[agri293]

hi there looking for advice on what equipment for lambing could do with a list so i can purchase pre lambing cheers

[feldar]

Not being funny but get yourself a really good lambing book, if i had a pound for every time i referred to mine i would be a rich woman

[wellies]

I've got the sheep book for smallholders and it's got a really good list in. My vet also has a sheet which lists everything and you just tick away and state how many. I wasn't too sure so called in for some advice and they helped me fill it in, very helpful people 

[Fleecewife]

Probably best to make your own list, so you understand what each thing is for, rather than just buying in a load of stuff and thinking that's it. 

Everyone on here seems to be panicking about lambing but with small numbers not much is likely to go wrong, and if something major does then your best bet by far is to pop the ewe in the back of the Land Rover and get her down to the vet (phone first), rather than messing about with tackle you don't know how to handle, and delaying proper treatment.  The vet would far rather you consulted him/her unneccessarily than that an animal suffered.  Taking the animal to the vet is cheaper than a call-out and means he/she has everything needed to hand.

We have gloves for hygiene, 10% iodine to dip the umbilical cord (we do it twice a couple of hours apart), farmers lubricant, old towels to wrap a cold lamb or to make carrying them easier, castration rings and applicator, mini temporary eartags, a notebook, a powerful torch plus a head torch, colostrum sachets and a feeding bottle, plus milton to sterilise the bottle should we need it.   
We also carry penicillin and terramycin antibiotics (but if you don't know how, which or when to use them, get a vet's advice and the dose from them), a selection of syringes and needles, which we have all year round anyway.
We don't bother with kick-start or prolapse spoons and so on, as we have never needed them and in an emergency if the vets was closed we could borrow from someone nearby.  We do have a lamb tube and syringe but unless you are confident of how to use one you are more likely to kill the lamb than save it.

This is just some ideas for you, but do find out how to lamb before you start    Good luck

ps - I've just realised that we do have a prolapse spoon thing which we bought 16 years ago and it's still unused - I'm delighted to say 

[Fronhaul]

My kit is very much like Fleecewife's except I do include a bottle of Kickstart and I use an aerosol umbilical spray and cover myself in purple.

But the most important thing is to know when you are beaten and need to consult the vet.  Oh and if you do a lambing course, and I think it is an excellent idea if you get the chance, then don't leave it feeling that no ewe ever has a natural birth because despite my recent experiences in the vast majority of cases nature knows what she is doing even when we don't.  I remember stressing over lambing my first shearling.  All the older ewes had lambed some time before and I was checking her religiously through the night.  Went out early one evening to shut up for the night and no shearling.  Went down the field and there they were, quietly in a corner of the field shearling and her first lamb, fit well and happy as can be.

[SallyintNorth]

Practical advice from real smallholders there.     I sometimes forget that my perspectives will differ - when you're lambing 200+ ewes, there will be problems and you will need all the bits and pieces.  When you're lambing small numbers, mostly everything will be straightforward.

With your commercial cross ewes bearing Texel cross lambs, I probably would try to have some KickStart handy, though.  Fleecewife's primitives may all have all the get-up-and-go needed, but these commercial types don't always have quite as much as they need if they suffer a setback.  (I can't remember ever squirting KickStart into a Swaledale lamb's mouth, but it saved the lives of many many Mules and Texel crosses.)

[Rosemary]

I wonder if Kick start would be any good for stressed shepherds 

[kanisha]

Hi I have a question re tubing.

I have intubated many animals for anaesthesia  ( tracheal tube) I'm just wondering how difficult people find it for tubing a lamb ( oesophageal tube) I have no inclination to try but you can bet when I might consider needing to use it would be in the middle of the night with no one to ask!

[SallyintNorth]

I wonder if Kick start would be any good for stressed shepherds 

We get Lucozade and Tunnocks Caramel Wafers.  Without which, British Agriculture would cease to function! 

[agri293]

thanks for all the advice a kind hearted neighbour has asked if i would like to help out for two or three nights he lambs early march so i am looking forward to it

[SteveHants]

Hi I have a question re tubing.

I have intubated many animals for anaesthesia  ( tracheal tube) I'm just wondering how difficult people find it for tubing a lamb ( oesophageal tube) I have no inclination to try but you can bet when I might consider needing to use it would be in the middle of the night with no one to ask!

I find tubing very easy, but it seems to make some nervous.

[deepinthewoods]

ive intubated my own daughter, when she was 3days old and 8wks premature, i did it for the next 4 weeks twice a day, not a lamb i know

[kanisha]

  I'm in awe

[Remy]

Don't know if you have a Wynnstay near you but they have a lambing list on which you just tick off what you want - but I suppose if you are new to it you won't know what's essential and what's not and may end up getting all of it 

It's great that you will have help as you will learn a lot, and have an experienced person to hand should anything go wrong.

I've had lambs for the past four years now and have only once had to help the ewe when a lamb was presented wrongly, and another time when a mother rejected the lamb.  In cases of emergency I would always call the vet if I felt out of my depth.  My lambing list is similar to Fleecewife's .

My first experience of lambing was when I put my inexperienced ram in with maiden ewes.  He had a lamb raddle but none of the ewes was marked.  I changed the colour but still no sign of marking - we began to wonder if the ram was gay

But come spring, I found one lamb born dead in the field and another trotting along happily with it's mum!  The raddle crayons were just not working for some reason

The next year I brought all the ewes in for lambing, I just watched and it was fascinating to see the whole process from the way they behave just before lambing to the lambs being born.  I couldn't resist pulling the straw out of little noses but tbh my help wasn't needed as the ewes were fabulous mums.  I did have the help of an experienced sheep farmer I could call on, but didn't need it fortunately.

I'm in awe of how animals just know what to do and get on with the job, even it's their first time, unlike us humans!

[Fleecewife]

I think the scariest bit in the first year was not knowing what was normal for sheep giving birth.  I knew plenty about humans, cats, pigs, but nothing about sheep. 
For example, how long from when I first noticed them separating themselves off should I expect them to lamb, how long from when they first started pushing, how hard should they be pushing before I decided to help, how long could the new lamb lie there before the dam worked out which was the front end to cleanse, and the one it took me ages to find an answer for - how long before the afterbirth/cleansing came away before I should worry.  I had been on a lambing course but it was for a commercial flock, where they seemed to intervene a lot of the time, and those questions don't seem to be answered in the books in such a way that they are helpful when you are shivering out in the lambing shed, or worse, out in the field, in the middle of a freezing night.
We had Jacobs back then where intervention is probably the best idea, whereas with our Soays, Shetlands and Hebrideans the answer was to leave them a bit longer than I thought, unless there was no progress