Low tech performance recording

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
I’ve got myself some different coloured cable ties, red, blue, green, orange, yellow and purple. I plan to allocate an issue to each colour, try and keep a selection in my pocket and apply to the ear tags of offending sheep over lambing and beyond.

So far I’m thinking:
Red- mastitis/definite cull
Blue- feet
Green- lack of milk/big teats
Yellow- poor maternal instincts/crazy
Orange- lambing issues
Purple- dry before weaning

That sound like a good idea? Any better suggestions? Red would obviously be a definite cull, the others could be culminative, easy way of spotting troublesome sheep. You could double the options by leaving a tail on the tie or cutting it flush.
Hardest part will be keeping them handy.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Red, non breeders for culling only.
Any of the other colours for problem ewes that you don’t want to see again but are to good to cull like the problem ones/crazy ewes, lambing issues.

I use red cull tags, right ear for meat only and left ear for ewes to sell on to someone indoor lambing who wants to pull lambs
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
I’ve got myself some different coloured cable ties, red, blue, green, orange, yellow and purple. I plan to allocate an issue to each colour, try and keep a selection in my pocket and apply to the ear tags of offending sheep over lambing and beyond.

So far I’m thinking:
Red- mastitis/definite cull
Blue- feet
Green- lack of milk/big teats
Yellow- poor maternal instincts/crazy
Orange- lambing issues
Purple- dry before weaning

That sound like a good idea? Any better suggestions? Red would obviously be a definite cull, the others could be culminative, easy way of spotting troublesome sheep. You could double the options by leaving a tail on the tie or cutting it flush.
Hardest part will be keeping them handy.
For those traits I'd make a permanent cull mark with an ear notch, or top off ear off. Won't lose that and always pen knife in your pocket.
But all apart from blue should be permanent cull, the foot issues could be managed out of the flock if your running out of ewes 🙈.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
For those traits I'd make a permanent cull mark with an ear notch, or top off ear off. Won't lose that and always pen knife in your pocket.
But all apart from blue should be permanent cull, the foot issues could be managed out of the flock if your running out of ewes 🙈.

I was going to suggest similar. I always have a sharp knife in my pocket, and the end of an ear never grows back and is easy to see when running down a drafting race.👍

However, I also record the reason for the ear, so that a record is on my system so that I can see if there is a problem with one sire line, etc.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
Run two flocks here, all bred pure NCH at the moment but trying to improve one side and then cross more of the ewes on the other.

I’m quite curious to see how many cable ties some of the ewes could collect in a 5 year stint, think it would be really interesting to see just how likely they are to repeat offend in any category.

Like how likely is a mental gimmer that you lambed before dark because you didn’t want to risk leaving her (so messed with the natural process) to be mental the year after, or will the lamb settle her? You kind of want to retain an element of wildness around these parts!

Is a ewe that has a breech lamb likely to do the same again?
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Run two flocks here, all bred pure NCH at the moment but trying to improve one side and then cross more of the ewes on the other.

I’m quite curious to see how many cable ties some of the ewes could collect in a 5 year stint, think it would be really interesting to see just how likely they are to repeat offend in any category.

Like how likely is a mental gimmer that you lambed before dark because you didn’t want to risk leaving her (so messed with the natural process) to be mental the year after, or will the lamb settle her? You kind of want to retain an element of wildness around these parts!

Is a ewe that has a breech lamb likely to do the same again?
I use nettex septiclense violet as my go to antiseptic spray for all cuts/wounds/feet problems, if a ewe has a jab they get spray on the neck, up the neck for Betamox and across the neck for alamycin. If they need another jab in the 4 week period before that violet spray has disappeared they get a cull tag. If a ewe sits down when moving unless a dog has obviously messed the job up they get a red tag. The first year I went hard culling I culled a lot, now it’s near 1% culled for actual problems including mastitis, prolapse, feet, sitters, lamb killers, TLD etc
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
I was going to suggest similar. I always have a sharp knife in my pocket, and the end of an ear never grows back and is easy to see when running down a drafting race.👍

However, I also record the reason for the ear, so that a record is on my system so that I can see if there is a problem with one sire line, etc.
On a farm I lambed at before the second foot and mouth outbreak. I'd marked culls with an ear notch. They didn't sell the culls as normal that year, due to f&m, and they ended up back in lamb. The following year every one with a notch from the previous year was a problem case🙄.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
I don't think lambing difficulties are that simple. That ewe with a breech wil more than likely be fine next year but when lambs are getting stuck, due to size or pelvis, is it management or breeding?
It’s tricky on the feeding side of things here as the winters are so flipping long and variable, it basically rained from October til March, and feb was a really dirty month, so I fed a bit more, so am getting a few bigger lambs, but I’d rather that than losing the bottom end of them to the elements, everything is a compromise.
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
My take on recording, after recording ewes on a small scale for many years, is it doesn't matter why she's a cull, get rid. You will get bored so focus on what's measurable and going to give you a return. You sell lambs, either stores,fat or as breeders and the biggest sell the best so focus on growth as the more big ones you have the more return you'll get. Don't focus on the negative points, just get rid of them, it'll take 3 years of hard culling to see a difference but by year 5 you'll have a far better flock.
 
Last edited:

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
They’re also cheap, and you don’t need to have a tagger handy, keep a wee pack of them on the bike/in the pickup/tractor even/jacket pocket
Very true! Loop through the tag or through the tag hole though, if the tag has snapped you’d have to use the hole
 
I’ve got myself some different coloured cable ties, red, blue, green, orange, yellow and purple. I plan to allocate an issue to each colour, try and keep a selection in my pocket and apply to the ear tags of offending sheep over lambing and beyond.

So far I’m thinking:
Red- mastitis/definite cull
Blue- feet
Green- lack of milk/big teats
Yellow- poor maternal instincts/crazy
Orange- lambing issues
Purple- dry before weaning

That sound like a good idea? Any better suggestions? Red would obviously be a definite cull, the others could be culminative, easy way of spotting troublesome sheep. You could double the options by leaving a tail on the tie or cutting it flush.
Hardest part will be keeping them handy.
Good plan.

Twin lamb disease, calcium and magnesium deficiency ewes and their lambs go into my cull group aswell.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
Keep quite a lot of replacements here so planning on being able to sell majority ewes cast at 4 crop, but could then use the cable tie system to pick out the best of them that haven’t been an ounce of trouble for their entire lives, keep them another year and try and keep tup lambs off them for use.
 

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