Author Topic: Worming lambs (Read 2776 times)

Bionic · « **on:** July 17, 2014, 09:35:10 am »

I am about to worm my lambs, before weaning, and know that worming should be done on 'dirty' land. How long should I leave it before they go onto fresh pasture and how long should I leave the previous land unused?
I try to use wormers as little as possible so anything I can do to preserve what land I have is good.

Foobar · « **Reply #1 on:** July 17, 2014, 09:39:56 am »

Put them back on dirty pasture for 48 hours. That should be long enough for them to poo out what they need to poo out, and for them to pick up a small amount of worms back up off the pasture.
If you can leave land for 6 weeks that would be ideal, but it depends on what you have available, and how quickly the grass is growing. And it depends on how short you graze the grass - the parasites live at the bottom few centimetres of the grass, like around 2cm (eblex probably have a document on this!), so as long as you don't graze it too hard you can get away with fewer weeks. I think I'm on a 3-4 week rotation at the moment, but as the grass is growing fast they never get it right down to the risk areas.

Bionic · « **Reply #2 on:** July 17, 2014, 09:48:13 am »

Thanks foobar, that was really interesting reading. I am going to look at eblex also.

Porterlauren · « **Reply #3 on:** July 17, 2014, 08:08:53 pm »

Sometimes worth leaving the strongest 10% unwormed.

Backinwellies · « **Reply #4 on:** July 17, 2014, 08:20:06 pm »

Do they really need worming at all? (info from last FC meeting I went to) I just wormed a couple that looked less well grown than others ... all others growing well.

twizzel · « **Reply #5 on:** July 19, 2014, 08:18:57 pm »

Also depends how flukey an area you live in- we routinely worm our lambs in May which seems to clear up any dirty back ends but more importantly sorts out liver fluke as we are in a flukey area and OH's mum sent a couple of lambs off a few years ago whose livers were condemned due to fluke... so better to be safe than sorry.

Hellybee · « **Reply #6 on:** July 20, 2014, 09:52:08 am »

We wormed at shearing and I shall do them again september, they all get done in one go, clean or not, young animals are great harbours for parasites..