Weight Issues - Why Are These Lambs Not As Heavy?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 12 лип 2023
- In this video we weight lambs to see how they are growing and to gather data for performance recording. The lambs also get a worm dose and their second Heptovac P vaccination.
A weight discrepancy shows up between two different mobs of lambs...
Am I too late with the worm dose?
Working solo today as Robbie is away on a well deserved holiday. Thankfully, the Cotter Crate is in action to cut the workload.
Link to Cotter Crate video as mentioned:
Sheep Farmer Uses Amazing Handling System For The First Time | Could It Be The Best Ever Made?
• Sheep Farmer Uses Amaz...
I hope you enjoy the video and if you do, please gives us a like and click the subscribe button and bell for future content.
Let me know if you enjoy the video and feel free to drop me a comment and also if you have any questions or suggestions....
Thanks for watching,
David.
Really enjoying watch your videos, weight recording is hard work but it gives you an understanding of how the lambs are doing, this last season I had lambs over the scale every week due to heavy worm burden and drench not working, though I had few poor performing ewes but was just the season we had,
Glad you like them! It adds to the workload but definitely worth it!
Great video David as always 👌
Thanks Gary..👌
Nice video
Great content as always David! Would love if you did more on the performance recording.... Looking forward to seeing cotter crate in Killeigh.... Great work, great sheep!
Thanks Paul. Be sure to come over for a chat! See you there...
Hi David. Kiwi farmer here from down under. Good to see you using technology and data to help you make informed decisions around your sheep system. Not sure about over there but here in nz, scabby ears and face/ swollen face is generally caused by facial eczema, which is caused by the sheep eating a toxin in grass. Often appears here at the same time wild mushrooms start growing. Also here in nz we are starting to have a problem with drench resistance, single, double, triple and even some to novel products such as startec and zolvix. It’s a real issue, best practice here is to give lambs a weaning dose at between 70 and 100 days old, then every 28 days they get dosed, can be a bit longer but definitely not shorter. After 4-5 doses of traditional drench, then come in and dose with a zolvix or startec, to clean out any resistance worms that have built up.
All the best from down under.
Good post
Thank you and great to have a few Kiwis on board! Had swollen ears and faces last year and vet put it down to sheep eating certain weeds. Resistance is a growing problem I think were all facing and unfortunately I think a lower stocking rate is part of the solution.
Great video keep up good work.David u are some man for one man 😂
Thanks 👍
Thank heavens for quad bikes. That first ewe lamb was a beauty. Hope the lambs gain well from here on. I enjoy seeing the weight and how they are gaining 👍👍😊
Thanks Linda. It's great to see them thriving 👌
A couple of my lambs had scabby ears this year. I asked the vet who was visiting, he though it was probably too much sun! Anyway, I didn't do anything and they've all cleared up now 😁
Thanks Jane. Never thought of the sun being an issue!
Great video David. You have lovely stock. Would love to see a video on the performance recording. Let us know if you find out about the scab on ears, I had a few last year with it, gave mineral drench some cleared up, some didn’t so I don’t know 🤷♀️.
Keep up the good work 👍🏻
Thank you, will do!
Great videos. with sheep your learning everyday, I give lambs cobalt with a worm dose every time they are due a dose helps them greatly
Thanks for sharing👌
David good content and interesting to see the difference in both batches. Lambs are clean and a colbalt ,selenium drench are good to improve growth rates. We would always have a few lambs with scabby ears and being Beltex crosses we put it down to sunlight and occasionally have a few with swollen ears and faces and we were told that being white face sheep it could be a photosynthesis reaction to lush grass and strong sun.A good drench of water and move to a shady fields sorted it out .Mind you the blood test could be of interest perhaps copper could be an issue but we dont supplement any copper as Beltex or Texel are very susceptible to copper toxicity. Goodluck.
Had a few with swollen ears and faces and vet thought it was from eating certain weeds. He also thought the midgets were a problem biting them. Hard to call it but put them in shed and gave 3 days of penicillin and cleared up no problem.
Thank you , I always learn something from your videos , I wish I could tell you what is wrong with her ears but I don’t have a clue, tbh out of all the sheep videos I’ve watched over the years I’ve never seen that , so please let us know when you find out 😊
If I find out anything from vet I'll mention it in next video. 👌
Cobalt and b12 is cheap and cheerful and your sheep will repay you for it and although the experts will advise against it we are in a very low copper area and give our sheep a dose of cattle liquid thrive before weaning ( along with the cobalt b12) we mix it which is easy and give them the equivalent of 10 ml of the liquid thrive and twenty of the cobalt in the one shot, works for us, my advice for what it’s worth ( sod all) is if you’re not sure what is going on blood test ten ewes and ten lambs and it will give you a good idea of the mineral status of the flock. As for creeping lambs I don’t think it would pay unless you are very short of grass and even then it is a very dodgy as to whether or not it gives a return personally if you are short of grass sell a go of stores and wean would be better advice, I find that lambs are inclined to get lazy about grazing when they’re getting creep and unless you are getting big intakes it’s hard to get them to do much more than 200 to 250 grams a day which they are doing by and large now anyway.
Thanks Andy. I believe the cobalt drench is a great job but I think they need it every 3 weeks minimum. I would like to mark half the lambs and cobalt and leave the other to see if any difference showed up in performance, maybe next year...
@@sheepschool365 You would be penny wise pound foolish not to get the cobalt in to them as when you wean some will go back and others will stand still, I give out cobalt b12 every time I get them in and the liquid thrive before weaning and to anyone who is left on the 1st of October, however I would not be pushing that without a blood test as I have no idea what the copper status of your ground is. But I would recommend the cobalt it’s not about the cost it is about the effort of actually dosing the blighters and if you have an issue with that, I am in the Wicklow hills and we are that deficient in cobalt and low in copper that we would only finish the lambs in the shed on a lot of meal if we didn’t get it in to them. We have all the early lambs ( February born) bar 13 gone and are going with the third batch of march born tomorrow night. Years ago most of our lambs were sold as stores in august / September, now we rarely sell a store and by September 90 percent are on a hook and the stragglers are put with the cull ewes for a few weeks to get them eating meals and then the ewes go and if we have any lambs left by the end of October they are sold as stores but we rarely have any by then. Bloody testing a few is not that expensive and it would give you a great idea as to whether you have a problem but the scabby ears are a good indication that you are cobalt deficient and your sheep are very white which would indicate that you might need some copper.
Great video again Dave. The dry ears is cobalt deficiency, likewise lambs will be eating in the ditches. I learned this for the vet at an open day on your farm in 2021. You must've been busy talk and not listening 😂. Lovely batches of sheep. How do you dry the ewes off?
Knew I heard that somewhere.. 😅
Usually dry ewes off and put them in the shed for a 4 or 5 days on a little hay. Not sure sure what I'll do with the ones away from the shed..
Ears always indicate low in copper, dose of Cobalt will do the trick.
Scabbed ears being using ivomacc classic for years and to prevent itch also works a treat for me 👍👍
Does the ivormec replace a drench?
Hi David my suffolks ewes go to ground near to mosses and peaty areas with trees during the May. June and July periods and 3/4's come home with rought ears. Its clegg and midge bites and sun. No pour on works with bitting flies and the ears is the area with least wool and finest hair. Sheep cant scratch their ears like some animals.It is type of mild Alopecia the strong sun does not help. The rams stay at home and have more shade from large trees and less biting flies there ears are perfect. It disapears when they return home. If all them midges and cleggs where biting our ears for weeks we would look the same. Them cleggs and midges are a nuisances. May be coopers spot on could repell the midges and cleggs. I lay down plenty of the Garlic lick buckets trying to help the ewes. I though only the suffolks got afflicted by the rough ears.
Thank you for your helpful comment. I always find sheep with not much hair on their ears are affected.
Good video - very informative - when or where do you sell your Hoggets
Hogget ewes are sold at the Lleyn sale in Roscommon on 2nd Sept. Sell most of the hogget rams from home with a few going to the sale in Roscommon.
Is the weight gain in the video since they were born or since the last time you weighed? Keep the performance videos coming
Weight gain is since they were last weighted, about 5 weeks ago.
Outstanding video again!
What age do you wean at? I weaned my heavier lambs a few weeks ago and just weaned the lighter lambs today - lighter lambs have slowed down big time on the weight gain so hoping change of grass and weaned will help push them on. Heavy ones I weaned a few weeks ago made some difference to them and weight gain jumped up to 0.4-0.6 per day.
Would love to see a video on performance recording.
Thanks Neil 👌
I aim to wean at average of 14 weeks so the lambs range from 12-16 weeks. Think lambs are only annoying ewes after that...
@@sheepschool365 thanks that’s what I have done and seems to be making an improvement to the lambs too from weaning.
Well done you run a brilliant sheep farm,what do you use on oarf on lambs, keep up the good work 👍👍
Thank you. 👍 Thankfully only a few with orf this year. Find petrol the best. Little severe but clears it up in a few days.
You have a very low incidence of lameness. Well done, i'd love to know how you prevent and manage lameness please. Cheers
I'll mention the lameness in a video soon. 95% is down to breed. I don't do much with them at all..
Great video. The crate looks great for lambs, not sure my mules and cross breeds wouldn't jump straight over the top. Do you use the crate for ewe worming , crutching, etc or is it really just for lambs?
I think it's the only unit that can handle lambs and do it well. It's great for ewes also, once you push the side and the floor drops the sheep can't physically jump so timing is the secret..
Very good video thank you !
Did you see any mites/ticks on the lambs ear ? Could have got a bite from a tick/bug and it develops into a rash. blood test will rule out the google vets 😂
Were you happy with overall av. Daily gain ?
Would like to see a video on the performance recording if possible for pro and cons
Glad you enjoyed, thank you. Didn't see any ticks. Thinking strongly about the blood tests! Yea very happy with the weight gains. All the ewe lambs and hoggets were in the big batch. Probably why it was lower than the other batch. 3 and 4 year old ewes in the better performing group.
Great vid . What was the average weights of the lambs.
30kg in one batch and 32kg in the other
Sun burn possibly, but hardly this “summer”😉
Maybe the Sun did some harm in May but definitely not in the month!
Great video we had a lamb with ears like that I tried an antibiotic and a multivitamin injection and it came alright so it might be a deficiency no sure or too much sun 🤔
Hard to pin it down..
Thanks for the tips!
Most definitely the clean ground makes the difference.
I think you're right, build up of worms on the ground slows down the lambs. Pity it's so expensive for ploughing and reseeding now...
What way did your silage go for you over the winter as regards feed out performance etc? The ones with molasses compared to ones with none.did you use an additive this year?
The bales with molasses smelled great with zero waste, sheep loved them. Didn't make any fodder yet, but I'll be using the molasses again when I do.
Are there any differences between age of ewes in the 2 mobs? Hogs especially with twins would bring weight gains down. I think on top of grass quality, sun, shelter, ground type, previous worm burden, minerals and footpaths could all be factors. But if grass is growing better in one field, hard to go passed it …
I picked 3 and 4 year old ewes with mostly twins to go onto the reseed. I suppose for less hassle. Than younger & older ewes. Oddly the ewes barely touched the lick buckets on that ground and polished them at home place.
Can you show us how you set your reader to the scales??
I run through connection process in next weighting video. Works by bluetooth..
This is the 1st year i have creep fed the problem i have is birds and the cost( lambs look well though)
Have you any issues in getting Heptavac P? Normally use Lamby vac but the vet couldn't get any.
So used Hep.P. this year. For the second dose the vet said they couldn't get any.
No problem with my vet thankfully. I believe there is a shortage for Hep P. Price has definitely gone up anyway.
My suggestion is to do bloodwork on 10 lambs & 10 ewes. I don't think it is expensive at all, but will give you good information.
I think that's the best suggestion!
Lleyn very good milky ewes we have a fair few 40kg lambs cross bred with a texel ram have u ever considered putting to a cross bred better shape and skins. Yes we need some pure bred just think cross breeding is the way with Lleyn.
I think you are absolutely right. That's exactly what Lleyn ewes are for...
I will keep breeding pure Lleyns for now as running the ewe lambs on to hoggets suits with fragmented land. I have the option to run terminal rams if the demand for females ever dries up...
Can the scanner mount on the scale so it is hands free??
Yes but I prefer to do it manually as 2 lambs often enter the scales at once and the recorded weight is incorrect..
Hi there nice video as always i d say it might be selenium deficiency
Thank you..👍
No sun now
.😂😅😅
Patrick sheep dude in Meath
Not much sun today.... Shocking day😎🤣
I am in Australia with a small fock I get the odd lamb that will get scabby ears I have searched and I get photosensitivity. Hope this is a help. Cheers.
Thanks Shane. I think the sun can cause harm to bare ears!
Cobalt b12
👍
I separate at birth rams ewe lambs creep the rams try get rid of them early , cant beat cobalt sulphate we make dose ourselves bit cheaper , sigh lacking in cobalt dry and scaly ears
How often do you drench them with the cobalt sulphate solution?
@@sheepschool365 people might think I'm mad but every 3 weeks lambs I think it's worth it see the trive afterwards
Lamb looks like yellowsis with he ears. Something to do with eating a certain weed and sunlight
I had a few lambs last year that ears and face swelled up. Maybe the start of it..
@@sheepschool365 the weed is something like yellow bog wort I believe
St John's wort is the name of the weed, can give lambs a nasty doing
I dont creep feed meal to lambs for 1 simple reason, i dont have sheep🙂
That's as good a reason as any 😁
Cobalt issue with flakey ears
Thanks Cormac. What do you find is the best solution?
I know people say do the worm dose and drench together ,I’ve been advised by a very good uk vet to keep separate as a lamb with a high worm challenge will pass a lot of dung and losses a lot of the mineral and I tend to agree .
Creep here wean all terminal singles and wean as early as I can with twins have on creep month before weaning then just wean and continue creeping kill lambs form end of May on all lambs born in March