Can farms become sheep sick?

[GoodEgg]

-03-21 06:41 PM
Can farms become Sheep Sick?

Hi all,

Will seriously welcome your thoughts.

We run 200 ewes in Northumberland. The majority are Texel Cross, most are very texel.

We ran a closed flock until two years ago when we had nearly all tup lambs, very strange. It left us short of replacements and given a bit of a lack of prolificacy we decided to buy in some mule ewes to hybridise the flock a little more again.

This as it turns out, was a bit of a disaster, after years of no foot issues, we now have lots of lameness.

On top of that the tups have not returned to fitness post tupping, we have never had an issue with this before. They look awful.

I used to work for Cox Agri/Allflex and we had a product called Farmers Choice Ovine Conditioner, I got a great deal and was able to buy this at Cost price when it was Cox Agri. We used it regularly on farm, it had lots of vitamin K and I wonder if that is why their feet were so fabulous?

Anyway, we swapped to boluses this year (I left the business) on the recommendation of our vet to try and improve prolificacy.

Tups were slow to tup, they have not returned to condition, we have just started lambing and we have MASSIVE lambs and difficult lambings from day one.

There are so many variables here which don't help. But over the last few years our output has been getting gradually worse, less prolificacy, fantastic lambs, but not enough of them. Now with the foot problems and an awful start to lambing we are not happy sheep farmers.

Talking with our scanner, he mentioned he has known farms become sheep sick, essentially having had sheep on them for too long without a break that they just become incredibly hard work, and difficult to get anything right.

Has anyone come across this? Or are we being miserable, bad sheep farmers who are doing a terrible job?

As an FYI the majority of the business is Free Range Hens, the flock has been reduced to 200 ewes for what we can realistically fit in. We are not enjoying ourselves with the sheep this year at all having been sheep farmers all our lives.

Sorry for the thoroughly depressing post ...

 

[Guleesh]

It almost sounds like the 'Farmers choice Ovine Conditioner' has been carrying the flock, effectively masking over problems and making it very difficult for proper selection to take place- If the poorly performing animals are propped up to appear as healthy as the naturally healthy animals, how do you know which ones to breed from?

You have my sympathies, sometimes it all just seems to fall in on itself, I would try and use this hard year as just a selection process, at the very least, make sure to record all ewes that disappoint, I'm sure that out of 200 ewes there will be enough of them that won't let you down.

What kind of ground are you on? are you mostly set-stocked?

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Depends how you farm it, but if its overstocked with nothing but sheep then yes . You either have to cut numbers or get more out of your pasture so pastures can be rested

 

[pgk]

There has to be an underlying issue for the health issues and lack of productivity. Always harder to maintain production in a single species set up. We have seen improvements with rotational grazing and having identified copper issues due to high molybdenum on our land. We do make forage on some of the land and some rented land can have no stock on it for 5.5 months over winter and followed by a single cut always shows low worm counts. Still last year bought in stores performed poorly and on checking records realised we had not boluses them with the usual co/se/I, that ground is low in cobalt and selenium. Not massively so but certainly enough to impact lamb growth. Bloods have helped.

 

[Tim W]

Just a thought but what else did you bring in along with the foot issues?
Did you do any pre buying blood tests?
You could have brought in MV/Fluke/new worm types?

 

[neilo]

I’m not so sure that land gets ‘sheep sick’, as much as it does ‘sheep farmer’ sick. How many sheep farms do you see that are set stocked, then have the sheep running over the whole place all winter with a bit of hay put out? Under that management, pasture quality, and consequently stock performance, will always reduce over time. If you constantly pummel the productive grass species, they won’t survive.
How many dairy farms do you see managed like that?

As for the op’s problems, it sounds like the bought in sheep may have brought in some foot issues with them. The big lambs are down to management and nutrition or, to a lesser degree, to genetics.
If the sheep were performing better when they were drenched with what is presumably just a trace element drench, then it would point to an issue that needs addressing, which perhaps the boluses don’t do satisfactorily.
I’m amazed that any vet would encourage anyone to use boluses without first testing to establish a requirement. Did you test any, and what were the results?

 

[poorsheepfarmer]

Very texely ewes won't help prolificacy

 

[Pistonbroke]

The way lambing has started here,I'm sheep sick

 

[Kevtherev]

Mostly down to management as mentioned.

 

[gwi1890]

Very texely ewes won't help prolificacy

Im not so sure about that, my pedigree texels scanned at 198% 7 years straight of keeping twin and triplets replacements and using twin or triplet born tups, the problem with prolificacy is in tup selection imo if people bought recorded tups with high litter size figures thats half the battle.

 

[GeorgeK]

I think when grazing an arable cover crop the benefits of virgin sheep ground can be seen, they do seem to do well even if the crop isn't terrific

 

[andybk]

Selenium and cobalt is a big problem on many farms manifests its self in all sorts of ways , poor milking and low prolificacy poor lamb vigour , my lambing % has gone from 160% to 200% + in my charollais shearlings this year (natural service 7 out of last 10 to lamb all had triplets ) at the cost of 2 boluses so maybe £2 , you need to blood test a few , resistant worms will also hit productivity . Then you need to look at pH of soil , that effects a lot of grass species and clover , As mentioned above my sheep go on leaps and bounds in winter when i have access to arable and dairy keep , clean grazing with available nutrients ,

 

[Al R]

I’ve always classed land as sheep sick which has had sheep on it for too long and the sheep have stripped most of the cobalt out of the soil, I have severe cobalt problems after 35 years of sheep, bolusing sorts it

 

[neilo]

I think when grazing an arable cover crop the benefits of virgin sheep ground can be seen, they do seem to do well even if the crop isn't terrific

I’m not so sure that’s because it’s virgin sheep ground necessarily, just that you are feeding a diet that is often 20%+CP and 11ME.

They also do well on that same crop grown on fields that have previously had sheep on forever and a day.

 

[icanshootwell]

Cant,t beat keeping sheep in an arable/grass rotation, 3 year grass lays and don,t over stock, especially in the spring with ewes and lambs at foot. Last year my lambs only had 1 white drench and lamb thrive drench normally done at the same time. Over stocking imo contributes to stale looking lambs.

 

[toquark]

Selenium and cobalt is a big problem on many farms manifests its self in all sorts of ways , poor milking and low prolificacy poor lamb vigour , my lambing % has gone from 160% to 200% + in my charollais shearlings this year (natural service 7 out of last 10 to lamb all had triplets ) at the cost of 2 boluses so maybe £2 , you need to blood test a few , resistant worms will also hit productivity . Then you need to look at pH of soil , that effects a lot of grass species and clover , As mentioned above my sheep go on leaps and bounds in winter when i have access to arable and dairy keep , clean grazing with available nutrients ,

I’ve noticed a marked improvement in our ewes coming off winter dairy grazing. Access to decent grass during the lean months makes a hell of a difference to both the sheep and the pasture at home.

 

[neilo]

I’ve always classed land as sheep sick which has had sheep on it for too long and the sheep have stripped most of the cobalt out of the soil, I have severe cobalt problems after 35 years of sheep, bolusing sorts it

I’m not sure the sheep strip Cobalt out, any more than crops & rainfall does.

We have fields here that had been (sublet) arable fields for years when I arrived, and had been ploughed, power harrowed and straw removed for most of that time. Those that have had a full analysis done were low in Cobalt just the same as the grassland was/is.

 

[will6910]

In my experience my land I’m nearly sure off it got sheep sick. Iv had sheep only for 12 years. And only a small amount re seeded in that time. Had same breeding ewes and rams, One year I had sold all dead weight easily and had 12 lambs left by September. The next year same ewes and rams and I ended up with 40 lambs lambs that wouldn’t fatten and sold as stores. The following year or two after that I had to sell 100 lambs as stores as couldn’t fatten them at all. As said all same breeding and health treatments through out. Nothing else changed at all

 

[Anymulewilldo]

In my experience my land I’m nearly sure off it got sheep sick. Iv had sheep only for 12 years. And only a small amount re seeded in that time. Had same breeding ewes and rams, One year I had sold all dead weight easily and had 12 lambs left by September. The next year same ewes and rams and I ended up with 40 lambs lambs that wouldn’t fatten and sold as stores. The following year or two after that I had to sell 100 lambs as stores as couldn’t fatten them at all. As said all same breeding and health treatments through out. Nothing else changed at all

From memory though your land sees a lot of chicken muck, it may be that it’s not your shepherding that’s at fault. The big poultry unit just over the back from me has stopped spreading on their own ground as people stopped wanting the grazing. Loads and loads of lush green grass! But neither sheep or cattle did any use on it! Too much nitrogen I’d always thought.

 

[will6910]

From memory though your land sees a lot of chicken muck, it may be that it’s not your shepherding that’s at fault. The big poultry unit just over the back from me has stopped spreading on their own ground as people stopped wanting the grazing. Loads and loads of lush green grass! But neither sheep or cattle did any use on it! Too much nitrogen I’d always thought.

True it has had hen muck on it. Got to stage it didn’t even grow grass tho to. It was being spread since 2009