A great Sunday morning job

Diary

Posted: Monday 18 April, 2011

by Rosemary at 12:41pm in Sheep 2 comments Comments closed

The new grass has given our ewes the squits. Ryelands are very wooly sheep and consequently, the ewes bums were a bit messy. With the warm weather, we were getting concerned about fly strike, so yesterday morning, we had them all in to dag them and spray with "Crovect".

Dagging is the process of removing the wool from around the rear end of sheep. It's often done at this time of year to remove shitty wool that might attract flies, leading to fly strike. Some folk also do it as part of their preparation for tupping, presumably to make life a bit easier for the tup.

It can be a pretty mucky job - tip from yesterday - Keep your mouth shut! I dagged some of them after lambing but I didn't take off enough wool. This time, I think I've done a better job. After dagging, each ewe had her feet trimmed if she needed it. This was really difficult as the dry weather has made their feet incredibly hard and any soil in the cleats is baked in.

After the pedicure, it was a spray of "Crovect", which kills lice, ticks and flies, then off back out with the lambs All the lambs were lifted out of the catching pens, which the ewes weren't too keen on, but the lambs curled up and went to sleep in the sun.

Next job will be Heptavac P Plus for the lambs, then shearing.