November is a quiet month for our sheep as they are in with their respective tups. We started with 5 groups of Hebrideans and 2 of Soay, but had problems with one of the groups away on someone else's pasture, so we had to bring them back after only a week. This has upset the tupping times of course as we had to isolate them for a while before we put them into some of the tupping groups at home. In exchange we had agreed to tup some Soays belonging to the owner of the 'away' tup - unfortunately they brought conjunctivitis (pink eye) with them so we have had to round up all the little devils in that group, plus some more which had through-fence contact, every day to treat their eyes. IM Terramycin shouldn't be used on in-lamb ewes (apparently it has an 'anti-anabolic effect') but we had to use it on 3, 2 of which were still cycling so should be ok. What a nuisance - so much for my well-organised 4 weeks of tupping, to keep lambing just in April. And so much for November being a quiet month for us. Still, lesson learned.
We feed our ewes with ad lib hay plus a small amount of 'tup&lamb'/coarse mix and they have a licky bucket. They also get willow branches throughout the winter. Some years we don't do all this so soon but this year we have had snow and deep frosts for a while, so the grass has no nutritional value left in it. More deep cold and frosts to come this week.
We usually worm our stock just before the tups go in, but this year they didn't need it. We will watch them closely but I don't expect to have to do them again until after lambing. We also check every animals feet at that time, and trim any which need it. Sometimes that lasts through until after lambing, but if any individuals start to limp over the winter we catch them and do a trim.
Our meat boys go off in August at 16 months, so we have a small group to overwinter - they have ad lib hay, plus coarse mix when there is deep snow lying. Our unbred ewe hoggs have a fairly similar regime, and our 'old biddies' which are past breeding age but are pets so stay on here until they drop off their perches are fed masses !! Spoilt
