Thinking of getting rid of our ewes!

[Martyn]

We run a about 120 pedigree dorsets with plenty of room for expansion, we had aimed for a couple of hundred, we have a contract with dalehead and on paper everything looks good, we have lots of grass from the dairy enterprise and some poorer ground for stale grazing.

Our issues are our losses, we put massive amount of time and energy into the ewes and the flock look really well and scan great with lots of doubles, we lamb now and january. We seam to get hammered by foxes, we are keeping lambs in and turning out at 7/10days but stilling loosing big numbers, about 25% add losses for low level joint ill, watery mouth and bad lambings we are upto 30% losses. Its soal destroying, and cant pay. This is our third rubbish lambing being here, we have had people in with heat detector guns and they have had 8 foxes this month but an still seeing them in day light, also think asonly early lambers around they will travel miles.Any ideas?

 

[Northeastfarmer]

.Any ideas?

a rifle

 

[copse]

We run a about 120 pedigree dorsets with plenty of room for expansion, we had aimed for a couple of hundred, we have a contract with dalehead and on paper everything looks good, we have lots of grass from the dairy enterprise and some poorer ground for stale grazing.

Our issues are our losses, we put massive amount of time and energy into the ewes and the flock look really well and scan great with lots of doubles, we lamb now and january. We seam to get hammered by foxes, we are keeping lambs in and turning out at 7/10days but stilling loosing big numbers, about 25% add losses for low level joint ill, watery mouth and bad lambings we are upto 30% losses. Its soal destroying, and cant pay. This is our third rubbish lambing being here, we have had people in with heat detector guns and they have had 8 foxes this month but an still seeing them in day light, also think asonly early lambers around they will travel miles.Any ideas?

Don’t lamb early

 

[muleman]

Keep going with sheep, keep twice as many then if you loss a few you still have plenty left.

 

[Dave6170]

Foxes are there all year round not just at lambing time, farmers forget this. They should be controlled throughout the year not just at lambing when they are causing a problem

 

[Al R]

I take it your lambing inside? Odd how outdoor lambers get far fewer lambs taken.... mainly due to afterbirth being left around the fields and it’s easy pickings for the foxes and Newcastle supporters.

 

[yellowbelly]

and Newcastle supporters.

Have I missed something

 

[Northeastfarmer]

Have I missed something

Badgers

 

[yellowbelly]

Badgers

It's been a long day

 

[neilo]

We run a about 120 pedigree dorsets with plenty of room for expansion, we had aimed for a couple of hundred, we have a contract with dalehead and on paper everything looks good, we have lots of grass from the dairy enterprise and some poorer ground for stale grazing.

Our issues are our losses, we put massive amount of time and energy into the ewes and the flock look really well and scan great with lots of doubles, we lamb now and january. We seam to get hammered by foxes, we are keeping lambs in and turning out at 7/10days but stilling loosing big numbers, about 25% add losses for low level joint ill, watery mouth and bad lambings we are upto 30% losses. Its soal destroying, and cant pay. This is our third rubbish lambing being here, we have had people in with heat detector guns and they have had 8 foxes this month but an still seeing them in day light, also think asonly early lambers around they will travel miles.Any ideas?

No easy answer t9 the foxes, particularly if you’re the only one locally with young lambs out, at a tim3 when it’s coming colder and the foxes are getting hungry.

Personally, I would question whether 120 (especially if split over two lambing batches) was ever going to be worth the effort. Given the dairy grass, would finishing long keep store lambs/cull ewes be a more profitable option?

 

[gone up the hill]

We run a about 120 pedigree dorsets with plenty of room for expansion, we had aimed for a couple of hundred, we have a contract with dalehead and on paper everything looks good, we have lots of grass from the dairy enterprise and some poorer ground for stale grazing.

Our issues are our losses, we put massive amount of time and energy into the ewes and the flock look really well and scan great with lots of doubles, we lamb now and january. We seam to get hammered by foxes, we are keeping lambs in and turning out at 7/10days but stilling loosing big numbers, about 25% add losses for low level joint ill, watery mouth and bad lambings we are upto 30% losses. Its soal destroying, and cant pay. This is our third rubbish lambing being here, we have had people in with heat detector guns and they have had 8 foxes this month but an still seeing them in day light, also think asonly early lambers around they will travel miles.Any ideas?

Sounds very much that town foxes are being let out somewhere around your farm!

On the joint ill etc issue, we use spectham scour halt for Dec/Jan lambers but the vets are trying to stop us from using it, they say we should just use more straw and clean out/lime each lambing pen between ewes, totally unworkable because many ewes lamb in the main area anyway and come what may in short damp days in Dec/ Jan its impossible to keep the main area/ pens 100% clean regardless how much straw you use and as for cleaning out liming each pen between ewes, fine in theory when your sat in an office but in reality when the weather is bad and you cant turn out and its 2 am in the morning and your knackered no one is going to be cleaning out pens with a pitchfork!

If they stop us using stuff like spectham than it will be game over for lambing indoors in Dec/ Jan and Feb!

 

[DRC]

Sounds very much that town foxes are being let out somewhere around your farm!

On the joint ill etc issue, we use spectham scour halt for Dec/Jan lambers but the vets are trying to stop us from using it, they say we should just use more straw and clean out/lime each lambing pen between ewes, totally unworkable because many ewes lamb in the main area anyway and come what may in short damp days in Dec/ Jan its impossible to keep the main area/ pens 100% clean regardless how much straw you use and as for cleaning out liming each pen between ewes, fine in theory when your sat in an office but in reality when the weather is bad and you cant turn out and its 2 am in the morning and your knackered no one is going to be cleaning out pens with a pitchfork!

If they stop us using stuff like spectham than it will be game over for lambing indoors in Dec/ Jan and Feb!

And there’s you often knocking NZ lamb, whilst running a system that relies on anti biotics and the resistance that causes. Sheep are born to live outdoors if you want the provenance that consumers expect .

 

[gone up the hill]

And there’s you often knocking NZ lamb, whilst running a system that relies on anti biotics and the resistance that causes. Sheep are born to live outdoors if you want the provenance that consumers expect .

Lambs aren't alive long enough to cause resistance in early lambing flocks!

Yes we could lamb outdoors but we don't have the lax welfare rules that NZ does and there is no way that UK consumers would accept in the UK the amount of deadstock that NZ farms get each lambing season when they use tractors and trailers at the end of the lambing season to drive around the fields and pick up the deadstock and when they come back to the farm the trailers are full up!

NZ attitude at lambing is : if they live they live if they die they die!

And anyway I would think a bigger concern is the reliance of arable farmers on using sprays, especially Glypho on crops to harvest them quicker yet being an arable farmer you never seem to worry about that issue..............

 

[Al R]

And there’s you often knocking NZ lamb, whilst running a system that relies on anti biotics and the resistance that causes. Sheep are born to live outdoors if you want the provenance that consumers expect .

It’s a shame I can’t Like/Love/Laugh With the emojis all at the same time...

GUTH, you seriously need to change your system if it’s like that, we manage to clean out between either every other ewe or 48 hours whichever comes quickest, all triplets or single/wet adoptions in the pens. For an area to hold 150 ewes just on the loose housing that they lamb on I like to use a round bale of straw every other day, yes it’s overkill but joint ill/scouring is under 0.5%, the aim is for all lambs to be out within 36 hours maximum regardless of weather and that’s with my March flock.
My jan/feb born terminal & BFL flocks, lambs are only retained for breeding if they’ve been turned out within 36 hours regardless of weather, last year I lost 1/90 lambs outside which was a twin texel which died unexpectedly at 2 weeks old with no illness before...

You need to either toughen up with your sheep/ lamb outdoors or change breed and lamb outdoors.

 

[neilo]

Sounds very much that town foxes are being let out somewhere around your farm!

On the joint ill etc issue, we use spectham scour halt for Dec/Jan lambers but the vets are trying to stop us from using it, they say we should just use more straw and clean out/lime each lambing pen between ewes, totally unworkable because many ewes lamb in the main area anyway and come what may in short damp days in Dec/ Jan its impossible to keep the main area/ pens 100% clean regardless how much straw you use and as for cleaning out liming each pen between ewes, fine in theory when your sat in an office but in reality when the weather is bad and you cant turn out and its 2 am in the morning and your knackered no one is going to be cleaning out pens with a pitchfork!

If they stop us using stuff like spectham than it will be game over for lambing indoors in Dec/ Jan and Feb!

Have a read of my thread on Pruex.

My Pruex trial

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but hadn't got round to it. First, a bit of background..... We lamb our pedigree Charollais ewes in 2 flocks, between a third and a half of them inside in December, the rest inside in March. The December mob (usually 80-100 ewes) stay inside until...

thefarmingforum.co.uk

 

[gone up the hill]

It’s a shame I can’t Like/Love/Laugh With the emojis all at the same time...

GUTH, you seriously need to change your system if it’s like that, we manage to clean out between either every other ewe or 48 hours whichever comes quickest, all triplets or single/wet adoptions in the pens. For an area to hold 150 ewes just on the loose housing that they lamb on I like to use a round bale of straw every other day, yes it’s overkill but joint ill/scouring is under 0.5%, the aim is for all lambs to be out within 36 hours maximum regardless of weather and that’s with my March flock.
My jan/feb born terminal & BFL flocks, lambs are only retained for breeding if they’ve been turned out within 36 hours regardless of weather, last year I lost 1/90 lambs outside which was a twin texel which died unexpectedly at 2 weeks old with no illness before...

You need to either toughen up with your sheep/ lamb outdoors or change breed and lamb outdoors.

Well not everyone is perfect like you!

And one hell of a difference in day lengths/ dampness between Dec/ and March so your example above is worthless because you are not comparing like with like!

 

[Al R]

Well not everyone is perfect like you!

And one hell of a difference in day lengths/ dampness between Dec/ and March so your example above is worthless because you are not comparing like with like!

My January & February flock would be similar and possibly in a wetter climate, certainly more humid/warmer for bugs to duplicate?

 

[gone up the hill]

My January & February flock would be similar and possibly in a wetter climate, certainly more humid/warmer for bugs to duplicate?

Every day gets longer in Feb and we have a much more humid climate here than you which is actually worse for bugs than damp cold weather in the sheds!

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Lambs aren't alive long enough to cause resistance in early lambing flocks!

Yes we could lamb outdoors but we don't have the lax welfare rules that NZ does and there is no way that UK consumers would accept in the UK the amount of deadstock that NZ farms get each lambing season when they use tractors and trailers at the end of the lambing season to drive around the fields and pick up the deadstock and when they come back to the farm the trailers are full up!

NZ attitude at lambing is : if they live they live if they die they die!

And anyway I would think a bigger concern is the reliance of arable farmers on using sprays, especially Glypho on crops to harvest them quicker yet being an arable farmer you never seem to worry about that issue..............

It's not the length of time the lambs are alive that allows AB resistance.

 

[gone up the hill]

Have a read of my thread on Pruex.

My Pruex trial

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but hadn't got round to it. First, a bit of background..... We lamb our pedigree Charollais ewes in 2 flocks, between a third and a half of them inside in December, the rest inside in March. The December mob (usually 80-100 ewes) stay inside until...

thefarmingforum.co.uk

May work if you only have sheep but with cattle in the same air space as ewes I remain to be convinced but never say never.


What is the cost of it per 100 ewes?

And are your sheep sheds enclosed or open fronted?