Poor thriving lambs.

bovine

Member
Location
North
Never used pour on iodine in sheep. They are greasy so might not work.

In cows iodine binds to the skin (ie stains) and acts as a reservoir. The animal needs miniscule amounts of iodine, but it needs them in an ongoing fashion - hence bolus (but maybe drench to start off - unlikely to be needed with iodine). Too much iodine is also bad.
 
What do you advise as a pour on for sheep and how often does it need doing?

I would only use this method if a severe deficiency was identified and needed immediate attention.
Flexidine injection is a very effective long acting treatment, but I don't know if it is licensed in the UK.

Iodine in a spirits solution wiped on the bare skin works as an emergency treatment for sheep with greasy skin.
 
Can't find iodine only bolus, only iodine and selenium.
Selenium levels ok so would you use bolus containing selenium?
If it was iodine plus cobalt i would be happier as extra cobalt would not cause a problem.
How long do you think the potassium iodide drench will last them, if I was to do a further blood test to check how long after drenching? I know it's relatively expensive but would help with decision making in future.
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
Out of interest why are you weighing ewes regularly

In my mind I think as sheep farmers, measuring DLWG (or loss) is as close to the milk-in-the-tank measure that the dairy boys us.

DLWG (or loss) can give a really good idea of how stock are performing on certain ground or rations or times of the year.
Or how much of a impact things like scald or worm burdens have on stock progress.

Lambs have a weight recorded at birth (educated guess) then weighed at weaned and every 2 weeks there after til they are sold, obviously some lambs only get one weighing at weaning as they are finished.

Ewes tend to get weighed alongside other jobs as they are in the clamp anyway.
So bare minimum, weighing at weaning,
Then 8 weeks pre tup, same time as bolusing. (Plus toxovax &heptivac for shearlings)
Then usually again 2-4 weeks pre-tup just to check on progress in the run up to tupping.
Then again 4 weeks pre-lambing (docking, heptivac and bolusing)

It would be good to weigh the ewe's at scanning as well but time is usually against us.
 

bovine

Member
Location
North
Flexidine injection is a very effective long acting treatment, but I don't know if it is licensed in the UK.

It can be imported with a license from the VMD. I've never used it but there is stock in the UK.

How long do you think the potassium iodide drench will last them, if I was to do a further blood test to check how long after drenching? I know it's relatively expensive but would help with decision making in future.

With iodine there is no point checking it has worked - there is so little iodine in the body. Perhaps re-sample a month later and see?
 
HOW?! Because very simply, no one knows. I've looked into this quite extensively for other reasons and there is no good quality work looking at this. Hence it's stated in the SCOPS recommendations not to mix products or anything with wormers.




As I said - I've bled probably thousands of sheep over the years and free access minerals give very variable blood mineral levels - so much that I can't recall a group where they were all adequate. Compare that to the vast majority using correct (targeted) supplementation and checking that has worked as it should. The vast majority of bloods we do are for good farmers working proactively with us and ensuring what we do is working. Death from "incompetent management of nutrition" is exceptionally rare.



There is nothing I enjoy more are farmers challenging and discussing things with me, it is so much more stimulating that trying to explain basic concepts (or simple animal husbandry) to some. I love such conversations - particularly when it forces me to go and do more research. I very rarely use books as a resource these days as you correctly point out, knowledge changes all the time. I spend much more time looking at research and journals. I am prepared to change what I do completely if quality evidence support that.

People like you tend not to be willing to change - you believe your way is the right way and there is no changing you. I used to waste a lot of energy trying to convince people like you that there is a better way, but I came to the conclusion it is a waste of my time. I don't really care if you want to get stuck in your rut - I start to care when you do things that impact the welfare of your animals or miss use medicines (never mind the fact you are strictly breaking the law adding something else to a veterinary medicine). Mixing anything with a wormer is bad practice.

You have to remember that however large your flock is, we have so many more animals under our care and a much broader experience of different systems than any single farmer. It's the advantage of us working in an advisory capacity. As I have (repeatedly) said - free access minerals give highly variable responses on many, many different farms. In terms of mineral supplementation it's better than doing nothing, but only just.




The farms that work with us are generally the better farms. They are the farms willing to learn and do things better, do things differently. I've lost count of the number of farms who we've saved more money on useless supplementation than they spend on their vet bill. I'm far more likely to get people to stop using things than start, with minerals. With targeted supplementation improving lambing percentages, growth rate, reduce losses.

Any sampling (by its nature) has error. I agree with you that testing more animals would give greater confidence in the results we obtain, but it is amazing how consistent the results tend to come out. Occasionally we do go and test more sheep, because the results are not clear. It is a careful balance between having confidence in the results and cost. The worst case is when a farmer selects his 6 worst sheep and brings them in a trailer and then wants to extrapolate the results to the whole flock - we need to be very careful then.

Bloods are a valuable tool. Mixing wormer with anything is bad practice. How often do you do worm egg counts?
The problem starts when you need to supplement macro minerals such as magnesium, you can start tying yourself knots testing and targeting, the bills, labour and handling stresses on stock start piling up. If you try and be too clever chances are you'll miss something. There is still a lot that isn't understood about how animals use minerals and how they interact so if you try and be too controlling based on what you think you know there's a reasonable chance you'll come unstuck. So you might as well just keep things simple.

I'm not surprised you get variable intakes being seen with mineral buckets, it depends how they are used. Any individual sheep in a given reasonable sized field effectively "hefts" itself to quite a small area within that field, I reckon about 40m X 40m if I had to guess, though that's probably breed dependent, therefore if the bucket is placed well away from that area and in a place that the particular animal never needs to visit it will have a certain reluctance to do so and therefore it's intake of minerals with be less, so you would automatically have variable results (I'd say). That is why in my earlier post I stated that against guidelines I place them near to the water troughs on the sheep tracks so that at least every sheep has to walk right past them, and I don't have any mineral deficiency issues affecting health or performance. It is also noticeable that the consumption of magnesium buckets drops off to near nothing when historically the risk of staggers has waned, so I would suggest that in fact there is an element of self medication involved. And in any case it's a lot better than, as in the past, walking around a field picking up magnesium boluses that have been coughed up after going to all the trouble and expense of administering them, when boluses aren't very effective (your clients probably have no idea it's happening). It's also worth noting that you don't get the same argument of patchy intakes against the use of feed buckets, probably depends who's paying for the "research". The fact remains mineral buckets are by far the cheapest option and work very well, judging by the results, if you use some common sense

I'm perfectly open to change, otherwise I wouldn't be posting on here putting up with all the dummy spitting from those that can't stand to hear an alternate view to the current trendy idea (which in practice most don't actually follow but seem to have a need to feel part of a group and a sense of collective moral superiority) and I also read research papers but most are in reality agenda led or manufacturer funded faux science subtly designed to give, or interoperated to give the "right" result to suit the funders agenda. In reality nothing is quite as clear cut as you may want it to be.
 

yellowbelly

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
N.Lincs
The fact remains mineral buckets are by far the cheapest option and work very well,
I would be interested to know who's buckets you use as one of the reasons we switched to bolusing after trying several different makes was the way some of our our sheep "wolfed" them down far too quickly without giving the rest a look in.
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
The problem starts when you need to supplement macro minerals such as magnesium, you can start tying yourself knots testing and targeting, the bills, labour and handling stresses on stock start piling up. If you try and be too clever chances are you'll miss something. There is still a lot that isn't understood about how animals use minerals and how they interact so if you try and be too controlling based on what you think you know there's a reasonable chance you'll come unstuck. So you might as well just keep things simple.

I'm not surprised you get variable intakes being seen with mineral buckets, it depends how they are used. Any individual sheep in a given reasonable sized field effectively "hefts" itself to quite a small area within that field, I reckon about 40m X 40m if I had to guess, though that's probably breed dependent, therefore if the bucket is placed well away from that area and in a place that the particular animal never needs to visit it will have a certain reluctance to do so and therefore it's intake of minerals with be less, so you would automatically have variable results (I'd say). That is why in my earlier post I stated that against guidelines I place them near to the water troughs on the sheep tracks so that at least every sheep has to walk right past them, and I don't have any mineral deficiency issues affecting health or performance. It is also noticeable that the consumption of magnesium buckets drops off to near nothing when historically the risk of staggers has waned, so I would suggest that in fact there is an element of self medication involved. And in any case it's a lot better than, as in the past, walking around a field picking up magnesium boluses that have been coughed up after going to all the trouble and expense of administering them, when boluses aren't very effective (your clients probably have no idea it's happening). It's also worth noting that you don't get the same argument of patchy intakes against the use of feed buckets, probably depends who's paying for the "research". The fact remains mineral buckets are by far the cheapest option and work very well, judging by the results, if you use some common sense

I'm perfectly open to change, otherwise I wouldn't be posting on here putting up with all the dummy spitting from those that can't stand to hear an alternate view to the current trendy idea (which in practice most don't actually follow but seem to have a need to feel part of a group and a sense of collective moral superiority) and I also read research papers but most are in reality agenda led or manufacturer funded faux science subtly designed to give, or interoperated to give the "right" result to suit the funders agenda. In reality nothing is quite as clear cut as you may want it to be.

Prehaps some figures on costs would back your argument up?

As I've said above, we do use mag buckets, approx 1 - 1.5ton a year, over the cattle as well as the sheep. They'd only need them in a fairly tight window in the spring and again in the autumn
Approx £800/ ton for mag buckets


Assuming you are supplementing year round, what is that costing you?

How much do you assume bolusing costs? (Leaving mag out)
 
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I would be interested to know who's buckets you use as one of the reasons we switched to bolusing after trying several different makes was the way some of our our sheep "wolfed" them down far too quickly without giving the rest a look in.
Are you sure they weren't feed buckets? If the ewes are wolfing down a proper mineral bucket I'd say they're short of energy, and in any case never so quick as to not give the others the chance !! :eek: . I use Downland VitMin or Mag extra bucket £98 for ten plus one free! If I recall right! Rockies (type bocks) are probably cheaper still but you need the molasses content for the magnesium
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
There is nothing I enjoy more are farmers challenging and discussing things with me, it is so much more stimulating that trying to explain basic concepts (or simple animal husbandry) to some. I love such conversations - particularly when it forces me to go and do more research. I very rarely use books as a resource these days as you correctly point out, knowledge changes all the time. I spend much more time looking at research and journals. I am prepared to change what I do completely if quality evidence support that.


Did you get a copy of "The Sheep" (nz vet book)?

What did you think of it?
 
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Prehaps some figures on costs would back your argument up?

As I've said above, we do use mag buckets, approx 1 - 1.5ton a year, over the cattle as well as the sheep. They'd only need them in a fairly tight window in the spring and again in the autumn
Approx £800/ ton for mag buckets


Assuming you are supplementing year round, what is that costing you?

How much do you assume bolusing costs? (Leaving mag out)
But if you need the Mag you can't leave it out and if you've a bucket for mag then it should also be supplying all the other mineral requirements, if you bolus as well you're doubling up, which can't be good in any sense.

I'm not supplementing constantly, weaned ewes as now can do without for six weeks for example. And once a batch of sheep have topped up there system consumption goes right down anyway it seems. If the buckets are being consumed too quickly I take it as a shortage of energy ie. they're eating the mineral to get the molasses, or something else is amiss. Also beyond critical periods I'll put the lid on or off for a few days at time to regulate inputs. Total cost as I said earlier is about 60-70p per finished lamb per year including ewes, but I think salt licks would be cheaper still.

The old man used mag boluses 35 years ago and they about £1 each then if I recall right! Though if you observant you could often reuse them the next year!!!
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
But if you need the Mag you can't leave it out and if you've a bucket for mag then it should also be supplying all the other mineral requirements, if you bolus as well you're doubling up, which can't be good in any sense.

I'm not supplementing constantly, weaned ewes as now can do without for six weeks for example. And once a batch of sheep have topped up there system consumption goes right down anyway it seems. If the buckets are being consumed too quickly I take it as a shortage of energy ie. they're eating the mineral to get the molasses, or something else is amiss. Also beyond critical periods I'll put the lid on or off for a few days at time to regulate inputs. Total cost as I said earlier is about 60-70p per finished lamb per year including ewes, but I think salt licks would be cheaper still.

The old man used mag boluses 35 years ago and they about £1 each then if I recall right! Though if you observant you could often reuse them the next year!!!


Sorry I didn't explain that very well, I didn't mean leave mag out completely, I meant don't include a cost of mag bolusing ewes, if you went down the bolus only route, because I can't see how that is effective for mag in sheep.

Yes the mag buckets do contain other minerals (at generally poor levels mind)
Mag buckets are out for maybe a month in the spring and 2-3 weeks autumn, so yes there might be a very small amount of overlap with bolus, but the other 10mths of the year the bolus is doing the sole job.
It's hard to allocate how much of the mag buckets the sheep eat as they are nearly always grazing with cattle.

On the cattle side it's a big risk thou- molassed bucket + badger = the unmentionable


Smartrace bolus is about 70p for a ewe bolus with cobalt iodine and selenium.
 

GTB

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
I would be interested to know who's buckets you use as one of the reasons we switched to bolusing after trying several different makes was the way some of our our sheep "wolfed" them down far too quickly without giving the rest a look in.
I would even go as far as to say that cobalt deficient sheep don't eat any at all because they lose their appetite with extreme deficiency.
 
Sorry I didn't explain that very well, I didn't mean leave mag out completely, I meant don't include a cost of mag bolusing ewes, if you went down the bolus only route, because I can't see how that is effective for mag in sheep.

Yes the mag buckets do contain other minerals (at generally poor levels mind)
Mag buckets are out for maybe a month in the spring and 2-3 weeks autumn, so yes there might be a very small amount of overlap with bolus, but the other 10mths of the year the bolus is doing the sole job.
It's hard to allocate how much of the mag buckets the sheep eat as they are nearly always grazing with cattle.

On the cattle side it's a big risk thou- molassed bucket + badger = the unmentionable


Smartrace bolus is about 70p for a ewe bolus with cobalt iodine and selenium.
No I wasn't including a cost for Mag boluses

So that's £1.40 for the ewe and say 70p for the lambs on Smartrace plus the mag buckets, then maybe some rock salt for sodium and then you're still not sure they're getting enough Manganese or Zinc for example. It sounds an overly complicated method for no benefit.

I'd say if the cows (suckers?) need mag buckets then the sheep will also, so if you're not picking up dead sheep by the trailer load they're probably eating there share.

Remember a mineral supplement should be exactly that, a supplement to make up any shortfall in the diet, not a full daily requirement dose, as they'll always be getting some of their mineral requirement from the grass/silage/roots or whatever so a bolus providing a the full need would be overkill. Also if you wanted to change feeds in the winter for any reason, maybe by feeding brewers grains for example, you can change the mineral supplement to suit whereas if they've had a bolus you're stuffed.
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
No I wasn't including a cost for Mag boluses

So that's £1.40 for the ewe and say 70p for the lambs on Smartrace plus the mag buckets, then maybe some rock salt for sodium and then you're still not sure they're getting enough Manganese or Zinc for example. It sounds an overly complicated method for no benefit.

I'd say if the cows (suckers?) need mag buckets then the sheep will also, so if you're not picking up dead sheep by the trailer load they're probably eating there share.

Remember a mineral supplement should be exactly that, a supplement to make up any shortfall in the diet, not a full daily requirement dose, as they'll always be getting some of their mineral requirement from the grass/silage/roots or whatever so a bolus providing a the full need would be overkill. Also if you wanted to change feeds in the winter for any reason, maybe by feeding brewers grains for example, you can change the mineral supplement to suit whereas if they've had a bolus you're stuffed.

No Smartrace bolus on lambs.

Ewes scanned to singles only one bolus

Indexes of 4 across the farm for manganese.

Sodium and TEs in fert.

Extensive soil and blood testing so we know what to supplement and why.

Apart from the cobalt part of the bolus, I believe the rest of the TEs are not a full daily amount, they are a supplement, anything more would be dangerous so I'm not sure why you think the boluses would be trying to fulfil a full daily allowence?

Quite extensive hill farm including cliff grazing, impractical to use buckets, the ewe's can't take a bucket of minerals to the bottom of the cliffs but they can take a bolus in their belly.
If you just put buckets at the top of the cliffs where there's access then you'd just be discouraging ewes from fully grazing the cliffs.

Agree on the change of feed mid-winter throwing up potential problems.
But we have no access to the sort of feeds you mention.
Most bought in feed is bought early for early order discounts so we know what we'll be feeding.

Disagree on it being a complicated system- I spend a a day or two bolusing stock (while doing other jobs), then that's it for minerals, job done I know each ewe is covered.
I don't need to refill/ replenish buckets, I don't need to move the buckets each time the sheep move, I'm not putting lids on/ taking lids off to regulate intakes.
I know exactly what I'm going to spend before I do it.

Have you tried loose minerals rather than molassed?
I imagine they'd genuinely only take them if actually needed rather than chasing the molasses?
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
No Smartrace bolus on lambs.

Ewes scanned to singles only one bolus

Indexes of 4 across the farm for manganese.

Sodium and TEs in fert.

Extensive soil and blood testing so we know what to supplement and why.

Apart from the cobalt part of the bolus, I believe the rest of the TEs are not a full daily amount, they are a supplement, anything more would be dangerous so I'm not sure why you think the boluses would be trying to fulfil a full daily allowence?

Quite extensive hill farm including cliff grazing, impractical to use buckets, the ewe's can't take a bucket of minerals to the bottom of the cliffs but they can take a bolus in their belly.
If you just put buckets at the top of the cliffs where there's access then you'd just be discouraging ewes from fully grazing the cliffs.

Agree on the change of feed mid-winter throwing up potential problems.
But we have no access to the sort of feeds you mention.
Most bought in feed is bought early for early order discounts so we know what we'll be feeding.

Disagree on it being a complicated system- I spend a a day or two bolusing stock (while doing other jobs), then that's it for minerals, job done I know each ewe is covered.
I don't need to refill/ replenish buckets, I don't need to move the buckets each time the sheep move, I'm not putting lids on/ taking lids off to regulate intakes.
I know exactly what I'm going to spend before I do it.

Have you tried loose minerals rather than molassed?
I imagine they'd genuinely only take them if actually needed rather than chasing the molasses?

I think you've forgotten to allow for the farming PR benefit of using buckets on the cliff top. Imagine the good feeling from Joe Public having free access to a supply if buckets on the beach.(y)
 
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exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
I think you've forgotten to allow for the farming PR benefit of using buckets on the clif top. Imagine to good feeling from Joe Public having free access to a supply if buckets on the beach.(y)

Knowing Joe public...... they'd probably take a dump in it!

Ramblers are dirty buggers! :eek:



Funny enough I'm watching a program called "coast path" & they are walking through our ground, not sure they'd think much of plastic buckets lying around :rolleyes:
Buggers are walking well off the path! :shifty::LOL:
 

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