The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Sprig on May 13, 2020, 10:35:54 am
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What % of ewes would you expect to be empty on average? We had between 20-25% empty (whole flock was shearling ewes). 2 different flocks put to different rams. It seemed high to me. Thanks
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If split between the 2 flocks I'd get the vet to blood test for toxo/enzo and see what the results are and go from there.
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Seems very high under 10% ok under 5% better but 2 or 3 out of 10 is understandable but 25 out of 100 is very bad . Since you used 2 rams and both flocks were the same then it suggests ewe problems
so as twizzel says get the vet out to blood test the empty sheep as a first step . Were you trying to lamb earlier and were they in good condition before the tups went out ? what breed ?
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This may seem obvious, but how long (i.e. how many cycles) were the tups in for Sprig?
We had two out of twelve empty this year, but I'm happy to take that because we used sponges and only put the tup in for four days, to ensure a tight lambing.
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On two different commercial upland farms with 520+ ewes and 240+ ewes we used to get 93-95% in the first cycle, and anything less than 90% to first cycle would definitely indicate a problem.
Now I have far fewer sheep, and until this year have always had 100% and all almost always within 19 days.
This year I'm 4/7. The 3 barrens all went to the one tup; the 4 that lambed all went to the other tup. We only left the tups in for 21 days. The ewes were combined and managed as a group after tupping, so it's almost certainly the one tup in my case. (The only other possibility I can think of is some upset in that group a day or two before we took the tups out, causing all 3 to lose their tiny embryos. But these are all experienced ewes and we aren't aware of an incident, so I think that's very unlikely.)
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Thanks all. I will have a chat with my vet. One flock was ours which was split in 2, one of our rams with each half and then combined and rams left in, so would have expected late ones to be swept up. Another flock we bought in just before they lambed. None of the flocks were scanned so we don't know if they were ever pregnant apart from one we saw aborting.
The plan was to reduce stock significantly before next winter anyway so we will definitely get rid of those that were empty but I wanted to put a plan in place so hopefully we have less empty next year.
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Hang on - one you saw aborting?
What stage of pregnancy was she at, and did you find the cause?