Lambing outdoors- catching ewe and lambs

[Anymulewilldo]

It’s become a personal challenge of mine to keep the miles off it and the weight off my waist. Under 4000 km in 18 years (although I’ve only had it for the last seven).

I think I’d be in a pine box if I tried putting up all our leccy fencing by hand. Either I’d have a heart attack or my brother would push me under a bus as it passed...

 

[neilo]

Mid winter my Honda TRX will use that a fortnight!

During April here, that won’t last 3 days! Quad rarely stops though, on various jobs.
On the other hand, I can go over a week then without another engine starting.

 

[unlacedgecko]

People ring up “can you come get my sheep in with your dogs? I can’t catch half of them”
I’d go, gather. Got very bored of being given £20/£30 and a look that said they’d done me a favour. The last place I went the teenage son nearly flattened my best dog with his trials bike. I put them back in the motor and came home. Just left the sheep there. If anyone asks now the answer is no. How do I manage my own sheep if my dogs get hurt ars@ing about gathering for other people for a few quid. I don’t think £5k each would replace them. It’s just too much hassle and risk for me.

I won't have people driving in the field if I'm working my dogs. Like you say the risk is too great.

Me and the dogs are £250/day (+VAT). Anything less is not worth the hassle.

 

[unlacedgecko]

Don’t bother with them until weaning, then work them into a bunch and shoot anything that breaks away?

TBF they're well trained to the system. I find sheep are a lot smarter than most people give them credit for.

The ewes rotationally graze and know what it's all about. Don't use a dog to move paddocks, just open a gate/lift a wire and call them.

Ewes and Lambs moving paddocks

youtube.com

But dogs invaluable for catching lames, stuck ewes, hung lambs etc.

 

[garfield89]

Why do you want to get them into pens ?

The field we put them in after lambing is separated by road unfortunely so they all need gathering up. Along with ringing, marking and spraying naval of lambs, I want to see ewes ear tag to record her and lambs down together.

 

[Woolless]

The field we put them in after lambing is separated by road unfortunely so they all need gathering up. Along with ringing, marking and spraying naval of lambs, I want to see ewes ear tag to record her and lambs down together.

In that case, walking the ewe and her lambs as a group is probably your best bet. Flightier singles that you're late to get may need the quad. But as suggested, I would be setting up some funnels into the pens. Do both and your life should be easier.

 

[Hilly]

I run a mixed flock apart from at tupping. Blackies and mules to wake the terminals up and terminals to slow the blackies and mules down. Running all the hoggs together for the first winter helps too, and a daily feed in troughs over snow time means they’re not stressed by humans. The sheep helps, but as @Anymulewilldo said, having the fields arranged to allow flow/ flight back to the right place is the biggest help.

How many ewes do you keep like ?

 

[Highland Mule]

How many ewes do you keep like ?

Low hundreds and a few cattle. It’s got to fit alongside running my business

 

[neilo]

The field we put them in after lambing is separated by road unfortunely so they all need gathering up. Along with ringing, marking and spraying naval of lambs, I want to see ewes ear tag to record her and lambs down together.

What breeding is there in the ewes?

I don’t feed concentrates, so no cupboard love but I could read every single Highlander ewe’s tag with a Psion handheld while I was processing their lambs this year. They would have followed me wherever I’d taken the lambs.

On the same system, in the same fields, there wasn’t a hope in hell of doing that with any one of the Exlana ewes, not one. There wouldn’t have been a hope in hell of getting them into a trailer to move to another paddock, without dogs to catch them, with the extra stress that entailed.

Charollais ewes and their crosses are somewhere in between.

If my system/layout necessitated catching everything up then temperament & maternal abilities would be very high up my list.

 

[puppet]

TBF they're well trained to the system. I find sheep are a lot smarter than most people give them credit for.

The ewes rotationally graze and know what it's all about. Don't use a dog to move paddocks, just open a gate/lift a wire and call .

I find that if you leave a gate a foot open the sheep will be through on their own in 5 minutes.




Open it wide and it takes 3 dogs and 2 quads to shift them.

 

[CopperBeech]

What breeding is there in the ewes?

I don’t feed concentrates, so no cupboard love but I could read every single Highlander ewe’s tag with a Psion handheld while I was processing their lambs this year. They would have followed me wherever I’d taken the lambs.

On the same system, in the same fields, there wasn’t a hope in hell of doing that with any one of the Exlana ewes, not one. There wouldn’t have been a hope in hell of getting them into a trailer to move to another paddock, without dogs to catch them, with the extra stress that entailed.

Charollais ewes and their crosses are somewhere in between.

If my system/layout necessitated catching everything up then temperament & maternal abilities would be very high up my list.

Its really amazing, all of your exlana ewes are flighty and shi*t, terrible mother’s etc etc.

But I’m fairly sure they are of the same breeding as mine, Dan m on here and a few others, and none of us have found any of the issues you have.

I can’t get anywhere near most of my exlana most of the time, but at lambing, they are literally climbing me if I have their lamb in my hand and one of the issues on having now is the min they see a dog near their lambs instead of backing off, they want to kill it and chase it around.

I can load ewes and lambs into trailers no gates etc and this feb, walked a couple hundred ewes abs sets of lambs out of a 100 + acre muddy turnip field with 1200 ewes mobbed into it, through an 8 foot gate, set (or small group of sets) at a time, with the dog, without anything running off or being a prat (other than attacking the dog and being so obsessed with their lambs they won’t walk )

So I’m just really intrigued why you’ve done management wise to end up with the experience you have, or do you just have an amazing eye for selecting really maternally lacking sheep, amongst a very maternal breed.

I’m curious ?

 

[neilo]

Its really amazing, all of your exlana ewes are flighty and shi*t, terrible mother’s etc etc.

But I’m fairly sure they are of the same breeding as mine, Dan m on here and a few others, and none of us have found any of the issues you have.

I can’t get anywhere near most of my exlana most of the time, but at lambing, they are literally climbing me if I have their lamb in my hand and one of the issues on having now is the min they see a dog near their lambs instead of backing off, they want to kill it and chase it around.

I can load ewes and lambs into trailers no gates etc and this feb, walked a couple hundred ewes abs sets of lambs out of a 100 + acre muddy turnip field with 1200 ewes mobbed into it, through an 8 foot gate, set (or small group of sets) at a time, with the dog, without anything running off or being a prat (other than attacking the dog and being so obsessed with their lambs they won’t walk )

So I’m just really intrigued why you’ve done management wise to end up with the experience you have, or do you just have an amazing eye for selecting really maternally lacking sheep, amongst a very maternal breed.

I’m curious ?

I wasn’t particularly knocking the exlanas for that, once they have settled after lambing they seem as maternal as anything else here, but they are certainly ‘highly strung’, like Limousine cattle ime. I was just pointing out that breed makes a difference.

As to your query, I haven’t a clue, but disappointed would be an understatement.
We have seemingly got on top of our (various) trace element problems, with fewer empties, an increased scanning percentage, holding condition better over winter and much reduced lamb mortality. The Exlanas have managed to excel, in a bad way, on all those measures. To the extent that, of the 100 or so females bought in last year, half are now hanging up!
I’m undecided whether to give the remaining ones another chance, or just unload them to a home that’s clearly better suited to them.

 

[exmoor dave]

I wasn’t particularly knocking the exlanas for that, once they have settled after lambing they seem as maternal as anything else here, but they are certainly ‘highly strung’, like Limousine cattle ime. I was just pointing out that breed makes a difference.

As to your query, I haven’t a clue, but disappointed would be an understatement.
We have seemingly got on top of our (various) trace element problems, with fewer empties, an increased scanning percentage, holding condition better over winter and much reduced lamb mortality. The Exlanas have managed to excel, in a bad way, on all those measures. To the extent that, of the 100 or so females bought in last year, half are now hanging up!
I’m undecided whether to give the remaining ones another chance, or just unload them to a home that’s clearly better suited to them.

Did half the 100 bought in not get in lamb??
Was that shearings or flock ages?

 

[neilo]

Did half the 100 bought in not get in lamb??
Was that shearings or flock ages?

Shearlings and ewe lambs. Conception rate not great, then several more that fooked off and left lambs to die in the frost/snow.

Probably not the place for this inquest though.

 

[LTH]

You need a stick and look on YouTube best technique to catch them, no good running in trying to hook them you’ll never catch them. Also you usually get one shot then they get wise and takes a lot longer to catch. Best thing to do is walk them to the dyke or fence, stand close to the lambs and hold stick our next to the and as the sheep runs in past hook them with the stick. Black Ritchie ones are best

 

[Bill dog]

Shearlings and ewe lambs. Conception rate not great, then several more that fooked off and left lambs to die in the frost/snow.

Probably not the place for this inquest though.

Sorry to hear that ! It’s never nice when an experiment goes shyte. Hopefully the cull value was decent to cover the hassle.

 

[Norfolk Hill Farmer]

Shearlings and ewe lambs. Conception rate not great, then several more that fooked off and left lambs to die in the frost/snow.

Probably not the place for this inquest though.

Did you do any tests on the ones that didn't conceive ? Could it be a compylobactor issue with nieve stock ?

 

[neilo]

Did you do any tests on the ones that didn't conceive ? Could it be a compylobactor issue with nieve stock ?

vaccinated against campy & Toxo, like all the other young stock, so they would have antibodies to both if tested.

 

[Estate fencing.]

It amazes me people dream of keeping sheep without dogs. They are more important to me than most people, mine would die for me and are my best mates! Had to gather some ewes for shearing once for some people, the idiots couldn’t get them in with 2 quads. Dogs got them in on first attempt, one of mine likes people and went over to the bloke to say hello and he kicked the dog away. Well that was it I saw red, let’s just say the bloke had a bad noise after and the sheep where unshorn!

 

[Anymulewilldo]

It amazes me people dream of keeping sheep without dogs. They are more important to me than most people, mine would die for me and are my best mates! Had to gather some ewes for shearing once for some people, the idiots couldn’t get them in with 2 quads. Dogs got them in on first attempt, one of mine likes people and went over to the bloke to say hello and he kicked the dog away. Well that was it I saw red, let’s just say the bloke had a bad noise after and the sheep where unshorn!

Some folk are just @rseholes and don’t deserve help.