The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: smee2012 on June 27, 2014, 11:41:39 pm
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My four ewes, since having them shorn, are looking rather skinny at the moment. I'm not sure how normal that is, given that this is our (and their) first year of having lambs. Two of them have twins and the other two have singles. All are still nursing - the lambs are between 8 and 12 weeks old. The paddock (1 acre) they are on has good grass on it but it has now been grazed quite tight and we've had no rain for almost two weeks so it's hardly grown. They all browse on the hedge too, as they always have. We have now had torrential rain the past two days so I'm hoping this might help the grass a bit. On their paddock there are the ten of them (four ewes - Zwartbles - and their six lambs) plus a small pony. On the other paddock there are two large horses, who are currently grazing down the long grass (as the sheep don't like it that long and the pony will get too fat).
Are all nursing ewes quite skinny at this time of year? I did feed them ewe nuts for the first six weeks of nursing and then gradually cut it back and stopped when all the grass came through. Should I start feeding them again or just leave them? Once the horses have eaten a good lot of the bottom paddock, I'll pop all the sheep on there to clean up a bit but the grass isn't anywhere near as good nutritionally.
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:wave: mines are looking well just now .it does sound a bit over stocked could you not put up a creep gate between the 2 fields to give them the option . poor grass is better than no grass . i take it there worm and fluke does is up to date. :sheep:
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Echo the above, we like to see good weight this time of year, the 2-4 yo look tremendous, the older ewes look leaner but still in good order x
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i understand you want the sheep to keep the grass down for the pony, but he will be eating a suprising amount so i think you are over stocked. especially as the grass is short, they are thin and appear hungry.
i kept 5 sheep to the acre and that was the limit for us. when grass was short we fed hay/nuts.
if you cant put them into the other paddock - they will eat the longer grass if they need to - maybe make a section in their paddock where you can create a feed station for them but not the pony. poo picking for the pony will free up grazing too, as ponies are very good at covering grass with dollops that take ages to disappear on their own.
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The other aspect to consider is how you fed your ewes before lambing. If you didn't supplement, they may now be showing the strain now. As the lambs move onto grass the ewes will recover, but it sounds like your stocking levels may then be problematic.
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4 ewes per acre is enough without lambs who are eating a lot now plus a pony. Add some hay ... if they eat it they are hungry.
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The younger lambs will still be taking a fair amount of milk, so the ewes are "milking off their backs". You need to give them hay and/or nuts or they'll go into tupping in poor shape (bearing in mind it takes a month of good grazing to improve condition score by .5) and you'll have thin ewes and lambs this year and likely very small lambs and/or twin lamb disease next Spring.
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what are your plans for the lambs? are you selling them or finishing? their breed will also dictate when they will be ready for slaughter.
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I have Zwartbles too and find that they do take a lot of feeding, I have 5 ewes and 9 lambs on a 6 acre field and while I know that is under stocked it is amazing how they are getting through the grass, I would definitely offer some hay and perhaps even feed the lambs if you want to get them away before winter.
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I would agree with the previous posters, you are over stocked. You need to feed these nursing mothers, if you don't want the pony eating hay then put it in the stable for a few hours or during the day while the sheep stock up on grub.
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Thanks for the replies. Just to confirm, I do pick the horse and pony droppings up daily, so that they don't clog up the paddocks. I have had hay out for them to pick at but neither the pony or the sheep are at all interested so I'm not sure if they are hungry or not!
Condition score wise, I'd say they were between 2 and 3. They were all fed well for a good 6 weeks before lambing, twice a day, according to the feeding guidelines for twins (I didn't have them scanned so just assumed twins for all). Three out of four did have twins (we lost one at birth due to cord separation) and the other had a single so they were all fed correctly.
I think what I might do is supplement them with come coarse mix for a while and see if they improve a bit. They are all up to date with worms and fluke. If they don't improve, I'll get rid of the bigger horses and stick them on the bottom paddock instead.
We will be keeping two of the ewe lambs, probably, but the other four will be going to slaughter, perhaps around Feb/March time.
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I have Zwartbles and I tend to think of them as the equivalent of one and a half 'bog standard' sheep given their size (mine are anyway) so I take that into account when considering stocking capacity lol. Just thinking about your comment about the lambs going away February/March by which time, if I've read it right they will be approx. 8 months old? My Zwartbles tup lambs are usually ready to go straight off their mums at about 16 - 18 weeks old - usually around the 50kg mark by then (normally Dec/Jan born, no grass for most of the time and had minimal creep feed) Just interested - is there much benefit in keeping them that long if you will have to supplement them through most of the winter ?
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maybe a high energy lick would help? if you can keep the pony off of it.
good luck :thumbsup:
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I'm not sure really, this will be our first year of sending our own lambs - we've bought them in previously and sent them away in December time. We've not had much out of them in previous years though as they've been quite small lambs. We thought that we might leave them a bit later this year and see if that improved our carcass weights. As our own lambs are quite enormous, I'm wondering whether we might actually send them earlier after all! They're not looking far off the size of the adult ewes!
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maybe a high energy lick would help? if you can keep the pony off of it.
good luck :thumbsup:
They've got one of those. It's in the field shelter so the pony doesn't touch it (he won't go in there as he feels it's the sheep's territory ;) He's got his own salt rocky elsewhere.
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If they are CS 2-3 you really don't need to worry that is what they should be. below 2 is too skinny. I wouldn't give any concentrates... they will get too fat (like us eating chocolate.) If they have access to good hay and a lick they are fine.
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A lot will be down to the age of the ewes as an older ewe feeding twin lambs will be in a much poorer condition than a 2 year old ewe feeding twins. It takes a lot out of a ewe to feed her lambs and herself before lambing and then the ewe has to sustain those lambs for months after birth. A very good ewe will put most of her energy in to keeping those lambs in tip top condition and the condition can therefore fall away from the ewe herself.
If you have put out hay and the animals are not interested in it, then they are not hungry. You sould as if you are doing everything with putting out a lick and offering ad lib hay, so I would look towards weaning the ram lambs off about 16 weeks and then you should see an increase in body condition to the ewes. Give them plenty of time to get in a good fit condition before putting the ram in again next Autumn.
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CS2-3 ain't too bad. Back up to a solid 3 for tupping, you're fine. Doesn't sound too thin to me. I've seen a few CS1 / low CS1 with 8-week old lambs at foot relatively late on th
is season - now they have a job on their hands!