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Author Topic: Scour in pet lambs  (Read 6704 times)

winkhound

  • Joined Sep 2014
Re: Scour in pet lambs
« Reply #15 on: April 20, 2018, 07:38:38 pm »
how is water supplied?

Paul and Caroline

  • Joined Apr 2014
Re: Scour in pet lambs
« Reply #16 on: April 20, 2018, 11:53:51 pm »
how is water supplied?

By that do you mean to the holding or the lambs? We have mains water and we change the buckets in every pen daily with fresh water - we have to not least because they manage to spend a lot of time paddling in it!

winkhound

  • Joined Sep 2014
Re: Scour in pet lambs
« Reply #17 on: April 21, 2018, 02:24:15 pm »
Are all the buckets collected and filled?walked to tap and filled individually? filled with hose pipe in pen?

What im really trying to say, as ive seen it in action many times, is that sometimes you have to look at some of the really simple process we do and how much of a contributing factor they may be. I use water as an example as a lot of folk will never flush pipes etc. It could equally be wheel barrow routes/food storage/apparatuses cleanliness etc etc

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Scour in pet lambs
« Reply #18 on: April 21, 2018, 02:46:36 pm »
they manage to spend a lot of time paddling in it!

Is there a way the drinkers could be made less easy to paddle in?  Taller sides, stood on a plinth, for instance?  Just those feet are paddling in poo before they are paddled in the water...  I know the lambs are sharing a pen, but even so...
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Backinwellies

  • Global Moderator
  • Joined Sep 2012
  • Llandeilo Carmarthenshire
    • Nantygroes
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Re: Scour in pet lambs
« Reply #19 on: April 21, 2018, 07:14:17 pm »
130 cade lambs .... the farmer must be lambing a HUGE number of ewes!   Your problem maybe what he is not doing rather than what you are.....    lambing 1000's means it is unlikely everything is done properly ...  the triplet taken off (which I am assuming most of yours are) may never have had colostrum so has no immunity at all. 

My other observation was you said,  I think, that straw was over a foot deep in after just 2 weeks .... that sounds like a huge amount of straw to me.  I know my shed is earth floored so drains but I don't have a foot deep after having ewes in for over a month.

 :hug:  :hug:  losing lambs in numbers is very hard on you.
Linda

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Marches Farmer

  • Joined Dec 2012
  • Herefordshire
Re: Scour in pet lambs
« Reply #20 on: April 21, 2018, 07:33:33 pm »
Mucky feet in a drinking vessel is not a happy situation.  Needs to be raised to at least 23 cm above ground level  - they'll still be able to reach it but it'll be hard to paddle in.

Paul and Caroline

  • Joined Apr 2014
Re: Scour in pet lambs
« Reply #21 on: April 22, 2018, 06:42:33 pm »
130 cade lambs .... the farmer must be lambing a HUGE number of ewes!   Your problem maybe what he is not doing rather than what you are.....    lambing 1000's means it is unlikely everything is done properly ...  the triplet taken off (which I am assuming most of yours are) may never have had colostrum so has no immunity at all. 

My other observation was you said,  I think, that straw was over a foot deep in after just 2 weeks .... that sounds like a huge amount of straw to me.  I know my shed is earth floored so drains but I don't have a foot deep after having ewes in for over a month.

We now actually have 147 lambs from a flock of 1400 Ewes. I think my neighbour has suffered like all farmers with wet weather preventing him putting his flock out as they lamb - he lambs indoors. He scanned at 229% and has had a huge number of triplets and quads where mum just does not have the milk. Ordinarily they would very quickly be outside and onto lush grass but he has only just been able to start putting them out over the last two or three days.

I think you are right and I suspect the pet lambs have not had anywhere near enough colostrum - I get them once they have had it - and it is yet another lesson for me for next year and I will make sure they get as much as they need, albeit probably powdered.

We have lost a total of 17 so far (running total of 164 in all) and - touch wood - the ones we still have are looking like they will survive and thrive.

 
« Last Edit: April 23, 2018, 12:50:33 pm by Paul and Caroline »

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Scour in pet lambs
« Reply #22 on: April 22, 2018, 09:33:49 pm »
I don't suppose your neighbour is likely to take advice from me, but if he would I would advise him - quite strongly - to stop flushing his ewes and to aim for a lot less triplets!
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

 

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