Hot knife tailing thoughts

I check round after breakfast, after lunch and after tea (you can see where my priorities lie!). I could quite easily drop the afternoon check but I prefer just to have a quick scoot round in the evening, with any outstanding issues sorted before then. As said, I try to get the single cross lambs rung and tailed. But the main work is with tagging up the recorded lambs. It is time consuming. Try to get a few other jobs done while I'm off, having said that.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
You can't observe for stuck lambs and be earning money elsewhere ;)



My vague point was, there does seem to be a lot of people busy doing a hell of a lot of nothing at lambing. I've had the look of fear off people when I say I lamb 600 ewes outside myself - I really don't understand what they do that makes it hard for themselves.


I go round 3-4 times a day. As minimal disturbance as possible and just quietly band the lambs as I go. No stress, no drama.

I could easily do only 2 times a day checking, but that's leaving a lot of lambs to band up before dark and I hate being In the fields as the light goes.
Yep I see it too, I see people with sub 150 worrying far more and doing more hours a day than I do and I’ve got close to 1400?
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
I check round after breakfast, after lunch and after tea (you can see where my priorities lie!). I could quite easily drop the afternoon check but I prefer just to have a quick scoot round in the evening, with any outstanding issues sorted before then. As said, I try to get the single cross lambs rung and tailed. But the main work is with tagging up the recorded lambs. It is time consuming. Try to get a few other jobs done while I'm off, having said that.
Got to be out on the fields when vision gets to 10-15metre’s here or the gulls and ravens will annihilate anything trying to lamb, head stuck, lamb wondering.... it’s always nice when the afternoon check has banded everything, all problems sorted and then the 5pm check is just a quick spin around (y)
 

SteveHants

Member
Livestock Farmer
Yep I see it too, I see people with sub 150 worrying far more and doing more hours a day than I do and I’ve got close to 1400?
Isn't that the "hobby flock" effect?
Got a few sheep, give 'em names and coddle them so much they are commercially pointless.

I never tailed or balled (early wean for the rams and away to a different farm).
I ran two main flocks (possibly to make it interesting for myself) - my GP flock producing replacements and my commercial flock. The GP flock ewes (wasn't interested in rams, because I wasn't breeding them - I bought in rams) were tagged at birth so I knew from whence they'd come. The commercial flock sheep were first touched at the first time I needed to get the flock in (might have been weaning in some years).
It was an evolving process - I'd started off tagging/spraying/dipping navels in the commercial flock.
I found that the less I did, the higher both the survival and growth rate became.
 

DanM

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Country
You can't observe for stuck lambs and be earning money elsewhere ;)



My vague point was, there does seem to be a lot of people busy doing a hell of a lot of nothing at lambing. I've had the look of fear off people when I say I lamb 600 ewes outside myself - I really don't understand what they do that makes it hard for themselves.


I go round 3-4 times a day. As minimal disturbance as possible and just quietly band the lambs as I go. No stress, no drama.

I could easily do only 2 times a day checking, but that's leaving a lot of lambs to band up before dark and I hate being In the fields as the light goes.

Think how many ewes you could lamb single-handed if you weren’t spending all that time banding....
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Think how many ewes you could lamb single-handed if you weren’t spending all that time banding....


My limitations are a lack of land. My system I'm fairy confident I'd cope with lambing 1,000-1,200 ewes


I do think about banding and stopping. But if you sell live it's another excuse buyers can use to screw you. Same goes if you sell stores with entire rams
 

rhuvid

Member
We lamb outside, then when lambing has quietened down. We take Prattley to field, run them in. Bought a chute last spring. Lambs caught, put in chute, Ovivac injection, ear notch, castrate males, Scabivax, Hot iron tail, pitch mark an off they run. Minimal stress. Hot iron works well for us.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Don’t forget that @Al R is in the land where the grass never stops growing and can lamb out earlier than a lot. 5pm might be just before dark in such easy climes......;)
That's why I never drink over lambing. It's hopeless trying to do anything half cut with a belly full of beer sloshing about!

@Woolless i meant time to chill after a big supper, depending on number of triplets to adopt might go down the shed at 9-10 for half an hour but that’s it till morning then. Dead shepherd/dead sheep comes to mind....

@neilo thats what I don’t get about a lot of people in far colder climates than me lambing in January/February/early March having these huge 120 rest days etc and still having to creep all the lambs, my fields get 42 days normally between scanning and ewes back on the fields for lambing and those fields will/could grow with them for the rest of the year finishes a large proportion of the lambs with no creep. If I can’t lamb earlier or see no gains in growth from January born lambs compared to March born lambs then without creep I can’t see how anyone else can? The 120 rest days for paddocks therefore means the ewes are grazing other people’s land at a cost, root crops at a cost or locked in a shed - at a huge cost, reduce numbers per acre and run them outside with little/no bought in feedstuffs used except for exceptional circumstances is the way most of us are heading - not that you need telling Neilo but it’s about time some of the community woke up.....

@rhuvid thats a hell of a lot of treatments to do at once! Must be a team of you just for a few days I take it?
 
@Woolless i meant time to chill after a big supper, depending on number of triplets to adopt might go down the shed at 9-10 for half an hour but that’s it till morning then. Dead shepherd/dead sheep comes to mind....

@neilo thats what I don’t get about a lot of people in far colder climates than me lambing in January/February/early March having these huge 120 rest days etc and still having to creep all the lambs, my fields get 42 days normally between scanning and ewes back on the fields for lambing and those fields will/could grow with them for the rest of the year finishes a large proportion of the lambs with no creep. If I can’t lamb earlier or see no gains in growth from January born lambs compared to March born lambs then without creep I can’t see how anyone else can? The 120 rest days for paddocks therefore means the ewes are grazing other people’s land at a cost, root crops at a cost or locked in a shed - at a huge cost, reduce numbers per acre and run them outside with little/no bought in feedstuffs used except for exceptional circumstances is the way most of us are heading - not that you need telling Neilo but it’s about time some of the community woke up.....

@rhuvid thats a hell of a lot of treatments to do at once! Must be a team of you just for a few days I take it?
If I was to stock my farm on the basis of what I could overwinter on grass only, then in June I would be ridiculously understocked. Grass growth is that much more concentrated up here. The ewes spend Jan, Feb and March on a sacrifice field eating bales. They don't get much cake, though.

My neighbour lambs early and the grass over there appears to be for standing on only. Lambs crept, ewes fed. Set stocked and grass very short all year.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
If I was to stock my farm on the basis of what I could overwinter on grass only, then in June I would be ridiculously understocked. Grass growth is that much more concentrated up here. The ewes spend Jan, Feb and March on a sacrifice field eating bales. They don't get much cake, though.

My neighbour lambs early and the grass over there appears to be for standing on only. Lambs crept, ewes fed. Set stocked and grass very short all year.
We all have some sacrifice fields etc and nothing wrong with that, go by your October/November stocking rate, organic here stocking near 4 ewes/acre. I Plan to move to lighter ewes and stock 5/acre on the same acreage.
the extra grass produced in June/July can be made to haylage which then feeds the ewes in the winter, feeding them 3 weeks before they need it means they’ll not lose condition hopefully so less need for concentrate and they can be set stocked in their lambing fields 2-3 weeks before lambing so minimal stress on the ewes etc etc etc....... no point preaching to anyone on this thread as we all know how are farms/animals work (y)
 

SteveHants

Member
Livestock Farmer
My limitations are a lack of land. My system I'm fairy confident I'd cope with lambing 1,000-1,200 ewes


I do think about banding and stopping. But if you sell live it's another excuse buyers can use to screw you. Same goes if you sell stores with entire rams

Is that from experience?
All mine went live through Salisbury and I never incurred a penalty as far as I'm aware.
 

rhuvid

Member
@rhuvid thats a hell of a lot of treatments to do at once! Must be a team of you just for a few days I take it?
[/QUOTE]


Got my cousin to come an help for 2days. Had gathered the ewes an lambs up ready day before. Got plenty of dog power. Doesn’t take long to do a lot of lambs. An tail any dirty ewes, treat lame etc. We find doing all them jobs in 1 go is lot less stressful for young lambs. When we give 2nd Ovivac, we give 1st wormer an Clik lambs.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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