Tag Archives: lambs

blog, Sheep basics

Treatment of Sheep and lambs

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Treatment of foot rot

Separate

Separate sheep with foot rot and scald whenever sensible to reduce spread within the flock.

Treat

Inject with one long-acting dose of antibiotic (ensure the right dose, under-dosing delays recovery).

Do not trim the hoof horn, this delays healing.

Mark

Mark affected leg of treated sheep.

Record

Date

Ear tag

Cause of lameness

Recovery

When cured, come sheep to the main flock. Sheep ought to be sound within two – ten days of treatment.

If still lame after fourteen days, check diagnosis is correct and retreat.

Cull
Cull sheep lame with foot-rot and/or scale more than twice a year or not responding to treatment.

blog, Sheep basics

Lambs die?

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Lamb starvation

Lamb starvation, the number one killer of lambs, often is associated with lack of shepherding. Contributing causes are:

  • The lamb doesn’t get started (gets no colostrum). Seventy-five percent of lambs that don’t get colostrum die for one reason or another.
  • The ewe won’t claim the lamb(another solution for this situation)
  • Mastitis.
  • The teat is too big or is too near the ground and the lamb doesn’t find it. Weak ewes that don’t get up enough will also cause this problem.
  • Sore mouth.
  • The ewe can’t feed two lambs (mastitis, too little feed, etc.).
  • Joint injury or illness.
  • Pneumonia, which often is associated with lambs that received no colostrum and thereby lack immune bodies. Sometimes the best solution is to inject 1 ml of antibiotic at few days after birth for multi lambs births.
  • Difficult parturition.
  • A “genetic will to die.” Actually, the majority of lambs die for no apparent reason. A genetically caused lack of vitality may well be the cause. i never understood this , this is just an observation. plenty of sun, feed and exercise seems to be the best remedy.
  • i have found that bottle feeding lambs will survive well but they must have received some colostrum
Sheep basics

Club Lambs

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Some sheep farms concentrate on the assembly and sale of club lambs. Club lambs are “feeder” lambs (ewes or wethers) that youth purchase to develop as market lamb projects to exhibit at county and state fairs, regional and national shows. Market lamb projects are sometimes “terminal,” which means they start with the acquisition of a lamb and finish with the sale of the lamb for slaughter.

While any lamb will be shown as a market lamb category, certain breeds will be a lot of competitive, unless lambs are shown by breed. Significant muscled lambs that end over one hundred twenty five lbs. are typically the most competitive within the show ring and in championship drives. Hampshires, Suffolks, and crosses between these 2 breeds are the foremost common type of club lamb, and the most competitive.

Dorsets,  South-downs, and Shropshire can also build good club lambs. Some shows separate lambs by weight increments, while others separate lambs by breed. Some shows collect carcass data on lambs and award additional prizes to youth participants. In live shows, judges don’t always decide the lambs that can droop the best carcasses.

Some practices typically utilized in the club lamb sector may be distasteful to some people, e.g. lack of forage within the diet, late castration, ultra-short tail docking, and made exercise. The important factor to remember about a club lamb project is that it’s a youth project meant to teach young folks valuable life skills. To put winning (in any respect prices) on top of youth development is sadly missing the purpose.

Sheep basics

Seed Stock

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Many sheep farms concentrate on the production and sale of seed-stock or breeding stock. Breeding stock may include ewes and rams, purebred registered animals and industrial cross-breds. Customers for breeding stock may be other seed-stock producers or business sheep producers.

In areas where there is a large business sheep trade, producers could be in a position to determine demand for commercial rams. One choice for selling rams is to participate in Central Ram Performance Testing Programs. During a ram take a look at, rams are evaluated for various traits as well as growth, feed potency, wool traits, parasite resistance, and breeding soundness. Rams that don’t meet performance standards don’t seem to be allowed to sell. Consignment sales, production sales, and personal treaty sales are different means that of selling breeding stock.

Record keeping is a crucial facet of seedstock production. The National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP) is quantitative genetic evaluation program for little ruminant producers. It calculates EBVs (estimated breeding values) for numerous traits and permits the comparison of sheep from different flocks beneath different feeding and management systems. NSIP knowledge is processed by Australia’s LAMBPLAN. Producers will also do their own on-farm record keeping. There are numerous computer programs out there for this purpose. A spreadsheet can conjointly be used.

Nowadays, it is counseled that breeding rams, especially those sold to other seedstock producers, be blood tested for scrapie genotype. Rams with inclined genotypes (e.g. QQ) should probably not be sold for breeding, if progeny will be kept for breeding. QQ rams will be used to provide club lambs or as terminal sires in business flocks where all lambs will visit slaughter. Scrapie isn’t a genetic disease; but, a private’s genotype determines whether or not it will get scrapie if it’s exposed to the infective agent.

Producers of breeding stock could conjointly wish to enroll their flocks in the Voluntary Scrapie Flock Certification Program (VSFCP). The VSFCP is a monitoring program for scrapie administered by USDA-APHIS. It is a requirement for export.