General sheep thread

Oldira

arctictree wrote: »

Not much grass left here. Bad management on my part, will know better next year. I have the ewes and lambs out on a paddock with a little grass in it and will be feeding them meal until the growth comes.

Well I re-seeded 10 acres in first week of October. It has taken but the soil is very wet so not taken very well. Hopefully a couple of dry weeks and it may start to fly. Have some bird cover as well which there is plenty of picking in after the 15th. Still 2-3 weeks of decent weather this time of year should bring grass on a show.....I hope.

wrangler

Oldira wrote: »

How are lads fixed for grass? Growth is non-existant here. Ewes due to start lambing on Paddys Day and have the locked into a small paddock. But I have no sign of lush grass to turn them out after lambing. Will a pick of grass and meal supplement help with milk for a few weeks?

I'm going to feed them out anyway, land is stripped here since november but very little grass so we'll be giving at least a kilo/day to them, have to keep them milking anyway, I've 25kg urea/acre out since a fortnight ago.

wrangler

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Lamb born here yesterday with a swollen belly. He’s drinking fine and otherwise is OK. He seems to have been born like that, as in it’s not just a big belly of milk.

Any ideas what it might be?

Has he died yet, we've had them here but few live, I've seen them with their backsides blocked but they can have internal problems too.

Siamsa Sessions

wrangler wrote: »

Has he died yet, we've had them here but few live, I've seen them with their backsides blocked but they can have internal problems too.

Yeah, died this morning. Did some online research and found this: https://www.sheepandgoat.com/abomasal-bloat

sheepfarmer92

Always get ewes throwing there lambs pre lambing getting hurt at feeding time, they have lots of feed space and two of us feeding but theyre very roúgh and it still happens, how are others feeding meal to sheep? We are feeding in walkthrough feeders and along passageways with some smaller sheds with troughs

wrangler

sheepfarmer92 wrote: »

Always get ewes throwing there lambs pre lambing getting hurt at feeding time, they have lots of feed space and two of us feeding but theyre very roúgh and it still happens, how are others feeding meal to sheep? We are feeding in walkthrough feeders and along passageways with some smaller sheds with troughs

Did you PM the foetuses, ewes are rough here too at feeding but abortions would always be diagnosed as something else,
You can't do anymore than have plenty room at the trough.
You might have too many in the pens and a big crush then at the start of feeding, we'd have 25 in a pen and no problems

sheepfarmer92

wrangler wrote: »

Did you PM the foetuses, ewes are rough here too at feeding but abortions would always be diagnosed as something else,
You can't do anymore than have plenty room at the trough.
You might have too many in the pens and a big crush then at the start of feeding, we'd have 25 in a pen and no problems

Yep always did, used to have toxo and enzo but both are vaccinated for now, its definitly hurts, not too many but its annoying at the same time, yea our group sizes should be halved its something we will have to do next year, have 12 pens of 75 ish ewes and a few pens of 60, just wondering did others have the same bother or was it just our ewes that are cracked

Siamsa Sessions

sheepfarmer92 wrote: »

Yep always did, used to have toxo and enzo but both are vaccinated for now, its definitly hurts, not too many but its annoying at the same time, yea our group sizes should be halved its something we will have to do next year, have 12 pens of 75 ish ewes and a few pens of 60, just wondering did others have the same bother or was it just our ewes that are cracked

Same carry on here - jumping and bucking when you throw in the meal. Can't say it's directly led to abortions, but I'm sure it doesn't help.

We'll have more room next year (constant mantra of the newcomer for us: "Next year will be better")

wrangler

sheepfarmer92 wrote: »

Yep always did, used to have toxo and enzo but both are vaccinated for now, its definitly hurts, not too many but its annoying at the same time, yea our group sizes should be halved its something we will have to do next year, have 12 pens of 75 ish ewes and a few pens of 60, just wondering did others have the same bother or was it just our ewes that are cracked

We'd get cases of campylobacter here every one four or five years, in case you think that Enzovax and toxovax solves all the problems, like Toxo ewes can get immune to it but there's no vaccine, there wouldn't be a high incidence when it happened and usually only in ewe lambs

orm0nd

sheepfarmer92 wrote: »

Always get ewes throwing there lambs pre lambing getting hurt at feeding time, they have lots of feed space and two of us feeding but theyre very roúgh and it still happens, how are others feeding meal to sheep? We are feeding in walkthrough feeders and along passageways with some smaller sheds with troughs

walk through with tombstone barriers, & same at front , allow 1 or 2 free spaces per length (28 ft)

no issues since we installed them a few years back

charolais0153

Have a few ewes this year in particular where youd have a treble and the first lad might be dead and the next 2 would be alive. Happwned in 4 or 5 now. The lambs would be perfect size too just dead, no smell but dead a day or so

Sami23

Advise Needed.
Have had 4 lambs under a week old and some under 2 days old die suddendly and they seemed to have passed alot of blood in their stools.
One in particular was born Wednesday and and was given colostrum from bottle as he was a triplet and ewe was short on milk. He was perfectly fine at 10pm last night jumping around but dead this morning at 5.30am with blood around his back passage.
I've never seen this before ?
No sign of scour yesterday either

charolais0153

Sami23 wrote: »

Advise Needed.
Have had 4 lambs under a week old and some under 2 days old die suddendly and they seemed to have passed alot of blood in their stools.
One in particular was born Wednesday and and was given colostrum from bottle as he was a triplet and ewe was short on milk. He was perfectly fine at 10pm last night jumping around but dead this morning at 5.30am with blood around his back passage.
I've never seen this before ?
No sign of scour yesterday either

Have you spoken to vet? Or done a post mortem?

Siamsa Sessions

Sami23 wrote: »

Advise Needed.
Have had 4 lambs under a week old and some under 2 days old die suddendly and they seemed to have passed alot of blood in their stools.
One in particular was born Wednesday and and was given colostrum from bottle as he was a triplet and ewe was short on milk. He was perfectly fine at 10pm last night jumping around but dead this morning at 5.30am with blood around his back passage.
I've never seen this before ?
No sign of scour yesterday either

Variant of coxidosis? Can they get it that young?

Willfarman

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Variant of coxidosis? Can they get it that young?

Yes they can. Dose all rest of them ASAP

wrangler

Willfarman wrote: »

Yes they can. Dose all rest of them ASAP

Could it not be an ecoli problem

Clinical signs of ecoli in lambs
affects twins but especially triplet lambs aged 12 to 36 hours.
dull, lethargic, depressed and reluctant to suck.
profuse salivation.
a wet lower jaw.
increasing abdominal distension although the lamb has not been sucking.

Better talk to a vet

Sami23

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Variant of coxidosis? Can they get it that young?

2nd lad dead now and 3rd lad has blood behind now and doesn't look good

wrangler

Sami23 wrote: »

2nd lad dead now and 3rd lad has blood behind now and doesn't look good

Very unusual to get coccidiosis that young, they've obviously picked up something before they got biestings or not enough biestings.
Is everything clean and well bedded, I heard of an outbreak of ecoli in a top farm lately, it had everyone baffled until they told the shepherd to wash his hands more often....problem solved.
Farmers look after sick lambs and then go to lamb a ewe, first thing you do to the newborn lamb is put your finger in his mouth to clear it. bacteria introduced straight away.
I don't know what you have there but it's important now to get biestings in early until you figure it out

greysides

It could be a variety of E.coli or, possibly, Lamb Dysentery. If ewes have been fully vaccinated and boosted for Clostridia prior to lambing then it makes LD less likely.

Essentially you need to talk to your vet as you're going to need some treatment too. In the meantime clean the ewes teats well after lambing and before colostrum is taken or the lamb sucks.

wrangler

greysides wrote: »

It could be variety of E.coli or, possibly, Lamb Dysentery. If ewes have been fully vaccinated and boosted for Clostridia prior to planning then it makes LD less likely.

Essentially you need to talk to your vet as you're going to need some treatment too. In the meantime clean the ewes years well after planning and before colostrum is taken or the lamb sucks.

I think you need a translator on your predictive text.
I'd have taken for granted that everyone vaccinates now, but it sounds clostridial alright,

greysides

Deliberate spelling mistakes corrected.

Ahem!

Gerald P Sheep

Would feeding too much barley cause ewes to prolapse? We are having a lot of ewes putting the bed out compared to last year and the only difference is that were feeding nuts and barley 50:50

wrangler

Gerald P Sheep wrote: »

Would feeding too much barley cause ewes to prolapse? We are having a lot of ewes putting the bed out compared to last year and the only difference is that were feeding nuts and barley 50:50

If you're feeding nuts and barley 50/50, your concentrate is only 14% protein instead of the recommended 18 - 20%, also the minerals is very much reduced,
There's a theory now that lack of calcium can cause prolapse.
It's not a great idea to be adding barley to a balanced nut, a nutritionist will have included the minimum, protein, minerals,etc in the nut and you're diluting it further. There's probably lots of oats or barley in the nut any way.

razor8

Have a few to many prolapses here too this year at 3%

Can’t pinpoint any particular reason

farming93

had 5% prolapse here . I went out and bought the harness and I couldn't recommend them enough, as long as your around to watch the ewes lambing constantly the harness is the only way in my opinion

Sami23

wrangler wrote: »

Very unusual to get coccidiosis that young, they've obviously picked up something before they got biestings or not enough biestings.
Is everything clean and well bedded, I heard of an outbreak of ecoli in a top farm lately, it had everyone baffled until they told the shepherd to wash his hands more often....problem solved.
Farmers look after sick lambs and then go to lamb a ewe, first thing you do to the newborn lamb is put your finger in his mouth to clear it. bacteria introduced straight away.
I don't know what you have there but it's important now to get biestings in early until you figure it out

Just to update, spoke to vet yesterday and he said it was a form of scour alright and one probably got it from the other one. All 3 dead now. These 3 only got the powder beastings as the ewe was very slow to come into milk. She has milk today but too late now - typical.
Anyway vets advice to prevent any more getting it is to give Spectam Scour Halt to all new born lambs at birth.

wrangler

Sami23 wrote: »

Just to update, spoke to vet yesterday and he said it was a form of scour alright and one probably got it from the other one. All 3 dead now. These 3 only got the powder beastings as the ewe was very slow to come into milk. She has milk today but too late now - typical.
Anyway vets advice to prevent any more getting it is to give Spectam Scour Halt to all new born lambs at birth.

I thought as much, I don't like giving antibiotics to every lamb as I believe it interferes with the effectiveness of the colostrum, but a lot of farmers are using spectram

Sami23

wrangler wrote: »

I thought as much, I don't like giving antibiotics to every lamb as I believe it interferes with the effectiveness of the colostrum, but a lot of farmers are using spectram

The vet was actually surprised I wasn't using it already as he said he thought every sheep farmer was using it

wrangler

Sami23 wrote: »

The vet was actually surprised I wasn't using it already as he said he thought every sheep farmer was using it

I had one case of ecoli in 800 plus lambs last year, I trust in hygiene and good colostrum, (touch wood)....easier done lambing indoors than outdoors, 80% of english farmers are using spectram, next thing will be that some penpusher in the EU bans it like they do with anything that works well,
Ewe colostrum is best and then cows.
The best of the artificial colostrum is Volac, some of the rest have very little antibodies

farawaygrass

wrangler wrote: »

I had one case of ecoli in 800 plus lambs last year, I trust in hygiene and good colostrum, (touch wood)....easier done lambing indoors than outdoors, 80% of english farmers are using spectram, next thing will be that some penpusher in the EU bans it like they do with anything that works well,
Ewe colostrum is best and then cows.
The best of the artificial colostrum is Volac, some of the rest have very little antibodies

Is there antibodies in colostrum replacer?