The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Hillview Farm on October 29, 2013, 05:58:45 pm
-
Recently I bought myself a Ring feeder after using a hay rack due to more mouths to feed . Before I thought they were a lot of money until scats had then on offer and reduced them. I got my ewes in on Sunday due to 'the great storm of 13' As I was worried trees would bring down the fences (and they did) and I needed them dry for Monday morning to dag and take them to the ram. I amount of hay saved from the ground was unreal!
What is your Best sheep buy? :sheep:
-
Jakoti shears - but they are lethally sharp :o . Be warned.
-
Bramblecot, are they for dagging? The ones I have, forgotten the name for the mo, are awful. I ended up dagging with a pair of scissors
-
I love those hand shears where a second's inattention causes the blades to flip across and swap sides and you are left clawing pointlessly at open fleece with blades pointing in different directions. :rant:
-
Considering I only rear orphans, I couldn't be without my shepherdess feeder now :excited:
-
Jakoti shears - but they are lethally sharp :o . Be warned.
Yes they would be close to the top of my list too. Great tool.
Wheeled covered hay racks - I use them for sheep, ponies and cattle ;D
-
My best buy was Weigh Scales from someone on Ebay. Brilliant for not just the lambs, but the porkers too :thumbsup:
-
Hmm, hard to choose. it's usually the thing I bought most recently ;D
But on the list would be: weight crate, iae wheeled hay racks, phillips repeat injector, and phillips dosing gun, or and the B&B supersharp foot shears. None of those were that cheap but they are worth every penny. I think the top one would have to be the hay rack as that prevents so much wastage.
-
Mine has to be sheep hurdles - couldn't manage without them at all!
-
Mines my ancient 6 wheeled quad (hex? :excited: ) which is slow as anything (diesel) but invaluable for getting water and hay out to the sheep in our deep snow! best thing we ever bought.
-
Working dog-----what he does in 5 minutes would take everybody on this forum all day to achieve
-
Working dog-----what he does in 5 minutes would take everybody on this forum all day to achieve
As someone who has only had a working dog for few months, I agree wholeheartedly. I'm not sure how I managed without one...........
-
Working dog-----what he does in 5 minutes would take everybody on this forum all day to achieve
That's as maybe but the majority of those on here only keep a few as a hobby and not the full blown enterprise you operate
-
Dog first...Cradle feeder four foot bales even less waste than ring feeder because with a ring feeder the lambs get in Poo and Pee on the hay then Sheep wont eat it. And now with my left arm permanently damaged after an accident its my turnover crate.
-
Easy. Same as you zak. Hurdles had by far the biggest impact on our sheep handling
Getting more for Christmas as we got more sheep
-
Working dog-----what he does in 5 minutes would take everybody on this forum all day to achieve
That's as maybe but the majority of those on here only keep a few as a hobby and not the full blown enterprise you operate
5 sheep or 500 a dog will do the work of 20 people in 50th of the time and usually with 100th of the cursing and swearing ;)
-
We have a dog Tim......she's far cleverer around the sheep than he is.......she's done a grand job of training him.......tho we've not quite got to the not swearing or shouting at the family stage :roflanim: :roflanim: :sunshine:
-
Best buy ever was Footvax. One dose sorted the flock since 2007. Saved the cost of the vaccine in purple spray in the first year. Got rid of scald too. Happier sheep. Happier me.
-
Best buy ever was Footvax. One dose sorted the flock since 2007. Saved the cost of the vaccine in purple spray in the first year. Got rid of scald too. Happier sheep. Happier me.
I have had a little scald, How does footvax work? Is it a single dose yearly?
-
The dogs first, second would be a texel ram I bought for the improvement he made to my stock the third would be the 12volt shearing machine... very very handy!
-
I have had a little scald, How does footvax work? Is it a single dose yearly?
[/quote]
Scald starts with infection by Fusobacterium necrophorum. When this initial damage is invaded by dichelobacter nodosus full blown footrot is the result. We trimmed the feet, dipping the footshears in iodine between each foot, then vaccinated and moved the sheep onto fresh pasture. 16 days later we checked the feet again and moved them onto fresh pasture again. Job done! We do run a closed flock and treat and quarantine incoming rams and so have never needed to repeat vaccinating. Only thing I'd do differently is to vaccinate after the flies have died off, as the oil adjuvant caused irritation to the young ewes and they rubbed the site raw and we had to gather them and spray the wound every couple of days for a fortnight.