The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Hellybee on February 09, 2016, 10:23:08 am
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Watched this last night on bbc4, if you haven't seen it, well worth a watch.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b070jj99 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b070jj99)
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Huge debate going on about it on another forum. That's worth a read! :roflanim:
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Link, please, [member=27074]Hillview Farm[/member] ?
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Watched this last night on bbc4, if you haven't seen it, well worth a watch.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b070jj99 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b070jj99)
It's repeated tonight at 11pm on BBC4, for anyone who, like me, doesn't have unlimited Broadband, and/or has insufficient broadband speed to watch a video on streaming.
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Interesting slice of real life but probably not good PR for farming; as there was a good example of how NOT to lamb a ewe, the lamb being castrated was probably over a week old and the sawing off of the sheeps horns should only be done by a vet (as far as I'm aware). The children were the highlight of the programme for me.
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Thanks Sally :thumbsup: will try and stay awake to watch it :sheep:
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More about the film itself here (which was longer than the BBC version)
http://www.addictedtosheep.com (http://www.addictedtosheep.com)
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Interesting slice of real life but probably not good PR for farming; as there was a good example of how NOT to lamb a ewe, the lamb being castrated was probably over a week old and the sawing off of the sheeps horns should only be done by a vet (as far as I'm aware). The children were the highlight of the programme for me.
There's even more of that lambing in the longer version, and BH & I were both of the opinion that we'd have had the vet to that ewe - or taken her to the vet - some hours earlier. I'm sure lambings like that are rare in pure Swale lambings; I lambed 450 Swales for a few years, and bad lambings were very rare, particularly with the ones that had gone to the Swale tup. (As opposed to the BFL for Mule lambs.)
Which said, I wish he'd used more lube. :o
I don't know that I could guess the age of the lamb being castrated. I imagine they keep the ewes and lambs close by until they're tagged and ringed, so they can be sure they get the parentage logged correctly, and I would think you wouldn't keep them hanging around the farmstead longer than essential - so probably a few days, not longer than a week.
Sawing off the horn where you do not need to go into the blood vessels (and hence nerves) can certainly be done on farm. It's routine, like trimming feet. We took a Swale tup to the vet to have his horn trimmed because it was certainly going to need to be higher up. The vet showed me how it was done in case we had another.
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There's even more of that lambing in the longer version, and BH & I were both of the opinion that we'd have had the vet to that ewe - or taken her to the vet - some hours earlier. I'm sure lambings like that are rare in pure Swale lambings; I lambed 450 Swales for a few years, and bad lambings were very rare, particularly with the ones that had gone to the Swale tup. (As opposed to the BFL for Mule lambs.)
Which said, I wish he'd used more lube. :o
I don't know that I could guess the age of the lamb being castrated. I imagine they keep the ewes and lambs close by until they're tagged and ringed, so they can be sure they get the parentage logged correctly, and I would think you wouldn't keep them hanging around the farmstead longer than essential - so probably a few days, not longer than a week.
Sawing off the horn where you do not need to go into the blood vessels (and hence nerves) can certainly be done on farm. It's routine, like trimming feet. We took a Swale tup to the vet to have his horn trimmed because it was certainly going to need to be higher up. The vet showed me how it was done in case we had another.
There was no excuse for a lambing of that nature in my opinion; but that is just my opinion.
Under the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 (http://adlib.everysite.co.uk/adlib/defra/content.aspx?doc=19331&id=19333), as amended, only a veterinary surgeon may dehorn or disbud a sheep, apart from trimming the insensitive tip of an ingrowing horn which, if left untreated, could cause pain or distress.
http://adlib.everysite.co.uk/adlib/defra/content.aspx?doc=4154&id=4179 (http://adlib.everysite.co.uk/adlib/defra/content.aspx?doc=4154&id=4179)
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Yes the lambing was pretty horrendous and yes I was telling the TV 'use some lube, use some lube', then afterwards 'how about something for the pain and shock'. Also there was no attempt made to resuscitate the lamb, which was surely worth some kind of effort.
Sawing off the horn was definitely not how it should have been done, not least because that would have been extremely painful for the tup. Anything closer in than the cool tip is not for mere mortals to do. I liked the moss trick though; we have tried cobwebs which work well.
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Of you go onto the farming forum under livestock it's near the top still. :)
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Agreed,I found the lambing scene distressing. We lamb by the house, I don't think we d ever go back to field lambing. otherwise a very good documentary.