Growing Lambs

There was a very useful ADAS meeting last week at the Stretton Hall Hotel concerning the management of growing lambs and how to do it more profitably. I know that several of you were there and most people in the room picked up something to help with the management of their growing lambs. Everybody would admit that it is not always possible to do things exactly to a plan, but often it is better to have a plan in your head and see if you can get it to work. It was pointed out that with the high cost of creep feed the average cost of the concentrate for the lambs to put on one kilo in weight is £1. Unless you can be sure of getting a good market price for your early finishing lambs you may not see an adequate return for this investment.

Pasture Management

Grass will always be the cheapest feed for growing lambs. Ideally they should be on a pasture that is 6 cm in length and increasing in height rather than a heavily stocked pasture where the grass is decreasing in height. There are certain strains of rye grass that are rich in sugars and it has been shown that growth rates will increase by 20% if you can get the grass and the lambs to the right stage of growth at the same time.

Weaning

It has been found that the best time to wean lambs is at twelve weeks of age. They suffer a setback if they are left on the ewes for sixteen weeks or more. This is because from twelve weeks of age the rumen of the lamb is fully developed and they can no longer digest milk properly. Late weaning also has implications for the ewe and mean that they are more likely to suffer physical trauma to the udder and develop mastitis. All lambs have a setback at weaning. It is better if the ewes are moved onto a new field out of hearing range. After a few days once the lambs have settled they can be moved onto a fresh pasture. All of the time the aim must be to keep them moving onto growing pastures and not to worry too much about what the ewes are getting.

Vaccinating the Flock

From the health point of view common errors were brought to light. It is difficult to keep sheep and get them to work well for you without vaccinating them against the clostridial diseases. Many animals never have the proper primary course of two injections four to six weeks apart and are never fully vaccinated for the whole of their lives. Do not forget the yearlings, even if you do not get losses in this age group, and many people do, do not forget their annual boosters or they will need to have a full course again before they move into the breeding flock.

Room for Flexibility

Some flocks do not get problems with pasturella. If you are not seeing sudden deaths in older lambs after they move onto new pastures and you do not have to treat any for pneumonia you might get away with using the Heptavac vaccine rather than the Heptavac P which is more expensive. It would be wise to have some postmortems done first to confirm that sudden deaths are not related to pasturella before you make the switch. Saving just one lamb by vaccination will pay for a great deal of vaccine for the rest of the flock.

Managing Coccidiosis

The thought is that using a preventative in feed additive in the ration for the ewes to reduce the coccidiosis burden is less efficient than drenching the lambs at three and six weeks. This is because the parasite is still there and it will ultimately build up in the later born lambs whether the ewes have been on the preventative treatments or not. Brought in breeding replacements are expensive. An extra investment can go a long way to keep difficult diseases out of the rest of the flock. There is concern about introducing resistant round worms so replacements should go into isolation, have a dectomax injection to help against scab and worms as well as a levamisole drench. This combination is likely to eliminate most round worms including the ones that have a tendency to develop resistance.

Preventing Foot Rot

Ewes should pass through a 3% formalin footbath on arrival and again after three to four days. If you have enzootic abortion in your flock they should be vaccinated against this at least four weeks before they meet the tups. The Toxoplasma vaccine has been difficult to get again this year. The replacements should be kept in isolation for at least two weeks before they join the rest of the flock. If you really want to keep the disease status of your flock at a high level try not to buy in any animals that have ever lambed on another farm.

Sustainable Worming

It was also pointed out that most farms could save a considerable amount if they only used worm drenches when they have a worm problem. This applies particularly to ewes in the summer as these are the ones that are likely to develop a resistance. Samples are needed from eight animals, these are mixed together and analyzed as they give a snapshot of the level of infestation in the rest of the flock. Worms are not the only cause of scouring in sheep. They will often be loose when the grass is growing quickly especially if you are using artificial fertilizer. The idea is to hold back on the worming until the worm burden starts to rise as it is a great deal cheaper to monitor pooled samples than drench the whole flock.

Helping Dry Cows

Orbeseal the teat sealant for dairy cows has now been re licensed so that it can be used for cows that have high cell counts or sub clinical mastitis. It has been shown to be beneficial for high cell count cows if it is used to seal the end of the teat after a dry cow tube has been used. Many farmers have been using it in this way for some time as it stops the loss of the antibiotic in high yielding cows that are dried off abruptly.

Housing Calves

Most cattle have done well this summer and it is always unfortunate that many of the younger animals will develop pneumonia soon after they are housed for the winter. Many of you are well aware of the benefits of the pneumonia vaccines, but there is a tendency to wait until the calves are first housed before the first dose is given. You will know that the cattle are not fully protected until at least a week after the second injection. If you have decent handling facilities it should not be too difficult to run them through the crush and get them fully vaccinated before they are finally housed for the winter. Also it is better to wean the calves at grass before they are housed as the stress of weaning is often the trigger that starts a pneumonia outbreak.

Winter Worming

Many of the pour on wormers have a persistent action so treating cattle now will cover them for the whole of the winter against round worms and will stop a low grade lungworm and louse infection developing.

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