The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Jon Feather on April 15, 2018, 05:48:10 pm
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We are lambing for the 3rd time and I still don't have a good plan. With 26 shetlands, 12 of which will lamb this year, and no sheep dog, I was wondering when would be the ideal time to tag the lambs and tag and castrate the ram lambs. SWMBO thinks the day they are born because we can catch them easily, but that seems a bit harsh to me.
What do you do?
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I started tagging and castrating my hebrideans on the day of birth and I think it's great. They don't seem as upset by tagging and ringing on the first day as I've seen later in the week (maybe the balls are bigger?!) and it makes it much easier to keep track of pedigrees and also what sheep have lambed as if they don't have tags in, they're fresh!
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I ring all of my lambs within 24hours if possible. Tag before they go out normally 2-4 days old. I like to record my ewe/lamb performance so tagging at birth is necessary and also done then before the fly season. As long as they are licked dry, bonded with Mum and had a first feed you’re good to crack on.
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Yup, can't catch pure Shetland lambs (or Manx) after about 36 hours old. :/. So if the balls are ready, that's when I do them. I do prefer not to do it within the first 24 hours, but sometimes you just have to. As twiz says, they must be bonded, dry and fed, and I prefer to do it when the weather is fine, not too close to dusk in case it's one of those takes a little longer to recover.
If the balls aren't ready, you have to have a way of catching them later. A pen of some sort that you can drive the family group into - usually works reasonably well up to about day 5 or 6. After that, it's a whole flock gather ::)
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When we had Manx / Shetland crosses, we found that by 3 days old, their balls hadn't reliably dropped yet, but by 3.5 days old, they were too fast to catch!
We then switched to Zwartbles, which whilst still too quick to catch, don't usually think to run away, because their mum's don't think to teach them!
The big disadvantage of Zs is that it's hard to mark a number on the lambs and ewes, so for a while we colour coded tails or heads instead.
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/BS2sm.jpg)
Unfortunately now, we've got more ewes than we have colours, so we've had to think of a new plan!
So, the new plan is to put just the single visual tag in # before turn-out at 2 days old, and to castrate at the same time (though obviously we wouldn't turn out castrated lambs right away). We also plan to use the left over tags from last year for the wethers, but with their Zwartbles Association numbers filed off. That way, because we change the visual tag colour yearly, we'll be able to tell at a glance which ones have been castrated.
# Can anybody tell me if this is actually allowed? It makes logical sense in that it halves the chance of torn ears or lambs with their heads caught in the creep feeder, but I do wonder if I'd get my wrists slapped if we were given a spot inspection?
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Umbilical cord should be dry before lamb is strong enough for Ringing. This could be longer than 24 hrs.
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If you are ringing the ram lambs to castrate them this must be done by seven days old. I eartag lambs a few days before they go to market or at the end of the year of birth if we're keeping them for breeding or hogget lamb for the freezer. Don't see the point in spending money on something that'll be torn off if they put their heads through the fence to eat the hedge.
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what ever suits your system , just done 3pairs and single outside in the rain born this morning , the single wasn't even standing yet . They don't react in any way to ringing ,the shed lambs are done at 24-48hrs and many react to ringing . Outside lambs older than 12hrs are very difficult to catch , so I have to ring when I find them
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One year we had a batch of lambs got watery mouth after ringing at 18-24 hours, so I switched to ringing on the second day when the lambs are that little more robust.
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Womble for the Z's I use a single blank white tag that I write the sire and dam on with a marker pen. I cut this out when I put the "proper" tags in and use the same hole. I tag the girls in the left ear and the boys in the right so I can tell who is who. I have used up previous seasons tags on wethers as they are only going for slaughter anyway and so incorrect society details do not matter. Having discovered that my tag manufacturer will do the exact number of tags I require I no longer have left over tags :)
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I never castrate, but I ring tails, mark up the lambs, worm the ewes etc. around 11am each day, if the lambs are standing, dry and drinking I do them, otherwise they get left till the next day.
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Don't see the point in spending money on something that'll be torn off if they put their heads through the fence to eat the hedge.
True.... except we do need to know reliably who gave birth to who, for the pedigree records, as much as for general flock management, and if marker spray isn't an option, that really only leaves some form of tag?
Womble for the Z's I use a single blank white tag that I write the sire and dam on with a marker pen. I cut this out when I put the "proper" tags in and use the same hole.
Yes, I suppose temporary tags are another option. However, if I'm going to put in a temporary tag, I figured why not just make it one of the permanent ones, and be done with it? The Shearwell SET tags we use are small enough I hope. Anyway, I'll try it for this year and report back...
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if they are strong and good after birth - do it as soon as pos
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Womble for the Z's I use a single blank white tag that I write the sire and dam on with a marker pen.
Where do you buy the plain tags from Buttermilk? I have been looking for something similar to this
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True.... except we do need to know reliably who gave birth to who, for the pedigree records, as much as for general flock management, and if marker spray isn't an option, that really only leaves some form of tag?
Before turnout I mark the lambs (letter for ewe lambs, number for ram lambs) and mark the ewes with the same details and use a notebook to record the lambs' details and the ewe's tag numbers. At the pre-tupping check I mark the ewes fleeces with different colours depending on which ram they're going to. All gets transferred to a card index for fast referral.
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[member=27063]Marches Farmer[/member] - I did do a trial a couple of years ago (https://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=73045.msg578701#msg578701) with various different marker sprays. However, this was marking the white bits. We didn't manage to find anything that stayed visible on black fleece (particularly lambs) for longer than a week. If anybody knows better, please say so - it would make our lives considerably easier!
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Did you ever try a make of spray recommended by one of us? (Ie., not Richey, which is famous for not lasting to the other side of a short shower.) Carrs Billington was my fave. I would expect CB yellow to work on black fleeces for a couple of months at least.
And you mentioned that orange raddle paste worked well and lasted 160 days plus. So why not use that?
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Womble for the Z's I use a single blank white tag that I write the sire and dam on with a marker pen.
Where do you buy the plain tags from Buttermilk? I have been looking for something similar to this
Caisley or Dalton. They have the same tags.
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Did you ever try a make of spray recommended by one of us?
Did you mean your recommendation of Carrs, Sally? That's a good point - I'll get another to try the next time I'm in.
Actually, I should apologise for whinging without actually having followed up on the advice from ages ago. For the last two years, we've been fine with marking white bits, so it's only this year that I've come up against the problem again.
Anyway, I've just marked some numbers on using orange Nettex Promark, and will report back as to how long they last. Also, one hapless lamb just got a stripe of each colour across its back, as an experiment. In order of most visible to least, were Yellow, Orange, Red, Blue, Purple, Green. Again, watch this space and I'll report back again in a few weeks!
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Did you ever try a make of spray recommended by one of us?
Did you mean your recommendation of Carrs, Sally? That's a good point - I'll get another to try the next time I'm in.
I did mean that, yes :). Or the Nettex which we thought might be similar. Because I always found Richey useless on white sheep, wore off within two weeks in fine weather and overnight in wet. Useful for treatment marks in the treatment pen - who have I done and not done - but not for anything you need to be longer-lasting.
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I can recommend Nettex Promark (not Marksman) for black sheep. Yellow, orange, purple, blue, avoid red (weirdly) and green.
I tag at 24hrs (when I weigh them), and don't castrate in general, but if I do (rarely) I tend to wait until day 7 as mine are a small breed.
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OK, so I did my wee marking experiment nine days ago. Here are the sprays I used:
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/spray1.jpg)
And here's what they're looking like on stripey the lamb now:
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/spray2.jpg)
Not too bad.... but considerably harder to see in even a little bit of shadow.
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/spray3.jpg)
That said, the orange Promark seems to be holding up reasonably well, having sprayed it on pretty thickly:
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/spray4.jpg)
If it's still visible at first heptavac, I'll consider that good enough. Watch this space, and I'll report back then!
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OK, so here's the report three weeks later, and I'm afraid it's not great news!
Although he looked like this nine days after spraying.....
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/spray2.jpg)
Stripey lamb is not very stripey any more:
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/stripes2.jpg)
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/stripes1.jpg)
Also the number marked on his side in red is no longer legible.
The orange numbers have done a bit better, and are still clearly readable on all the ewes:
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/stripes3.jpg)
Although some of the lamb marks were hard to read clearly. This was a two I think:
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/stripes4.jpg)
but it's clearly lost a hell of a lot of definition when compared with this photo from less than two weeks ago:
(https://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/spray4.jpg)
So all in all, I'm unimpressed. Until somebody brings out a spray that really works, we'll be marking with orange numbers at birth, renewing after two weeks, and then putting tags in when they get their first heptavac.
What a pity :-\ .
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soft cough. You still haven't tried the Carrs Billington ones then? They really did outperform all the others I've tried - in a different league.
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soft cough.
:wave:
Alright, alright! I'll get some in the name of scientific research then, Sally. Yellow, you say?
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soft cough.
:wave:
Alright, alright! I'll get some in the name of scientific research then, Sally. Yellow, you say?
I think I'd try the orange, since that is the colour that performed best on your trials so far.
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Alright! So I now have a lamb with a C on one side for 'Carrs', and a P on the other side for 'Promark'. Stripey lamb is also looking good again, though I do wonder what my neighbours think I'm up to!
FYI [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] , the batch codes on the bottom of both cans are in exactly the same format, so I suspect they're the same stuff anyway. Let's see!!
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FYI [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] , the batch codes on the bottom of both cans are in exactly the same format, so I suspect they're the same stuff anyway. Let's see!!
Lol. I await results with interest :D
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I don't think you are taking this seriously enough [member=2128]Womble[/member] . It clearly needs a proper stencil for your postcode and a 'return to' label until those ear tags are in.
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Go [member=2128]Womble[/member]!! I look forward to the results! :thumbsup: