91

Pests and diseases / Re: Cat puncturing polytunnel

« Last post by Fleecewife on August 10, 2025, 12:22:45 am »

Sorry, I can't think of much except perhaps draping 3' wide lightweight fleece loosely against the side walls.  When he repeatedly gets tangled in it, that might deter him eventually (as long as you are there to disentangle him)  Cats do hate to look foolish 

92

Sheep / Re: Ram lambs and fertility.

« Last post by JFW67 on August 09, 2025, 09:27:27 pm »

Thank you Rosemary and Twizzel

93

Sheep / Re: Ram lambs and fertility.

« Last post by twizzel on August 09, 2025, 08:18:07 pm »

The general rule of thumb is if you want them to do a job and get ewes in lamb, they won’t, and if you don’t want them to get anything in lamb, they will 


We wean everything around 12-14 weeks, so far haven’t had any accidental pregnancies 

94

Sheep / Re: Ram lambs and fertility.

« Last post by Rosemary on August 09, 2025, 07:17:15 pm »

My understanding is that it's an age / weight thing - with puberty at about 60% of adult weight.
If you only have small numbers of females, I think you can get "nappies" to stop ant shenanigans

95

Sheep / Ram lambs and fertility.

« Last post by JFW67 on August 09, 2025, 06:14:18 pm »

Hi All,

This lambing season I had an unpleasant shock 6 weeks before lambing to find a healthy wee lamb in the field with a healthy mum.  Clearly the result of a ram lamb last year.

This year I am being doubly cautious.

I had assumed I would be weaning the rams as they turned 4 months in an age progressive order.  However, this seems to be clearly not as simple as I thought.   Two of the ramblings have been showing signs of serious interest in the ewes, but when I checked their tags one is the eldest and the other is the youngest . . .  But are comparable in size. .

I’ve now done a bit of extra reading and gather from a few sources that age is less significant  than size in relation to reaching fertility.  Big healthy ram lambs may be fertile significantly earlier than small less developed but older siblings.

I removed the two big lads from the flock leaving the smaller ones behind.  Both have ewe siblings so the mothers will not be stressed by the sudden weaning event.

1.    Can anyone confirm the size beats age theory?

2.    My back up will be to remove any rams that show interest in the ewes,  and remove each ram as he reaches 4 months.  Does this make sense?

96

Pests and diseases / Cat puncturing polytunnel

« Last post by Blue Feather on August 09, 2025, 10:31:53 am »

Does anyone have any ideas to prevent our new rescue cat from puncturing our polytunnel plastic, without banning him completely. He has an addiction for catching moths and butterflies and leaps up the polytunnel walls to catch them, making lots of holes in our plastic!

97

Announcements / New diary post: Cauliflower Melon Monarda

« Last post by TAS Bot on August 04, 2025, 10:24:15 am »

A new TAS diary entry has been posted: Cauliflower Melon Monarda

98

Land Management / Re: Thistle management with herbicide

« Last post by twizzel on August 03, 2025, 03:07:29 pm »

Think you need PA1 and PA6. Or alternatively find a contractor to spray them.

99

Sheep / Re: Sheep with Poor body condition

« Last post by SavageU on August 02, 2025, 03:48:03 pm »

My friend has the same sheep and they can run leaner in winter/spring than say my sheep Ryelands as I understand it. I have Silvernoses and definitely found this to be true.

It's all a learning curve and once you know different you can do different :-)

100

Sheep / Re: Sheep with Poor body condition

« Last post by Bywaters on August 01, 2025, 09:04:40 am »

If you are on poor ground, it's hard to get condition back.

From what I have read (not from personal experience so stand to be corrected) this breed are particularly susceptible to bad feet, on poor ground. This will also put them off eating. Easy to spot 1 sore foot but when they have 2 or even all four, it's harder

All good advice already stated. On the positive, at least you are aware now, before it's too late