General sheep thread

Tileman

Are they mountain sheep?

Kevhog1988

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121843444#Comment_121843444

Mostly crossbreds

memorystick

Hi. I’m thinking of getting a sheep race and scales and gates. I’ll fill in the TAMs meself. Has anyone bought equipment from Buffalo in Wicklow? They have everything but just wondering on quality. Fox are also in that corner of the country. Thanks

DJ98

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121847087#Comment_121847087

Never dealt with buffalo but got all the above off Stanley in laois. Very impressed with the quality and wasn't over priced at the time. Looking at some of the stuff buffalo have for sale through tirlan and the prices are mad.

Tileman

Have bought from both. Both very good quality and sound lads. So what ever is cheaper and handiest for you.

Kevhog1988

Might not be a bad year to lamb ewes if this carries on.

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121850958#Comment_121850958

early Easter and Ramadan this year. Will the inevitable downturn in price soon follow, to what level is the question

roosky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121850958#Comment_121850958

Ya it’s funny yet you will get the best of twin lamb in lamb ewes for €200…..something not making sense somewhere !

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121851331#Comment_121851331

Not many looking for the hassle of lambing ewes nowadays. The pay would want to be good!

Hopefully the weather improves soon. It’d be as good as a few cents/kg.

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121850958#Comment_121850958

Any quotes for spring lamb? Usually a euro ahead of hoggets.

White Clover

Any recommendations for tidy EID tags to put on lambs at 2 days old?

Kevhog1988

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121857501#Comment_121857501

I like the cormac ones

Cran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121857501#Comment_121857501

I tried the Alflex bubble rags for first time this week on young lambs look good

DJ98

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121857501#Comment_121857501

I think it's cruel practice tagging young lambs, ears drooping and lambs with sore ears especially going through the mart

somofagun

Two week into Lambing and its been a mixed bag so far, lost 2 sets of triplets and 1 ewe last Saturday, I had been treat one for suspected twin lamb and the other was trying to push out the reed bed a week before so she had the rope on her. All lambs bar 2 were pulled out dead but these two didn't last long.

I have lost 9 lambs from the 11 that have lambed so far which is the worst start I have had to a lambing season. Have 6 triplets left to lamb so let hope they go well.

joe35

Sorry to hear that somo. Hopefully things will pick up

roosky

Keep the head up, we all have spells like that where things go from bad to worse not matter what you try! Don’t let it get you down too much, take note of what the causes were and make any changes you can now and anything that’s outside your control forget about it and focus on keep as many of the remaining alive as possible

joe35

A few sayings my grandparents had growing up.

Devil (divil) and all bad luck go with it.

Once it's outside the door

If you have livestock you'll have dead stock.

I can hear my grandparents saying these things to me when something like above goes wrong. They each had there own one

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121862180#Comment_121862180

Keep the head up. Every farmer goes through a bad patch and learns lots from it.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121864544#Comment_121864544

You need to learn from it or you'll keep having the problems. Our motto is that 'you should never waste a dead sheep', we get post mortem done on most that dies and learn not to let it happen again,

We seldom get a vet now because by getting the vet over the years you learn the obvious diagnosis, we tell teh vet what's wrong and they they give out the remedy . people who ask about lambs on facebook will never learn because you can't diagnose a lamb from a photograph

Homer jay

Hi all, I only had 20 ewes to lamb down this year, only new to lambing sheep, this is the third year, the last two years no major problems with lambing other than ewes lying on lambs and the odd lost lamb but this year I had 6 out of the 20 lambing down with mastitis, some with full mastitis both sides others with blood only coming in teat and others with blood mixed with milk. What could be causing that amount of mastitis ? When I was weaning them last year I was just pulling off the lambs for the factory and leaving the ewes out where as other years I would have put the ewes into the shed on Hay for 2 weeks. I checked their elders before the ram was let out and didn't notice anything major wrong with them. Thanks James.

joe35

I'm after getting my hands on some hep p. Question is should I go ahead an injection them, I've enough to do all the doubles. They're due from the end of the month.

Mad about baa baas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121880215#Comment_121880215

I would if it was me..

somofagun

Lost a good ewe this evening, first timer scanned with Single and lamb was rotten inside her. Vet says it was dead a couple of weeks.

Never showed any signs it was in trouble, eating away with the rest of them.

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121876626#Comment_121876626

If they had a couple last year and you pulled one lamb for the factory and left the other lamb with her, imo that could be a factor. The lambs nearly stay sucking the one side and she’d still be producing milk. But if you felt the bags letting out the ram and didn’t notice anything, I’d be inclined to say maybe environmental factors

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121883011#Comment_121883011

Wet mucky mild winter, worse thing for bacteria spreading. I'm see imm ng good few cases of footrot creeping in too

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884031#Comment_121884031

Lots of lame sheep here too in the last couple of weeks, especially when it started drying up a bit up to yesterday

Bleating Lamb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121881326#Comment_121881326

You are having a bad run of it…….hopefully things improve for you.

First lambs should be arriving here any day now.Weather given very wet for the next few days but at least there was good drying over the last week or dos.

Best of luck to everyone lambing……I always find that you have more problems at the beginning of lambing rather than the end.

farawaygrass

I think I was reading here before about people using 50% iodine and 50% of an alcohol based disinfectant. The alcohol makes the navel dry out and wither quicker. Anyone know what is used?

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121887197#Comment_121887197

If the navel dries too quick it can crack and let in infection that way, We always used hibitane and haven't had any problems with it.

We couldn't get it this year so we're using vetscrub mixed at 9 parts water/ alcohol mix with 0ne part Vetscrub.

So that's 10% vetscrub, 45% water, 45% alcohol

farawaygrass

Thanks wrangler. Is it just methylated spirits you use for the alcohol component?

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121887974#Comment_121887974

yea surgical spirits

eire23

Using a spirit based iodine here now, had a water based one last year and it wasn't worth a curse.

Dickie10

i read in farming independent tueday the new sheep welfare scheme has a payment of 8 euro a ewe, takes the average of your ewe numbers from 2020,21 and 22. i thought it was up to 20 euro a head now?

eire23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121891305#Comment_121891305

It is up to 20. You have the original 12 Euro a head scheme with the actions picked. New scheme is a additional one with 8 euro a head, options for it, are clostridial vaccine, shearing, bcs and plunge dipping. Two actions have to be picked for the extra 8 euro. In fairness it's all stuff that one should be doing anyways.

Dickie10

aw grand yeah i do those already anyway.

joe35

I've 3 old horn ewes, scanned empty and with no flesh on them. What should I do with them.

They're getting nuts but not putting on any cover.

Should I just factory them and take the couple of euro I get.

DJ98

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121895725#Comment_121895725

Bring them to the mart, sheep are a great trade at the minute and always men looking for store or feeding type ewes

wrangler

Terrible weather, TBF ewes and lambs are standing up to the weather well

If sheep have any advantage to other enterprises, it's in wet years like this.

Those trying to get cows out on grass at the moment are destroying fields and maybe cows too

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121901077#Comment_121901077

Wrangler, we have only just started lambing here, 8 lambed so far. 3 sets of twins with one big lamb and one small lamb. Any idea why this is happening?

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121901646#Comment_121901646

It's supposed to be down to stress/underfeeding in the first trimester when the placenta is being formed and from there on one of the lambs doesn't get enough nutrients. I've more than the usual amount of them this year myself. and i'm putting it down to the appalling weather.

Our ewes had lots of grass but I introduced .5kg meal after the first weeks mating because of the rain . They looked miserable,

The second weeks lambing had less small ones than the first weeks lambing

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121902449#Comment_121902449

Thanks for that. I was thinking weather/stress alright. It's awful frustrating dealing with small lambs. Complete difference to last year's lambing where I can't remember anything like this.

weatherbyfoxer

Think we have came to the decision here to get out of sheep,this years lambing was the straw that broke the camel's back for us.will continue on till the lambs are weaned and have a clearance sale in the mart at the end of August

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121904221#Comment_121904221

You won't be the only ones I fear, It's a shame the way farming is gone now...... another industry that has run its course

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121903204#Comment_121903204

Our lambing is very slow too, thankfully we only left the ram out 35 days, so at least every day is a day nearer the finish.

I think the weather has us all more depressed than the sheep have.

Bleating Lamb

The reality is margins are getting tighter on people lambing sheep…….Bumped into a fella in a shop yesterday that I would often see at sheep marts in the Summer/Autumn……a good farmer who would always have had 500 ewes+………I asked him had he many lambs yet?, (most people around here would aim for lambing from Paddy’s Day on.)

’Only have around 30……..but thankfully I’ve only around 200 ewes now, too much work with them for what’s out of them,so am running dry Hoggetts in place of other sheep I had’

He was saying that when he done the sums over last two years returns the lambs profit return wasn’t justifying the amount of time and cost especially trying to get bunches of straggler lambs away in late September etc when they would need nuts to help them on their way.He said when you factor in caesareans, milk replacer for pets, clostridial diseases vaccines, 2+ worm and mineral doses before sale etc it doesn’t be long putting a dent in profit on lambs.

Have 6 ewes lambed myself,3 set of twins,a ewe with a single who another lamb died on and 2 singles so a good enough start🙂

Happy St Patrick’s Day ☘️ to one and all!☘️🍻

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121904282#Comment_121904282

Things have improved here since! I hope it continues this way. A couple of sets of twins and a set of triplets this morning and all decent size. I don't think our lambing will take too long this year. Only about 4 sheep raddled on week 4 of mating and rams out after 5 weeks

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121904221#Comment_121904221

Sorry to read this. Were the problems weather related or a combination of a few things? Ignore if you don't want to say.

Mad about baa baas

The weather at the moment is very depressing. I'd say every farmer in Ireland is sick of looking at wet dirty animals and waterlogged fields..even good dry land is wet at the moment

Dinzee Conlee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121904282#Comment_121904282

Would ye always leave the ram out for that length of time Wrangler?

I only had the ram out for 19 days. Normally do 21 days, but he got savage lame, so felt was only wasting everyone’s time leaving him there. Out of 42ewes, 40 were in young. Small numbers I know, but with the ‘real job’ as well don’t want lambing to be dragging on for too long…