[OhLaLa]

Can anyone offer up their past experiences and give a few tips on weaning please?

My fields next to each other so sheep are within sight and earshot of any separated.

Advice gratefully received.

Thanks.

[Rosemary]

Get earplugs or go on holiday 

[OhLaLa]

I meant within sight and earshot of each other.  

Our hearing them not a problem - just always good to ask and get a bit of knowledge under the belt to make sure it's done as correctly as possible.

PS: Holiday - ah, if only!!   

[Fleecewife]

We take our tup and wether lambs off at 4 months, by which time they are almost weaned by the dams.  They go across the road but can still hear their mums - quite honestly, they're not bothered and there is almost no noise at all.  We leave the ewe lambs another couple of weeks then put them into the paddock right beside their dams, so they can graze side-by-side and sleep next to eachother, just not be suckled because of the wire fence.  We have always found this to be the stress-free way.

The weaning, or at least lessening of suckling, seems to start early - my OH watched a ewe attacked from both sides simultaneously by her lambs - she went up on her front feet and kicked both lambs in the head at the same time - very acrobatic 

[OhLaLa]

Because we only have the one ram lamb, I was thinking of taking the mums and putting them in the adjacent field - they will be separated from their young just by stock fencing. They will be able to see each other but not suckle, but I don't want to do it if they would go mad trying to get through the fence. The other problem is, although grazed, the grass is quite good in there.

None of the grazing is particularly poor at the moment and all the fields are adjacent, so my only other option is to put the parents into a barn with hay and water for a couple of weeks?? Needs quite a bit of work re new pens to do that one though....

?? 

[Fleecewife]

What age are your lambs?  By 4 months, the ewes' milk has just about dried up anyway, so we don't bother with the dry feed routine unless any particular ewe is still in full milk, but then we would probably leave her lambs with her for longer until she was weaning them herself.  As long as the dams have 6-8 weeks to recover before they go to the tup, that seems to be enough.

[Rosemary]

TBH, we didn't wean the ewe lamb (we only had one) last year. Her mammy did it.

We bought two ewe lambs in October and once they came home, we put Nellie in with them. We weaned the tup lambs at about 4 months and put them in with the wether and the tup until they went for slaughter and the tup went in with the ewes.

I don't remember there being much fuss - I think the ewes were glad to get rid and the lambs were distracted by going to a new field.