The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: crobertson on October 30, 2016, 09:03:02 am
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This year is our first time tupping with our 6 texel shearlings we have grown on from lambs last year. Decided to sponge the ewes to compact lambing, following the procedure and hoped we'd done everything right (never done before). Well the tup went in yesterday afternoon and all were covered by last night !
Lets hope they all hold and we have our first time lambing in March !
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Very good! I'm thinking of sponging our ewes next year, was it easy to do?
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Yes it was very straight forward, sponges in, remove 14 days later & PMSG injection, ram in 36-48 hours later. All ovulating at the same time so all been covered by the ram in the same afternoon - hopefully we'll have a precise lambing ....
Providing all goes well I will definitely be doing the same again next year
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Any tips on how to insert the sponges with minimum hassle for you / discomfort for the girls?
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Any tips on how to insert the sponges with minimum hassle for you / discomfort for the girls?
Don't use the applicator, lubrication gel, and ahemmm.... let your wife do it - women are a bit more experienced with that kind of thing...
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I would use the applicator as they are a bit of an awkward shape otherwise - however I only pushed the applicator in as far as I felt comfortable / the girls didnt really react to (so probably not as far as others) I figured as long as the sponges were in, progesterone would still be released and have an effect so as long as they are in far enough that they dont fall out.
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Mrs Womble just said that this whole thing was my idea, and therefore my problem. She also told me exactly where she'd shove them if I gave the sponges to her!!
I guess I'm on my own then! :roflanim:
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Providing all goes well I will definitely be doing the same again next year
When we used raddle harnesses on the rams I used to note tupping dates every day. One year the ewes all started lambing 9 days early, another 6 days late. Old ewes with twins tend to lamb early, first-timers with a single often lamb late ..... Now I don't bother to record tupping dates. We leave the rams in for only 18 days and that's more or less how long lambing takes. Any barreners are culled.
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Hahaha that was half of my families reaction ..... I must say they're now not so objective !
Gotta do what ya gotta do
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My attitude is that the sheep work for us and not vice-versa, so anything we can do to tighten up lambing and hopefully need less time off work for it has to be worth a try at least once!
The sponge instructions say that removal is accompanied by a 'characteristic discharge and odour'. Can you tell me, is that a euphemism for 'you're about to lose your breakfast'? :yuck:
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Thats exactly why I did it, we all have jobs so hopefully a tight lambing, less time off work, especially with only 6 we want them all in, lambed and back out together rather than a potential scattered 3-6 week period.
I was a bit sceptical with not sponging before but the ram was instantly interested and couldn't pick which one first so they are definitely synchronised !
Hahaha I'm quite strong stomach but no I would say there was a slight discharge on probably 3 of them and no odour .... luckily
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My vet told me that the "thing" they most often have to remove from farm dogs' insides is... used sponges... so someone is attracted to the smell/taste of them.
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Any tips on how to insert the sponges with minimum hassle for you / discomfort for the girls?
Lube - empty some into a tub so that you can dip the applicator or hand into it. Slap a bit on the end of the loaded applicator and also slap a bit on the vulva entrance (means that the ewe doesn't get a cold shock when you touch the end of the applicator on her!). Insert slowly - if you twist the applicator from side to side slowly whilst you slide it in that can help. It gets easier with practise.
Have a bucket of hibiscrub solution so that you can rinse the applicator between sheep.
The applicators don't have a grip on them so are very slippy when you are covered in lube, I would recommend that you manufacture your own grip - I wrapped some string around mine near the top and over-wrapped in electrical tape, it made a huge difference.
Having someone to load the applicator for you is also helpful - you tend to have one dirty hand (which is holding the sheep) and one clean hand (for the applicator) - so a helper with two clean hands for loading is ideal. Or a helper to hold the sheep.
I wouldn't use the applicator on ewe lambs, a finger will do.
Note, you don't have to use the PMSG injection if you are doing it at this time of year (i.e. when they are already cycling naturally).
And defo keep your dogs away from the used sponges unless you want a sick dog and a huge vet bill!
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If you do this, how many ewes can you expect a tup to successfully cover? We usually have 15 ewes - would we insert 15 sponges one day then take five out on three consecutive days, all 15 on one day or what woudl we insert five songes on each of three days or what?
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i would be interested in doing this next year again because of the work schedule would be handy to get them done closer
what are the costs etc of sponges etc
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The sponges come in packs of 25 for roughly £60 (http://www.farmacy.co.uk/products/107-chronogest-sponges-25pk), so £2 to £3 each, and the manufacturer's instruction leaflet is here (http://www.msd-animal-health.co.uk/binaries/Chronogest_Farmer_leaflet_tcm80-69843.pdf).
It says "Chronogest CR is no substitute for good management. A higher ratio of rams to ewes is required (for example, 1:10 within the breeding season, 1:5 outside the breeding season) and good ewe and ram management is essential for success."
So I guess Rosemary your answer depends on how good you think your tup is, although you can manage the mating by introducing the tup to each girl in turn, to ensure they have all been served. The method we plan to use is to put him in with the girls and then do a sort of musical chairs routine whereby we remove ewes once we've seen them served twice. Presumably the ugliest ewe will be the last one standing - sort of like clearing out time at the disco! :innocent: .
I'll let you know how that goes!!
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If you do this, how many ewes can you expect a tup to successfully cover? We usually have 15 ewes - would we insert 15 sponges one day then take five out on three consecutive days, all 15 on one day or what woudl we insert five songes on each of three days or what?
One ram can cover 10 ewes. A ram lamb can do only 5.
Your idea of taking out 5 sponges per day might work (or maybe you need to stretch to a two day gap) but you would be advised to hand mate - what I mean is supervise the mating so that he only mounts each ewe twice and is then removed from the ewes. That way he conserves his juice :) . It's a bit time consuming, you'll need to pen your ewes and have a mating pen, release one ewe at a time into the mating pen, wait until he's served that ewe twice, then remove the ewe. Give him 5-10mins to recover, then repeat with the next ewe.
If it were me (and this is what I did last year), I would split the group up into two, and do 7 one week and 8 the next.. in fact I think I left it two weeks. Again, once he's mated all of the first group take him out. Once he's done all of the second group then put them all in together so that he can serve any if any repeat. This is also handy if you don't have many lambing pens :) .
Alternatively, use two rams.
If you stagger the mating you will need to stagger the sponge insertion, unless its only a day or two's difference.
Cost of sponges is at least £50+VAT for a pack of 25 sponges. You can keep any spares for the following year. The applicator is about a tenner.
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Ok so the gloves are off. What we need is a spreadsheet monger who can collate whether all this sponging and split session or supervised tupping is really giving a significantly shorter lambing time come the spring. I'm sticking with the raddle on 35 day challenge, 1 tup 6 ewes.
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What we need is a spreadsheet monger
Well as it happens, I am a professional spreadsheet monger, so here's one I monged earlier. This one works out when to start doing the hokey cokey in order to hopefully begin lambing over Easter. However, I'm sure it could be adapted! ;) .
P.S. Pharnorth - you're not allowed to take the gloves off. The instructions say not to get any progesterone on your hands, in case you get pregnant. Or something like that ??? .
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I think the recommendation is 1 ram to 10 ewes when sponging, ours only had 6 and hes managed them easily.
The sponges come in minimum packs of 25 but our vets split a pack and let us just have however many we need and they advised on the PMSG. The total vet bill was £80 BUT that included a consultation and vaccination for one of the dogs (probably £40-45) so they rest included sponges, PMSG and the applicator itself so probably £6-£7 per ewe, will be less next year as we now have the applicator.
May sound expensive to some but for us less time of work and compact lambing way exceeds this.
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What we need is a spreadsheet monger
Well as it happens, I am a professional spreadsheet monger, so here's one I monged earlier. This one works out when to start doing the hokey cokey in order to hopefully begin lambing over Easter. However, I'm sure it could be adapted! ;) .
P.S. Pharnorth - you're not allowed to take the gloves off. The instructions say not to get any progesterone on your hands, in case you get pregnant. Or something like that ??? .
very well monged :-)
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Ok so the gloves are off. What we need is a spreadsheet monger who can collate whether all this sponging and split session or supervised tupping is really giving a significantly shorter lambing time come the spring. I'm sticking with the raddle on 35 day challenge, 1 tup 6 ewes.
It does, it's brilliant if you are time poor. Mine lambed over two weekends this year, meant I only had to take a couple of days off work instead of a week or more. Standing around for a morning watching sheep sh*g was definitely worth it :).
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Thanks [member=2128]Womble[/member] spreadsheet duly stolen. Unless you have it copyright in which case it is merely being admired.
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This was my spreadsheet. You do have to take into consideration the time of day that you remove the sponges and put the ram in. Oestrus occurs 36 to 72hrs after sponge removal, and each ewe will be different. I had a couple of ewes the previous year that were immediately very keen with the ram and were mated but returned to the ram 17 days later, so I assumed they came into oestrus nearer the 36 hours mark. So for this year I put the ram in at 38 hours rather than 48 hours.
I tried to time my first bunch so that they lambed at easter, which they did. Then the second bunch the following weekend.
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Standing around for a morning watching sheep sh*g was definitely worth it :) .
Well, guess what I've been doing today!!
I had a slight mishap in that I ended up getting home very late on Sunday, so took the sponges out in the evening rather than at lunchtime as I had planned. However, seven of our eight ewes were queuing up along the fence this morning, much to Brynmor's frustration (see pic).
To keep things simple, I just let them get on with it and he's served those seven several times. We're not even at 48hrs yet, so hopefully the other one will get in the mood soon too. Edit: 47 hours on the clock, and she's now mounting him! The poor bloke looks knackered though, and no wonder! ;D
If they all take first cycle, I'll be well chuffed. Definitely one of my more bizarre days off though!
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Oh, BTW, you have to pull really quite hard to get the sponges out. Mrs Womble says that's the same with other similar contraptions too, and that I somehow should have expected it!?
Once they did come out, they were followed by a spurt of watery fluid, rather than the thick gunk I had expected. Not a pleasant smell, but not vomit inducing either!
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Very accurately described there Womble!
Is so happened that my dates happened to tie in perfectly with your spreadsheet so thanks for that :thumbsup:
I had my Shetland ewes split in two, registered in one field and uregistered in another (bit of a hassle logistically!). Registered ewes all seemed to have been covered in the first day. The unregistered had two first timers that hadn't been when I checked yesterday but hopefully have been now.
:fc: for a nice short lambing period in April!
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Folks, just for the record, our eight ewes lambed over a four day period this year, so I'm really impressed with the hassle savings the sponges gave us.
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/lambs.jpg?w=768)
Mrs Womble and I both work full time, so being able to get lambing pretty much done and dusted over the Easter weekend, was a huge bonus for us. We'll definitely be doing this again!
I've put some more info about it on my wee blog (https://anoutdoorlife.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/sponging-sheep/), for anybody who's interested.
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Beautiful!
I don't know why, but I just feel squeamish about this sponging business, although I can read that it makes absolute sense! And spreadsheets really give me the heebie-jeebies!
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Yeah, so was I, Smilingsheep. However, it just saved me potentially two weeks of anxiously pacing the fields with torch in hand!
In the scheme of things, it really wasn't that gross. I'm still glad my Mum wasn't there to watch me do any of it though!
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I do get why people with day jobs and small flocks would do this, and I'm glad to hear that it all worked out so well for you, Womble.
I have two concerns about sponging generally. One is the potential for masking reproductive issues - not really a big problem on the individual flock level, but given that a very large proportion of our rare breeds are kept by just such smallholders as Womble and Mrs Womble, it's a little frisson of a concern. But if it makes it easier for such folks to keep sheep, it's probably all to the good. I just hope enough breeders keep on doing it naturally, as well!
The other is about the ewe. Having read your blog, Womble, I'd suggest that please in future also use copious lube when removing the sponge. If it's taking a lot of pulling out, like a not-full tampon as alluded to by Mrs Womble, then taking it out without lube could cause some slight damage :o
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Hi [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] , I read your comments previously about potentially masking reproductive issues. Does this still apply if you're doing it at normal tupping time, and not injecting with PMSG?
Re the lube, I'm honestly not sure that would have helped on the way out, but I will try it next year and let you know. I wasn't heaving away by any means, and the ewes didn't seem bothered. The sponges were just tighter than I had expected, and I thought it worthy of note.
I just *know* that at some point somebody is going to surprise me with a mobile phone at the wrong moment, and I'll end up plastered all over Facebook lubing up a sheep ::) .
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You shouldn't need lube to pull out the sponge. It has to be reasonably snug otherwise it wouldn't stay in. By the point of pulling it out it is a wet sponge as opposed to the dry one it starts as, even with some lube added
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You shouldn't need lube to pull out the sponge. It has to be reasonably snug otherwise it wouldn't stay in. By the point of pulling it out it is a wet sponge as opposed to the dry one it starts as, even with some lube added
Were they wet, Womble? If so, I'd have expected them to have slithered more than your description suggested... ;)
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Hi [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] , I read your comments previously about potentially masking reproductive issues. Does this still apply if you're doing it at normal tupping time, and not injecting with PMSG?
Personally, I'd say yes, although of course less so. You're still using hormones to synchronise ovulation, which I'd have thought could mask any issues with natural ovulation.