Recording Hill Ewes

Magik22

Member
I’d like to start recording more with my hill ewes at lambing and I’m trying to work out the best method. They lamb outside with no feed and all very hands off unless absolutely necessary. I mark any problems as culls but what I’d like to try and do is work out which ewes are rearing the poorest lambs at weaning. The tricky part is they’re wild Welsh ewes and really don’t like interference, which makes things interesting! I’m also a complete novice with any EID readers/software so any advice in this department would also be great! Thanks
 

johnrob96

Member
Livestock Farmer
sounds like youd have to lamb inside if you want to record birth weights etc if not just leave them to it youll cause more problems interfering with them
 

yellowbelly

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
N.Lincs
I’d like to start recording more with my hill ewes at lambing and I’m trying to work out the best method. They lamb outside with no feed and all very hands off unless absolutely necessary. I mark any problems as culls but what I’d like to try and do is work out which ewes are rearing the poorest lambs at weaning. The tricky part is they’re wild Welsh ewes and really don’t like interference, which makes things interesting! I’m also a complete novice with any EID readers/software so any advice in this department would also be great! Thanks
You'll have to tag lambs at birth and be able to link them to their mother - not easy if your ewes are 'wild'.

We only have a few hill ewes (lambing outside) and as it's hard to get near enough to read tags with a stick reader, I spray a number on them (that's readable from a distance) and link it to their tag, a couple of weeks before lambing.

We don't have any fancy software, everything is recorded on a Truetest XR3000 and then from there to a spreadsheet on a laptop.
A simple indicator of your best ewes are the ones that wean the biggest weight of lambs.

Here's a screenshot of part of a group of lambs that were weaned this week. It's not a hill group but it shows the same thing.
Screenshot (54).png

I think if you 'click' on it you'll be able to read it.

Once you've got the data from the XR3000 onto a spreadsheet, you can 'sort it' with the laptop so that siblings are next to each other. You then need to combine sibling weights to get a total for each ewe (yellow column).
It's also important to sort lambs by different tups as you can't fairly compare the performance of ewes who have lambs by different sires.

It's not rocket science but it's the simple method I use.
 
We record our Welsh Mountain ewes who all lamb outside unassisted. Only way its practical is to DNA test ewes and lambs and do fetal ageing at scanning. This way you don't have to interact with the ewes at all during lambing and only need to start recording when they'r in for their 8 week weights which tends to be easier as its just a case of gathering and bringning into pens. Many people have suggested spray marking lambs when born as to be abkle to tell what week it was born but if your welsh ewes are anything like ours you'll create a hell of a mess.
 

DanM

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Country
We record our Welsh Mountain ewes who all lamb outside unassisted. Only way its practical is to DNA test ewes and lambs and do fetal ageing at scanning. This way you don't have to interact with the ewes at all during lambing and only need to start recording when they'r in for their 8 week weights which tends to be easier as its just a case of gathering and bringning into pens. Many people have suggested spray marking lambs when born as to be abkle to tell what week it was born but if your welsh ewes are anything like ours you'll create a hell of a mess.

Which company do you use to dna test the ewes and lambs?
 
One solution I have seen to this is a system where, once the lambs have been EID tagged at marking, a panel reader is set up at a gateway or water trough. I can't remember the details of the software but after a few times with a ewe getting scanned at the same time as a lamb/lambs, they will be linked. The system featured in a presentation at sheep breeders' round table maybe four years ago and I would think the slides will still be online to look at.
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
You'll have to tag lambs at birth and be able to link them to their mother - not easy if your ewes are 'wild'.

We only have a few hill ewes (lambing outside) and as it's hard to get near enough to read tags with a stick reader, I spray a number on them (that's readable from a distance) and link it to their tag, a couple of weeks before lambing.

We don't have any fancy software, everything is recorded on a Truetest XR3000 and then from there to a spreadsheet on a laptop.
A simple indicator of your best ewes are the ones that wean the biggest weight of lambs.

Here's a screenshot of part of a group of lambs that were weaned this week. It's not a hill group but it shows the same thing.
View attachment 978271
I think if you 'click' on it you'll be able to read it.

Once you've got the data from the XR3000 onto a spreadsheet, you can 'sort it' with the laptop so that siblings are next to each other. You then need to combine sibling weights to get a total for each ewe (yellow column).
It's also important to sort lambs by different tups as you can't fairly compare the performance of ewes who have lambs by different sires.

It's not rocket science but it's the simple method I use.

I think ewe 1756 has a problem with her udder on one side - might be worth a check ;-)
 

yellowbelly

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
N.Lincs
I think ewe 1756 has a problem with her udder on one side - might be worth a check ;-)

I think ewe 1756 has a problem with her udder on one side - might be worth a check ;-)
Looks, from the manual record, like she had one of them 'little and large' sets of twins at birth.....
20210807_221056.jpg

........and a prolapse before lambing too 🙄
 

Magik22

Member
sounds like youd have to lamb inside if you want to record birth weights etc if not just leave them to it youll cause more problems interfering with them
Tried lambing Welsh ewes indoors once and it was a disaster! Square peg round hole comes to mind.
I just record them in my brain ...if they've done no good i cull them .
Impressive skill if you can do it! Sadly my memory isn’t quite up to that
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
Looks, from the manual record, like she had one of them 'little and large' sets of twins at birth.....
View attachment 978436
........and a prolapse before lambing too 🙄

My Mrs has some fancy “conditional formatting” on her spreadsheet to identify significant difference in twins, as a way to check for udder problems. Just not sure where to set the trigger level but think it’s probably 8-10kg as a first guess.
 
My Mrs has some fancy “conditional formatting” on her spreadsheet to identify significant difference in twins, as a way to check for udder problems. Just not sure where to set the trigger level but think it’s probably 8-10kg as a first guess.
A scribbled note in the lambing book did that job for me yesterday, dead twin at 72 hours. Right enough a dodgy side on its mother when going through the ewes. Bye bye missus!
 

hoyboy

Member
Daft idea here - what about running about with a paintball gun to mark the ewes with poor lambs when they're out in field / hill. Then take them in, shed out painted ewes and ear notch, black tag or whatever. I'd like to see if this would work, might be difficult to burst a paintball on a ewe unless you get it on the head though.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

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

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


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

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top