lambing triplets outside

[irish dom]

I have lambed a few but as my flock has grown i generally sold the triplets to ease the workload. I have no sheds as land is all rented and spread out. Sheep are away wintered and put out to lamb on saved paddocks. I try and let them rip away themselves and only intervening when necessary and this usually works out grand
Gonna lamb the triplets this year in a kind sheltered place with plenty of grass and ad lib mollasses after getting pee'd off with being offered shite money for really good ewes.
Basically just wanna find out what dedicated outdoor lambers do with triplets management and feed wise. Will try and foster a few off if i can and maybe sell the excess pets( hate pets).
Discuss

 

[scottish-lleyn]

I put mine on decent grass with harbro vitality buckets. I lift one off of most of mine once its sucked and dry or sooner if i spot a single on lambing on my rounds and just rub on and hope for the best.

 

[neilo]

I run mine with the twins until a day or so before lambing, when I shed them off into a 'better' grass paddock. They don't have anything but forage (roots over winter) up until then, but I wouldn't be afraid to put a feed block or whatever out at that stage, if feed looked tight. They wouldn't touch one otherwise anyway.

I lift one as soon as they've had a suck of colostrum, then moved the remaining twins into the 'twin paddock'. I never leave three on, as I have yet to find a ewe that would rear three properly without a whole lot of extra help, and then likely do half a job of it and bugger themselves up anyway. Some folk claim to manage it OK though.

 

[Woolless]

Last year lambed 30 triplets inside having previously (smaller scale) lambed them out. Give them your best grass and shelter plus a supplement bucket. You won't get them all but you'll get most of them.

 

[Nithsdale]

Same as @scottish-lleyn leave them on ewe until they've sucked and are dry, then in and onto Shepherdess - or another ewe.

Usually always leave the ewe with 2 even sized lambs... and always check each belly before lifting one - if 2 are full and 1 empty, i will lift the empty and give it colostrum.

 

[Tim W]

All ewes and hogs in same field lambing together here
If I was a fat lamb producer and had the facilities to separate the trips I probably would consider it and then maybe foster off the odd lamb ? then again I might not

 

[George from SJM Planning]

I might be the odd one out here but I leave all triplets with ewe unless she rejects them and I offer a supplementary feed to all the family group. Out of three sets of triplets I've only got one lamb who comes to the bottle. There others are all thriving on the ewes and the ewes are not showing difficulty.

 

[jemski]

I always used to and have ewes that will rear triplets well, but often find the ewes bag is compromised, even if it doesn't seem as if it is at weaning. So now everything gets one lifted and fostered.

 

[George from SJM Planning]

I always used to and have ewes that will rear triplets well, but often find the ewes bag is compromised, even if it doesn't seem as if it is at weaning. So now everything gets one lifted and fostered.

I thought this might be the case but two of those with triplets this year have had triplets in the last too.

 

[Tim W]

Interesting this triplet thing and it takes a bit of analysis to get to the bottom of it I think
But here's some data from one of my flocks;

30 ewes that scanned 323% in 2016 reared 263% (this is all the trip/quad scanned ewes in this flock)
Of these 30 ewes 27 went back to the tup (2 x 2009 ewes culled teeth, 1 x 2013 ewe culled lumpy udder & only reared 1 lamb and rejected another)
These 27 now scan at 240% (2 were empty )

Now, I don't really want too many triplets but accept them as a consequence of having lots of twins (always aiming for more twins and less trips )
But when they have trips they seem to be capable of rearing them off good grass alone

These 30 ewes above have an average lifetime scan of 229% and rearing of 190% ...(some were born in 2009 and some in 2014 )

 

[irish dom]

Thats very impressive production on grass alone. The weight of lamb they rear must be phenomenal. I would say some intensive indoor flocks wouldnt manage that with a huge cost for labour feed and facilities.

 

[hally]

Be a brave man to lamb triplets outside with the weather we have had in the last 24hours

 

[Tim W]

Thats very impressive production on grass alone. The weight of lamb they rear must be phenomenal. I would say some intensive indoor flocks wouldnt manage that with a huge cost for labour feed and facilities.

---now I guess I have to try and figure the average wean wt of the lambs

 

[Tim W]

Not as difficult as I thought
8 week wts were 22.52kg
scan (20 week wts) were 38.6kg

This is for my best (genetically) flock and on good grass ---for all flocks the story wouldn't be as good I'm sure

What exact influence triplet rearing has on ewes I don't know....it stands to reason that it is hard on them and that they would be more susceptible to some lambing problems, mastitis and condition loss. I do tend to wean all lambs early if I can , this gives the ewes time to recover and the lambs the best grass

I strongly believe that sheep have the potential to be efficient and simple grass/protein converters but they need to have the right conditions and be allowed to get on with it

 

[irish dom]

Be a brave man to lamb triplets outside with the weather we have had in the last 24hours

Been lambing a neighbours outside. Mine not due for a week. Its been miserable but ewes are in great nick and lambs are strong. Losses have been suprisingly low ( touch wood) I think that weather is harder on the shepherd than the sheep. Sure its all gonna go in a heap now!