[twizzel]

Just starting to get ready for our orphan lambs again, one farm we had some off last year lambs during January. I know we were a bit late heptavac'ing and worming our lambs last year, can anyone tell me at how many weeks you should heptavac orphan lambs?
Also we were slightly late worming ours last year- we treated with combinex in July time (which was fine for our lambs but OHs sisters then grew too big as should have been slaughtered earlier but couldn't due to withdrawal period), so again how old should they be when we do first worming?
 
 

[SteveHants]

This year is warm and wet - I wouldnt be in the slightest bit surprised if there were still worms about - I had high counts in Dec and have seen nothing to make me not have another done soon. If I were you I would do fecs at 8wk intervals.


You can give heptavac as soon as you like because they wont be getting any immunity from their dams.

[shep53]

HEPTAVAC  states any time after 3wk's of age, don't forget to repeat 4-6wk's later . Either get egg counts done  or start  dosing  apr/may  as the weather warms up . Why use a combination fluke and wormer on lambs mid summer , withdrawal 56 days,some wormers are only 6 days

[twizzel]

Brilliant thankyou. Yes I remembered they had to repeat the heptavac We used a combination one because the last 2 lambs OH's sister raised the year before were flukey. Our lambs were fine in that they weren't ready to go until early Oct anyway, but OHs sister didn't really look after hers properly hence why they weren't wormed or fluked earlier- we did hers with ours (raised on calf milk powder, little creep and copious amounts of corn, and she didnt want to heptavac at all) and turned out quite fatty when slaughtered... one way to learn how NOT to raise orphan lambs (consequently she lost 2 this year!).