[twizzel]

Thought I'd post a couple of pics of our lambs from this year, all hand reared. I'm really chuffed with them, we've sent 8 off so far and the meat has been really fantastic. I really like the suffolk type lamb, she was a bit of a troublesome one as she had orf fairly bad, and got a huge abscess on her face at 10wks old... but she's grown into a really nice lamb... if I were keeping any to breed from I would keep her for sure. Unfortunately she's going to slaughter in a couple of weeks time 
 
The really white texel x lambs in the pic are a few stores we bought from a friend. They were early april born so not finished yet whereas our other lambs were late january born. One of them for some reason wasn't banded and I'm starting to wonder whether he should be separated... it would be a pain but not impossible to do, one of the others that came in that group is a wether. Could I put 2 lambs out together in a separate field? They would be out with calves... or I could keep him in with the main group. I haven't seen him try to serve anything yet but the last couple of days he has been rolling his top lip up very much like our bull does... what do you all think? He is nowhere near finished yet, and I'm adament he won't go to slaughter until he is finished which I expect to be another 6-8 weeks.

[Hillview Farm]

I'd put him and the wether out with the calves. The ewes will start to be cycling so its not worth the risk unless you don't mind him tupping the others as he's not related. If you don't want him to then your only option is to split out of the group

[twizzel]

Thanks, the more I think about it the more I realise he needs to come out! Just not sure how he will be with just the other wether as company. The field I've got in mind is separated to the field the ewe lambs by another field and he definitely won't be able to see them. Will have a sort out tomorrow, and persuade OH and his parents that he's gotta come out! (they will say just to kill him now rather than in November... but I can't see the point of that when he's not finished).

[ZaktheLad]

I really like that suffolk ewe lamb too.

[lachlanandmarcus]

He should be fine with just the other wether after a day or two of whining, it's like a switch is turned off and they pair up and he forgets about the rest.

[Tim W]

Even if he's in a separate field if he knows the girls are there (smell) he may not put a lot more finish on in the next few weeks?

[SallyintNorth]

I suspect Tim W is right; BH always says that once the season gets hormonal, tups stop growing.  So ours get sent off by about mid-Sept pretty much regardless.

When you say he's "not finished", what are you looking at?  It's just that there are always markets wanting light lambs and in fact you often get less per kilo once they get over about 42-45kgs liveweight at home (38-41kgs in the ring.)

[twizzel]

When I say he's not finished, you can still feel his spine on his rump, shoulder blades are easily felt too. I don't want to send him to market, none of my lambs go through market- they all go straight to the abbatoir as private kill and come back to me to either go in my freezer or my families freezer. He's already spoken for, so market isn't an option.
sigh... why is life so bleeding difficult!  I think either way he needs to come out of the field with the ewes.
I'm a bit gutted about that suffolk lamb, she's a real nice lamb, but there's no point in just keeping 1 lamb, and the other really nice ewe lambs I had went in the freezer back in July    maybe next year I might think about keeping a few if we get some nice ones...

[SallyintNorth]

Sorry, twiz, I do know you don't send yours through the mart, just wasn't thinking. 

Well for private sale, so long as you have the capacity to run them on until after Christmas then I can see why you want to segregate him with a pal.  If you will give them concentrate then he should start to put condition on once the tupping season is over; if you don't want to feed cake then they'll probably go backwards over winter and not really start to regain condition until the new grass comes in spring. 

[twizzel]

That's ok I know lots of people have different systems of selling surplus lambs
They are on some concentrate every other day but getting hold of finishing nuts down here is proving to be difficult so they are still on creep (but want to get them on a 15-16% creep asap) more to keep them bucket tame than anything. They need to be gone by christmas as the farm we have the majority of our lambs from lambs in January, so think I'll get him out of the ewes field and cake him and his friend with the aim of them going in November.

[twizzel]

That's ok I know lots of people have different systems of selling surplus lambs
They are on some concentrate every other day but getting hold of finishing nuts down here is proving to be difficult so they are still on creep (but want to get them on a 15-16% creep asap) more to keep them bucket tame than anything. They need to be gone by christmas as the farm we have the majority of our lambs from lambs in January, so think I'll get him out of the ewes field and cake him and his friend with the aim of them going in November/December.

[wayfarer]

Sorry to hijack discussion but when you say that tups won't put on more wieght until after the tupping season would that apply to 4 tups all kept together without any ewe lambs nearby (within 100m)?

[twizzel]

Well ram lamb is successfully separated with his wether buddy, caught them both last night, bundled them into the back of the farm 4x4 and took them to their new field.
Went over at lunch today and surprisingly they were both still in the field grazing happily with the heifers, no calling for the other lambs. Called them over... and he's knocked his other horn off (lost the last one in august), obviously trying to show the heifers who was boss, and came off worse off! doh    so have purple sprayed it but it's still bleeding, will collar OH tonight to help me catch him again and clean it properly, it was a 2 man job last time and I couldn't hold him well enough just now to spray and clean it too (with 8 heifers sniffing my back lol).
Trials and tribulations... nothing in life is straight forward! He's now called Stumpy