General sheep thread

Most of them are very wild and flighty.

Good milky mothers and good mothering instincts, good k/o % and fairly easily finished.

Had a couple of rams over the years just to introduce different blood lines to the flock however now days I prefer messing with Belclare and texel. Less likely hood of getting flattened.

For the ram effect to be effective i know it says for the ram effect to work the ewes must be out of sight, sound and smell of male sheep (including male lambs) for at least 28 days, when they say male lambs would this include wethers, i currently have the ewes in with this years ram lambs that were banded as they are on the best grass, does this mean i would have to separate them again for 28 days?

Has anyone on here got any experience of Shropshire sheep? Looking to get a few to run through a bit of forestry and keep it in check.

Good result, to keep it working is the problem.

Just a heads up for everyone, I was weighing lambs on Monday and there was no maggots, but there was 5 cases this evening.

Three of them are going to the factory in the morning so I just poured salt and water on them. the lambs were 8 weeks done with Clikzin

Fluke and mineral drench always given the ewes and hoggets pre tupping here, just to make sure there in their best condition. If your ground over the autumn and winter can be anyway wet or some water ling in it after heavy rain it would always no harm to fluke. The likes of Endo fluke is cheap enough anyway

I have a few mature ewes quite dirty of their ends……would normally dose with something like Flukivor and also give them mineral drench a few weeks before letting ram out to ewes.

Thinking I might give them all a good Fluke and Worms combination dose like Supaverm instead,just in case they have any worm burden (especially dirty ended ones)…..or is that overkill as Supaverm isn’t cheap in fairness.

What worm dose you do give the hoggetts at weaning Wrangler?

Having seen pictures of your ground I can assure you it would be a lot drier than most of my land 🙂……

With the steeps of rain falling on and off in last 10 days and nights a lot of good grass getting trampled into the ground here by stock …happening on a lot of farms I would say.

Have 2 ewes i intended to cull because although both reared 2 lambs about their 3 or 4th crop, one was hard lambed and the other prolapsed. But after looking at the marts online think they would go very small money they are only about 55kgs as they lambed late april and were left with the lambs until august. Not worth my while bring them to the mart so considering my options, could i run them with the ram and sell them in lamb (if scanned in lamb) next march and just advice any potential buyer of there problems. Other option is i have loads of grass so not put them to the ram and just let them fatten over time and bring to the factory next march/april.

Can someone who was not in the present sheep improvement scheme enter the new one? Already have sheep for a number of years

How exactly do you join Jonny?

When the date opens for joining usually January time (new scheme next year, in a least 1 out of the 3 years you have to designate a year that you buy a genotyped ram) you can request an application off the sheep improvement scheme in Johnstown castle by ringing them directly, once that's filled out and you have chosen what tasks you will carry out it will be set up. Not sure on the payment dates though.

Thats the jist of what I got out of them at the ploughing as I am in the same boat, used do store lambs for years but have gone back to into the sheep

Try Stanleys and Bo Steel

If you had a choice of buying a pedigree registered ram lamb with stars but thats fit for breeding but small, or a bigger ordinary 2 year old ram which would be the best buy in people's opinion. Should have said for the same money

If you think the lamb will grow I'd go with him. Plain lad will only get plainer

A lot of people scimp on what they will pay for a ram and then wonder why they end up with poor lambs.The ram provides 50% of the genes with each ewe it mates with.Times that by your total female flock and rams importance increases exponentially.

You need to judge if the ram lamb would be strong enough to tip the tallest of your ewes,if so he’s a better buy than the plain older ram.

Bear in mind though that 20 ewes is enough to put with a ram lamb.