first lambs 08

[juliepoudrier]

My neighbors use the paint system, and it's probably the absolutely easiest way to tell at a glance and at a distance which lambs belong with which ewe. The problem that they have is finding a paint color that's easy to read, since the lambs are generally light to dark red and the ewes of course have white wool, so what shows up well on one doesn't always show up as well on the other. They do a real simple numbering system: first ewe to lamb and her lambs all get the number 1 painted on them, the second gets 2, and so on. If you have a uniformly colored flock paint color wouldn't be an issue, and I still think it's probably the best "at-a-glance" system there is. I just keep written records of the lamb tag numbers matched to the ewe tag number and hope the ewes keep their lambs straight (then again, my breed may twin at best, so I certainly don't have to worry about higher multiples getting lost in the shuffle....).

 

J.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

In the days when I had dozens of sheep I did the "1" "2" system but ewes with singles I used red paint and ewes with twins I used blue. Ewes with trips were "That ewe with the red painted triplets." Never have that many since I've never really selected for multiples over two.

 

Now my flock is small enough that I can pretty much ken them all.

[Lenajo]

as soon as they are dry - lamb and ewe get a matching paint number.

 

The color of that number: - red -twins blue - trips green -single - helps me know how many lambs I'm looking for at a glance if needed. I don't have to stoop and stare trying to see tag numbers.

 

When I do get them in to tag the color of the tag and what ear it's in says ram/ewe. Ear notches go for the same, plus if they were single/twin/trip/quad.

 

I want everything set up so that later I can tell from above the sheep at the chute what sex, what birth #. The tags back it up, but we know how good tags are for staying in

 

If I was running a purebred flock I'd use those metal tags that stay in so much better, plus tattoo to back up pedigree info.

 

Adult tag color indicates what year the ewe was born.

 

Once you get a system going it's really easy.

[Patty Abel]

Thanks for the ideas. I have had the trips and last set of twins in jugs for a day or so now. There is one of the trips that has the hardest time. I put a blue dot on the trips, but everyone is sniffing them and now a bunch have a bit of blue. The mom's are pretty bonded, but not the best mothers. They fight being tied up till I think they will have a heart attack.

Everybody is outside right now.

I wish I had paidmore attention Thursday evening...there is a ewe in the bunch and four of the five are identical. I think they are all with the correct mom, but every ewe has a fave so one is more pitiful. Hate to do it, but I am suplimenting with milk replacer to keep them going and encouraging early foraging.

 

The camping out was an interesting activity....my sheep nursery pasture is less that 100 ft from I-81. A little hard to hear lambs baahing. I know what time my sheep go to bed though, 3am. Better hurry before this crashes.

[1sheepdoggal]

Geeze, you've not got sheep! You've got night owls! Mine generally bed down about the time the sun starts to set good,and they are still laying down when I come out in the morning! I must have lazy sheep.

[Bill Fosher]

Hi Patty,

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles. How large is the pasture and how many ewes are on it? Are you providing any hay or grain? How much grass do you have?

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I keep my window open in the spring and the nursery pasture is the one directly across from it. Since I have a belled ewe, I can tell that they move around a little at night (visiting water and minerals) but not much. The lambs don't seem to move at all overnight.

 

When a ewe lambs (all mine lamb first thing in the morning for some reason), she picks her spot the night before and then won't move from it unless I make her, for a day or so. I don't move lambs unless it's very bad weather coming, extremely cold (well, not extreme by northern standards, just sub freezing) or pouring down rain/sleet/whatever.

 

I ear notch a ewe that has any trouble the first time, then the next time if there's trouble, she's gone. the exceptions are completely rejecting lambs, not having enough milk, having serious lambing trouble requiring assistance, and being a bad mother (fat ewe/skinny lamb, not caring for lambs sufficiently). These offenses are one-time-you're-out deals.

[Patty Abel]

Finally a minute...yes the pasture is about an acre. Very lush grass. Home grown hay and two scoops(2lbs) of grain per nursing ewe per day. I've probably messed with them too much this year to call it pasture lambing. There was a lamb born this morning, I'm staying out of it until after church, see if there is better bonding and if she has another baby. Last year her lambs(first timer) were stillborn but BIG. So I know she can deliver. So far so good. Again, going to post this quick while computer is on, usually about 5 mins!

[Patty Abel]

Here are the two pitiful babes.

 

 

[Patty Abel]

Geeze, you've not got sheep! You've got night owls! Mine generally bed down about the time the sun starts to set good,and they are still laying down when I come out in the morning! I must have lazy sheep.

 

Yes, my sheep are active late into the night. They sleep in until 7ish, but then find a shady place and nap in the afternoon. That is one reason I wanted to try lambing on pasture...when I put them up at night they would miss grazing time. Last year they sure got used to warmed water, grain and hay brought to individual jugs. They didn't want to give up their spot to the next baby and mom. The weather was so bad that they were in the barn for three weeks or more. My barnyard is a mud hole and I don't even let them in that corral anymore.

[Bill Fosher]

An acre is enough room for about six ewes in a set-stocked pasture environment, and feeding anything supplemental would be a strict no-no. When you feed, the ewes bunch up and lambs get mismothered in the kerfuffle. The grass under those lambs would be more than adequate for early lactation if your ewes are in decent condition at the start of lambing. The low stocking rate is to allow them to spread out and find their own space to lamb, and also to ensure that they don't get ahead of the grass early in the season. Once they're done lambing, you can start rotational grazing. Or if you have the set up and space you could drift lamb, leaving the dropped ewes and lambs behind every day.

 

The main thing is to try very hard not to bunch the ewes and lambs up for any reason.

[Patty Abel]

Sunday pm update. Found an experienced home for the triplet and the small ewe lamb. Two less things to worry about. Lamb born this morning is huge. The mom is not an eager mother which really stinks! I have never had a problem with the remaining ewes.

You know, they all come running to the grain and hay, but the lambs that they plan on mothering don't get mixed up. Each one calls to their own lambs. I have one girl that is a super mom two years now. The mom of the triplets less one is a very adequate mother, better than last year.

I never thought about the need for them to have "space", good point.

On a good note...the well fed lambs are very well adjusted,nibbling grass and playing lambie games!

The week old lamb that had mothering difficulties is holding his own. Follows his mom around and she calls to him, but he snatches food where he can.

[Patty Abel]

Monday morning another set of twins. Jugged them. Jugged the single and her mom too. That was fun, as she wouldn't even follow when I took the lamb. She tried to snag one of the new twins. We played the "look over here, he's not going to grab you" game and finally we danced her into the barn. . I was taking no more chances on skinny babies and they are in the barn for three days. The mom of the single will nurse the week old cast off in the barn. This is good news, he had lost weight since yesterday. It is very hard to handle these sheep unless you can get one of their favorite babies. I can't use my silly dog on them.

Thoughts on my experiment(when 10 min of chores turned into 2 hrs of chores)? Marginal mothering becomes scary mothering when pasture lambing, however, we haven't suffered any losses yet.(insert finger's crossed icon).

[Patty Abel]

Pictures of lambs playing added to folder

 

 

http://s139.photobucket.com/albums/q288/2i...w%20Lambs%2008/

[Bill Fosher]

Hi Patty,

 

I am still getting the sense that while you're lambing outside, you're not really pasture lambing.

[juliepoudrier]

Bill,

I think Patty wanted to pasture lamb but when it looked like she was going to lose lambs she decided to play it safe and revert back to jugging, etc.

 

Patty,

A good dog will keep that 10-minute job a 10-minute job. I did not pasture lamb this year in the sense that Bill means. If I saw that a ewe was imminent, I brought her on up to the mixing pen and jugged her. But some of the lambs were born out in the pasture. Since my pasture is not the most secure in the world and I didn't have an LGD at the time, I brought all mamas and babies up to the mixing pen--mainly because it was more secure and I just didn't want to lose lambs to predators. Bringing a ewe, esepcially a first-timer, and her lamb(s) up from the back of the pasture was much easier with a well-trained dog to encourage the mama to follow me and the lamb (this was mainly necessary for first timers, but it also helped to keep the rest of the flock from mobbing even the experienced ewes with lambs as we passed through the pasture).

 

J.

[Bill Fosher]

Hi Julie,

 

I don't think that she was ever pasture lambing. I still don't know how many ewes she's got, but it sounds as if she didn't have enough space for them, and was feeding them supplemental grain and hay, both of which will interfere with the mothering-up process even in ewes that have been selected for pasture lambing.

 

In reality it sounds like she is lambing in a drop lot that happens to have grass in it, which is very, very different from pasture lambing. Under those circumstances, it will be the exceptional ewe that can keep her lambs from wandering, ward off grannies, and develop a good bond with her lambs without jugging.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of jugging if the alternative is a pile of dead lambs, but I don't think it's fair to blame pasture lambing for the difficulties in this case. All that said, there will be a difficult adjustment when you move from attended lambing to pasture lambing, and part of starting the process should be a plan for dealing with that transition. In New Zealand, legend has it, they go on vacation for three weeks during lambing, and cull any ewe that doesn't have a living lamb when they get back.

 

I know a couple in Canada who lamb out 1,100 ewes with little or no hired help. They have a great pastures and 20-plus years of selection behind their flock. They wean 1,800 to 2,000 lambs every year. That's the sort of labor savings that can come with a well planned and executed pasture lambing system.

[kelpiegirl]

I think there is something to be said for pasture lambing and thusly, de facto culling out the less than quality mothers. If your needs are numbers, and good vigorous lambs who go on to produce the same, the less you do to achieve that, the better it is.

[kajarrel]

I think there is something to be said for pasture lambing and thusly, de facto culling out the less than quality mothers.

 

But you need to remember, in order to make that determination you need to allow bonding to occur (give them space, don't mess with them, don't move them) and ensure that your other management practices aren't a factor in the "mismothering" (e.g., environmental conditions, selenium deficiency, ewe condition, etc.).

 

Kim

[Patty Abel]

Bill and others,

Yep, rank amatuer here! And I realized the first day that I wasn't going to be able to follow through with the original plan(which was to leave all eight ewes in the 8-10 acre field and let nature take it's course. re: the first post in this thread). So now I guess my plan is just to finish this season with live lambs to market and say goodbye to the old girls.

So to anyone reading to learn anything...this is not a successful attempt at pasture lambing. BTW, chores only took 10 min. this morning and I went back to bed.

[juliepoudrier]

Bill,

Out of curiosity, if Patty's stocking rate was one sheep per acre in a field with plenty of forage, shouldn't she have been okay WRT ewes mothering their lambs? I have a much higher stocking rate here (and since we're recovering, slowly, from an exceptional drought, not exactly lush pasture by any stretch of the imagination), and yet when the ewes lambed out in the pasture (even the first timer who had to fight off the older ewe trying to steal her lamb), they had no trouble secluding themselves or keeping track of their lambs until I saw them and brought them up. Could there be another issue Patty's dealing with, or is it just likely bad mothers?

 

J.

[Bill Fosher]

One ewe to the acre should have been way more than enough space, but eight ewes to the one acre paddock that she described earlier would be really pushing it with unproven ewes. Some real pros could be pushed up that far. Feeding them would have been the main problem, I think. If there's hay out, they will bunch up and compete with one another. A ewe can spend up to two or three days before lambing finding her lambing bed, and having to leave it for feed (or being enticed to out of habit or flock behavior) will break that behavior.

 

My Canadian friends keep the stocking rate at four to the acre; I've found that 6 to 6.5 works best for me -- the grass doesn't get too far ahead of them, but there's still enough room for them to spread out.

 

As it stands, it sounds like she has at least one ewe that could be included in a pasture lambing system, but perhaps the maternal instinct isn't quite strong enough in the others. Hard to say without actually being there.

 

Based on the grass in the picture she posted, I'd say she's lambing about a month too late as well.

[juliepoudrier]

Okay. In her most recent post she said 8 ewes in an 8-10 acre field was the original plan, so I assumed that's where the problems started. I can see where 8 in one acre might be an issue. Thanks.

 

J.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Under those circumstances, it will be the exceptional ewe that can keep her lambs from wandering, ward off grannies, and develop a good bond with her lambs without jugging.

 

I've never jugged except under circumstances described previously (illness of lambs, very severe weather). Sometimes I'll bring up the first couple ewes that lamb because these are often ones that catch on the first cycle and it will be a couple weeks before the next set.

 

We are set stocked in the winter at a rate of eight ewes per acre. We fed hay and grain this year from July until, well, now (still graining, though we are almost ready to begin rotating pasture). I lamb in one pasture then move the newborns to a mothering pasture where the ewes and lambs will stay until weaning.

 

We went from maybe two or three mismothering incidents a year (out of thirty to forty ewes), to none in the last three years, except for one minor granny incident this year. The mother and daughter lambed at the same time, mother slightly behind the daughter, but the daughter always knew the lambs was hers, even days later when Grandma still insisted on feeding hers - and her own.

 

There's hay available in the lots at all times, so there's no real crowding around the feeders. I've got a couple of mamas who prefer to lamb right at the feeder, in fact. At feeding time, the ewes belly up to the bar and the lambs stay back and usually play. It's my time to make sure all the lambs are doing okay - the early morning lambie races usually occur at this time so I've ample opportunity to eyeball for laggers. At about three weeks old the lambs will start seeking the creep feeder when the mamas go for their feed.

 

Ewes who lambed within a couple hours of feeding time usually skip the first feeding. I used to try to bring these ewes some water and feed but I've learned they just aren't interested.

 

Once the ewes have fed, they turn around and find their lambs. It's amusing to watch them holler at their older lambs who are busy in the creep feeder. "Sonneeeee, come and get your breakfast RIGHT NOW! I'm counting to THREE! One! Two! Two and a half!"

 

I've always thought I was pasture lambing, but apparently not. I don't know what I'd call it. I thought the main distinguisher of pasture lambing was lambing in the open rather than in confinement - there's very few places in the US where one could literally pasture lamb [ETA: at the time of year I have to lamb, late winter], and then it would have to be very efficient feeders (hair sheep or shetlands or miniature sheep?). Give my girls enough grass and they'll raise 75 pound twins in six months, but that's not up to commercial standards. Right at this time they need a little boost, and the lambs need a bit of something too - I haven't got perfect forage by any means.

[Patty Abel]

The problem started in the big field when the first ewe began bashing her #2 lamb around Sunday afternoon and I brought them in. The weather played part in my decision as did the wonderful grass in the back field.

I could have messed things up when I banded their tails that first day. Still in the clip dip and strip mode. So, if moving them to a smaller field started it, then the rest of the issues could have hinged on that, compounded by the marginal mothering history of some of the girls and my "gottadosomthingnow" attitude.