The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: horsemadmummy on April 18, 2012, 08:05:33 am
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We have some commercial 'spare' lambs from a local farmer which we will raise but I wonder how they will get fluke and wormer cover as we would have done their mums post lambing if they were part of our flock. Do we just do them (a bit later) if so at what age?
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Anywhere between 6-9 weeks for fluke/worming and maybe an idea to vaccinate against clostridial diseases as well if you haven't already done so -heptovac p plus is what we use on our lambs, but anything similar should do.
Edit -forgot to ask do you know if they got anything from their mothers at all? Are they orphaned/rejected lambs, or triplets that the farmer couldn't 'twin on?' I'd always worm/fluke treat -best to be on the safe side and no harm done if they did get anything from their mothers.
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as far as I know they are triplets that couldnt be fostered on I thought that I would try and do these little ones and also do my own lambs who are on their mothers and 'jab' them all when we shear the ewes at end of may does that sound about right? only other thing to ask is about blue tongue when should we look at doing that as I understand it has to be done on its own - or am I wrong? thanks again for your post
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Hey no probs.
Suppose it depends how old the lambs are. It they'll be around eight or nine weeks old come the end of May then you should be fine to do it.
Bluetongue - just asked the other half about that, he doesn't think they need done, unless you're in the South East -ish Kent or East Anglia waywhere the midges can get blown over from Europe. We don't bother with ours - the only time we did was when there was the confirmed breakout a few years ago, and that was because we were told to, rather than because we were at risk..
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No need to vaccinate for BT at the moment apparently