The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Rosemary on February 23, 2015, 03:22:07 pm
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As the title says - when do you tag your lambs?
We register our ewe lambs and our tup lambs go for meat. The tup lambs get a single EID tag when they are loaded on the trailer for the final journey - that's easy.
My previous practice has been to order tags after lambing is complete - the RFBS has a different letter for every year, which goes on the management tag, so I don't want to order an excess because I can't use them the following year. So tagging at birth is out - plus those tags in little ears :-\ ?
Last year, we had the ewes and lambs in for something - can't remember what. We had all the lambs in a pen together and we let each ewe out one by one; she went to the lamb pen, her lambs went to her and we nabbed them and tagged any ewe lambs. Worked fine but I wonder if there's a better way. And I wouldn't like to do it that way with a big number of sheep - fine with 15 ewes.
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I do it at around 24 hours old when they are rung and weighed,
most tags are designed to be light enough in weight for small ears and most tag companies recommend tagging young, I find they heal much better and are a better fit when older if I do them young
But yes I see your problem with the ryeland letters for the years :thinking:
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I would campaign for your breed society to stop having such complicated rules for tagging :). Every breeding sheep is already uniquely identified by its defra tag number so why they see the need for another number or letter is beyond me!
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There are two kinds (that I know of) of tiny tags suitable for temporary birth tags/ management tags. These go in at birth (room for up to three numbers of your choice), and stay until the lambs are 4 months old, by which time we've decided which females we want to register. Males are tagged then too, but we wait until they are 16 months before deciding whether to register any, but we don't have to make the tags year dependent.
The turkey wing tags we use as birth tags come from Roxanne of Selkirk. They are tiny metal 'padlock' type things, which are popped in by hand, and they don't leave a hole. Occasionally one comes out, but you can work out who's who easily enough by your method of elimination Rosemary when they're young.
There is another tiny plastic tag, not big enough for all the info the permanent tags require. These fit like many standard tags, but the pin is thin so they don't leave much of a hole. If there is a hole, then the new tag goes into that, without pain, bleeding etc. Someone else may know who supplies these.
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We do ours as late on as possible. Tups when they go and gimmers when we sort them in the Autumn for keeping or sale.
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I do mine at second vaccinations. Works very well for me.
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We did ours at mums shearing time. Mainly because the shearer did it for us :)
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We do ours as late on as possible. Tups when they go and gimmers when we sort them in the Autumn for keeping or sale.
How do you know who the mothers are for registering?
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24 hours before our ewes and lambs are transferred to the nursery shed the ewes are wormed and marked on their side with the identity of their lambs - ewe lambs are lettered, ram lambs numbered, so J8, KL, M9 ... The lambs get marked on both sides - makes it easier to see who's who if they lose Mama. I also note the ewe number and lamb i.d. in a notebook. The lambs' i.d. is remarked after their second Ovivac P Plus jab and lasts through to tagging. This will be when they go to sale as stores, to the abattoir or before the end of November if being registered for breeding. I've seen too much damage to lamb's ears to do them any earlier than necessary - I still have one ewe with a hole the size of a golf ball in the middle of her ear that reminds me of what can happen.
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I would campaign for your breed society to stop having such complicated rules for tagging :). Every breeding sheep is already uniquely identified by its defra tag number so why they see the need for another number or letter is beyond me!
tried this with the Wilts Horn Society----you would have thought I had suggested spraying the Vatican with a slurry tanker of minced cats liver!
It's way too simple and logical a procedure for breed societies to adopt ---they are often more interested in discussing the colour and cut of blazers to be worn whilst showing than anything remotely practical to do with sheep ---(sorry---rant over , for now)
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Ours are done before they come out of their pen either to the field or nursery, so between 12 and 24 hours old. I understand the problem with the letters etc - the Kerry Hills have to have a year number on their tags, but as we have 20 Kerrys to lamb compared to 1200 other ewes, we just put the extras in other lambs and figure it doesn't matter if they have an extra number. We order tags according to our scan, pure breeds are double tagged in a particular colour each year so we can age sheep instantly by their tags, the cross ewes' lambs are all single tagged as they will all go to slaughter, the only bit that is a guessing game is the draft age cheviot ewes who are tupped with the berrichon - females are double tagged to keep and males single tagged to kill, so we have to err on the side of caution and order plenty. This does mean we spend more on tags, in that we always have extras and a significant number of pure cheviot ram lambs are double tagged who don't make the grade and are slaughtered, but we way more than save this money back in time by tagging them in the shed.
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We order tags according to our scan, pure breeds are double tagged in a particular colour each year
Hmm, what happens with tags that don't get used? We scanned 33 lambs; if I order tags now, I might order 17 slaughter tags and 16 pairs for ewe lambs. Last year, we had 14 ewes and seven tup lambs.
Let's say only 30 of the 33 are born alive, what do I do with the three tags I don't need? I can't use them next year but if I discard them, then is some sheep inspector not going to look for those three sheep?
Maybe I'm making too much of this ???
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I just order double eid tags for everything, makes it easier and as they are all tagged and recorded I want double tags anyway, I order for average lambing % and then a little extra, any not used this year will just get used next year
The charmoise society has a prefix, of which mine is JB, so this year I just ordered all of the tags for every lamb with the letters JB on the tag, it didnt cost anything extra and it doesnt matter if fat lambs have JB written on the tag, no ones going to use it or wonder what its for
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Let's say only 30 of the 33 are born alive, what do I do with the three tags I don't need? I can't use them next year but if I discard them, then is some sheep inspector not going to look for those three sheep?
It is a problem, isn't it? The best solution I've thought of so far is to use up the spare EID tags in place of next year's slaughter tags. OK, so it means this year's tup lambs going to slaughter with last year's Ryeland numbers on them, but is that such a problem?
I can't see any inspector going looking for the three missing sheep, as long as you have the spare tags filed away somewhere unused?
One issue I have is that I settled on using Shearwell SET tags following great writeups on here, but now we have pedigree Zwartbles, they each need to be marked with the year letter and ZSA number as well as the DEFRA number. Unfortunately there isn't a way to fit all that info on the SET tag, so I'm going to have to order a different type of tag and gun for the Z's, which is somewhat annoying!
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Womble, when you order your Shearwell tags, you can specify one or two lines of other info too, up to 5 characters per line, and you can specify incrementing or not.
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Timing of tagging also depends on how you weight the odds between joint ill/septacaemia orf and flystrike...
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Womble, when you order your Shearwell tags, you can specify one or two lines of other info too, up to 5 characters per line, and you can specify incrementing or not.
Indeed Rosemary, but once the statutory info is on there, there's only the wee end bit of the tag available for the extra information, so the font is very small indeed.
I would also have to order a minimum of ten pairs unless done as replica tags, so I either have to pay twice or like you, have lots of un-used ones since next year's letter will be different.
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We order tags according to our scan, pure breeds are double tagged in a particular colour each year
Hmm, what happens with tags that don't get used? We scanned 33 lambs; if I order tags now, I might order 17 slaughter tags and 16 pairs for ewe lambs. Last year, we had 14 ewes and seven tup lambs.
Let's say only 30 of the 33 are born alive, what do I do with the three tags I don't need? I can't use them next year but if I discard them, then is some sheep inspector not going to look for those three sheep?
Maybe I'm making too much of this ???
I just keep them in a box marked 'sheep tags' in the medicines lock up, and use them as spares so any sheep which loses a tag in future can have the right colour, and record it in the flock record. In reality, they sit in the box mainly, and mount up year on year! Any left over slaughter tags, we just deduct from how many we need to order and use the next year. We just accept that we waste a wee bit of money on extra tags (usually maybe end up with 30 odd spare, plus there will be some in lambs which have died after tagging where we have I suppose 'wasted' the tag compared to if we did them later), we do make an adjustment for still births when ordering, but the system works for us because we think doing it this way saves us time (=money) elsewhere, especially with the issue as you say of knowing parentage, which is important to us for at least 3/4 of our sheep, which is a big number. In your situation, not sure what I would do - ideally if they are not being done at birth, I'd probably wait until the lambs go to slaughter, or you decide to retain/sell them, hopefully past the point of there being flies about, but realise that may not work with having to register pure breds - not sure what the deadline is for Ryelands.
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Timing of tagging also depends on how you weight the odds between joint ill/septacaemia orf and flystrike...
and frost-damage too, if tagging later in the year.
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Timing of tagging also depends on how you weight the odds between joint ill/septacaemia orf and flystrike...
has tagging been implicated in these? :-\
I remember some time ago there was discussion about leg tags (or did I dream this :innocent: ). Are these allowed?
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Timing of tagging also depends on how you weight the odds between joint ill/septacaemia orf and flystrike...
has tagging been implicated in these? :-\
Fly-strike maybe, but if you disinfect your tags & tagger like you are supposed to you shouldn't get any other problems. The advantage of tagging them when they are very young is that you avoid the fly strike season, and the ear is growing faster during that period so heals up quicker (IMHO).
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Let's say only 30 of the 33 are born alive, what do I do with the three tags I don't need? I can't use them next year but if I discard them, then is some sheep inspector not going to look for those three sheep?
It is a problem, isn't it? The best solution I've thought of so far is to use up the spare EID tags in place of next year's slaughter tags. OK, so it means this year's tup lambs going to slaughter with last year's Ryeland numbers on them, but is that such a problem?
I can't see any inspector going looking for the three missing sheep, as long as you have the spare tags filed away somewhere unused?
One issue I have is that I settled on using Shearwell SET tags following great writeups on here, but now we have pedigree Zwartbles, they each need to be marked with the year letter and ZSA number as well as the DEFRA number. Unfortunately there isn't a way to fit all that info on the SET tag, so I'm going to have to order a different type of tag and gun for the Z's, which is somewhat annoying!
You can get all that on a Shearwell SET tag, they will put two small lines of data, for your ZSA number and letter on the wee round bit. :)
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Sorry repeated what was said above, hadn't scrolled down properly. it isn't that small on the round bit, still perfectly legible, and although it is a few years since I had Zs, I checked with the society at the time if that was oK, and they were happy with it then.
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We have one line of management info on our Shearwell tags and it is completely legible when close up, even to those of us who need reading glasses for other close-up work (eg, dosing instructions!)
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I used to do mine in late August/early September, a couple of weeks before the sale. Always dreaded putting in the yellow tag, because of how often they would not penetrate the ear, but bend sideways, leading to unnecessarily unhappy sheep and much bad language from Garmoran.
Last year I put them in at shearing time: it was easier to identify lambs because they were still sticking close to the ewes, the tags went in with very few problems and there were no infected ears, something I had not managed to achieve before despite much use of Dettol and antiseptic cream.
I wouldn't like to tag them earlier though, due to the high risk of tags getting torn out when caught in fences. Their sprayed-on number is usually still legible at shearing time.
I can't use them next year but if I discard them, then is some sheep inspector not going to look for those three sheep?
If the tags aren't listed as used in your Flock Record Book then I can't see why an inspector should look for them. Like Mowhaugh, I find I need a spare from time to time and I try to use a replacement tag from the same batch as the original.
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Before we turn out ewes with their lambs we spray a number on the ewe and a matching one on the lambs and note it down in the lambing notebook so we know which ewe (and lamb) has which spray number.
Then when we tag the lambs at six weeks old, the paint numbers are still readable, so we can cross reference the spray number to the new ear tag.
Works a treat.
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I tag at or within 24 hrs of birth with Shearwell SET tags.
retention is excellent & I can't remember getting infection problems
If you do the job properly and disinfect the applicators/tags now and then its a doddle