and still doing a great job, bought off cormacs at the time

ganmo

DJ98 wrote: »

I bought a clock just like that one last summer, it never went back to 0 and I can't figure out how to do it, so now when weighing lambs we have to start at 15kg get the weight and then subtract the 15. Need to be good at maths to use it properly

Something to be aware of with spring clocks is to check it at the weight you'll weighing. Our clock is 2 kg out at 25kg and 4 at 50 checked with bags of meal

roosky

anyone chancing a bit of shearing or is it too early

kk.man

roosky wrote: »

anyone chancing a bit of shearing or is it too early

Was thinking of it but can be very cold mornings here.

ganmo

i might get the hoggets done but not the ewes

serfspup

clipped a few dry hoggets today,cheviots were ok but lleyns not ready.

Username John

serfspup wrote: »

clipped a few dry hoggets today,cheviots were ok but lleyns not ready.

Would it not be very cold on em still? We have a harsh enough east wind... I wouldn't be too keen on shearing for a while yet...

serfspup

I wouldn't worry about dry hoggets being cold,some had started shedding already.
I agree to soon to shear ewes though lads are getting excited to get shorn

Lambman

Will be clipping all ewes next weekend... rams and hoggets clipped fortnight ago... mid March lambing flock putting on good condition now again way I look at it is more chance a losing one going on her back than losing one till the cold.

razor8

I don't see the advantages shearing the sheep so early. If done now they'll have a huge fleece all winter carrying water if there out and taking up far to much room if there in a shed

I shear them myself here and try and wait until July most years

rangler1

razor8 wrote: »

I don't see the advantages shearing the sheep so early. If done now they'll have a huge fleece all winter carrying water if there out and taking up far to much room if there in a shed

I shear them myself here and try and wait until July most years

and shearing now leaves them very prone to maggots in july august and September when maggots do a lot more harm than now

tomwaterford

razor8 wrote: »

I don't see the advantages shearing the sheep so early. If done now they'll have a huge fleece all winter carrying water if there out and taking up far to much room if there in a shed

I shear them myself here and try and wait until July most years

At home,I culled very hard before I went away

And prob abit low on numbers and with the grass growth some are over fat and going on their back (though imo there's hereditary reasons for some to go on their back)

Username John

tomwaterford wrote: »

At home,I culled very hard before I went away

And prob abit low on numbers and with the grass growth some are over fat and going on their back (though imo there's hereditary reasons for some to go on their back)

I would agree with the hereditary thing, but are you saying some of the dry hoggets are going on their back?

I would have thought it was only oldish ewes went on their back like that? They were always the ones we had trouble with here - never dry hoggets...

tomwaterford

Username John wrote: »

I would agree with the hereditary thing, but are you saying some of the dry hoggets are going on their back?

I would have thought it was only oldish ewes went on their back like that? They were always the ones we had trouble with here - never dry hoggets...

No...it's some of the ewes rearing lambs going on their back

The hoggets don't lie down long enough to go on their back :pac:

sheepfarmer92

razor8 wrote: »

I don't see the advantages shearing the sheep so early. If done now they'll have a huge fleece all winter carrying water if there out and taking up far to much room if there in a shed

I shear them myself here and try and wait until July most years

Exactly, i too dont get why people are always in a rush to shear so early, there is often maggots in september which do alot more harm than early on, like to leave til july here, that wind we currently have is fairly harsh

sea12

Sold all my ewes this year as too much going on with full time job and with young family. Bought in ewe lambs instead. Had about 30 of my own ewe lambs aswell.
Noticed a few heavy ones a month ago and realised there was a few teenage pregnancies. Three lambed in the last few days. Went through them all and another 10 in lamb.

Balls when you don't know due dates or haven't been feeding them to milk well.