Sheep Heaven - Ewes News
19 February 2010
Sheep Heaven Costings So Far: Ten sheep $800, 500 Fence battens $600, Fencer $350, Maggo for Fly Strike $60, Wool shears $30
3 March 2010
Lameness. Check feet monthly. Use sharp clippers
Facial Eczema: Give ewes zinc bullet orally for six week protection if warm and humid and spore counts rise. Spore count levels available on RD1.com
Flystrike: Shear in December and apply anti fly strike product three weeks later. Also keep an eye out for dark staining on wool. Look down at skin level as well when checking feet. Struck sheep lie down away from the flock and try to bite irritated area. Clip wool around any affected area, flick off maggots and apply fly product. Gross!
19 March 2010
Costings: ear tags and appllicator $50, raddle for ram harness $10, ram on loan - koha will be given
May 21 2010
The yards are built and officially opened. Using old timber, new gates, and labour the yards cost $1100. They flow well and the sheep come in and out easily.
June 25 2010
Scanning operator Karl Williams arrives with high tech gear to pregnancy test all ewes. The screen looks like spinning plates of porridge but he finds 26 lambs in the 10 ewes. Commercial farmers pay approx 30 cents a sheep for this service. He can scan several thousand in a day. Karl splits his working year between NZ and Denmark.
July 23 2010
Vet visit to talk about pre-lamb equipment. Caroline Hamilton says people need a glucose supplement on hand for any ewes with sleepy sickness and a lamb feeding tube incase newborns don’t get colostrum from mum. They need it within 6 hours. Immunity from the 5 in 1 vaccine given to ewes, comes through the milk, not inutero. Check ewes are moving freely during lamb beat walks, if they’re sitting down they may have sleepy sickness. Check udders of just lambed ewes to see they don’t have mastitis. Don’t leave ewes who’ve lambed before, straining for too long during birth… check after half an hour or so. If she’s in trouble, insert clean, lubricated hand and try to feel what’s happening. Lamb may need gently pushing back up birth canal for head or feet to get untangled.
Ewes needing a help with mothering may need to be confined for 48 hours to fully bond with lambs. Get a crook to help catch lambs. Naval spray new lambs with iodine
Costs: Glucose $30, crook $25, lamb reviver $23, 5 in 1 vaccine – free if you know the vet because you need so little of it.
July 30 2010
Former world record holding shearer Edsel Forde arrives to shear the girls. He uses a cover comb to leave about two weeks’ growth so they don’t get too cold. Pre-lamb shearing is a management technique to help prevent them getting cast when heavily pregnant. It also lets lambs find the udder easily and means ewes can get shorn once more around Christmas time which helps with fly strike, dags etc.
Costs: Call out fee $50, then depending on personal set ups and whether handling systems are in place, can be about $3 a ewe to shear. Wool pack $6.78
Resources
Resources
Episodes
- 1. Meat the Sheep
- 2. Baaad Medicine
- 3. Science of the Lambs
- 4. Makin' Woolly
- 5. New Yards
- 6. How Many of Ewes?
- 7. Baaabies
- 8. Shorn
- 9. Sell the Wool
- 10. Baa Baa Baa
- 11. How Are Ewes?
- 12. Autopsy
- 13. Lamb of the Rings
- 14. Offspring Sale
- 15. Naming the Flock
- 16. Netball Competition
- 17. Off with the wool
Links
Podcast
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