[jaykay]

Now I'm worrying and wondering if I ought to have Orajet or something similar in stock and be using it?

Is it the weather that's making the problem worse this year, or what? I've got another couple of weeks before I start.

[SallyintNorth]

jaykay, with your numbers and type of sheep I wouldn't rush out for Orajet.  But maybe get some lime in stock, and if the weather is moist and sufficiently bad for you to be needing to keep families in for longer than normal, do a more thorough clean out between occupants, and a sprinkle of lime before re-bedding.

Another factor we had in our bad year was that there was water running between the pens, taking infection with it, so we changed the water buckets to less tippy ones and kept a much better eye on that thereafter.  And made sure any wet pens got cleaned out and dried up quickly before fluids spread about.  I did buy a product that soaks up more water than straw (it's sold for stabled horses) to use under the straw but I don't think that made much of a difference really.

With an earth floor, seeping groundwater could be an issue too.  We get this in our earth-floored stables.  Wood shavings or (dust-extracted) sawdust can help contain that somewhat.

[Blacksheep]

We used to have oxytetracycline tablets from the vet to give to multiples or any lambs slow to suck, the tablets were only about 10p each and the vet would dispense small numbers so you could maybe ask about these if you want to have something to give just incase, worth having for a few pence.  When we started with sheep and lambing we were told that we would need to give a tablet to every newborn lamb.
We now keep spectam in instead, however having said that we only occasionally use it on newborns, we have found that if you make sure that the lambs have colostrum soon after birth then they are fine, we generally tube feed colostrum (needs to be freshly milked or stored frozen rather than the formula) if lambs are being slow to suckle initially, so at least we know that they have definitely had a good drink. We do use it if occasionally a young lamb develops any scour later on.
We lamb over 6 weeks or so and the pens will be reused, we don't muck out except to remove anything on the surface such as afterbirth as I think full muck out of the pens would cause more contamination spread in the barns with potential for debris to be dropped. We do sprinkle hydrated lime liberally in the pens and add plenty of fresh straw. Have probably only used spectam on a handful of lambs out of 100 born this year, the lambs have remained in the mothering pens for 2 to 3 days generally and then gone into small groups inside.

[Marches Farmer]

Normally we stick to the clean bedding in the birthing/mothering up pen and putting the lambs outside as soon as possible.  This year, though, the ewes came inside for a month over the worst of the weather and I know the sheds won't be as clean as I'd like, so Spectam will be the order of the day.  We leave our hurdles out through the summer to be cleaned off by sun and rain, and the shed drinkers are drained and cleaned out unless they're needed for calf-rearing.

[Hellybee]

we ve almost finished here we at 120% at the mo, have had no watery mouth (used on advice Orojet) as a routine birth measure when iodined.  We would rather AB everything with that couple of pence squirt  than see them go down hill, like farm vet says, why get them that far and see them fall at that last hurdle?

i can speak for both of us and say its a cert for our lambing kit from now on. 

i d be more worried about pneumonia with housing and pens.   some times this season we have run out of daylight as theres been so much to go through some ewes take that extra bit of penned time,  keep as much air going into sheds as possible, lime between, we also been told to use darker less shiny straw as far more absorbant for bedding.  we never ever use owt but iodine for cords, as nature intended.