[shrekfeet]

If I plan to kill this year's spring lambs in the autumn do i need to vaccinate?

[Padge]

we do ours

[SallyintNorth]

If they were born from and reared by fully vaccinated (on the same system - ie, heptavac for heptavac, covexin for covexin) ewes you could choose not to; if you were keeping ewe lambs on you would probably give them their first shot autumn-time so they would not have had a shot over the summer.  Having said which, some people vaccinate all lambs at three months and some do not vaccinate keeping ewe lambs until they are 12 months old.

If they were hand-reared or the ewes were not vaccinated then it's probably wise to vaccinate.

You could ask your vet's advice (if you have the sort of vet who tells it like it is.)

[Anke]

I vaccinate all of mine at about 6 to 8 weeks (about now) and then for second dose 4 weeks later. I don't know at this stage which ones I plan to keep beyond Nov/Dec, so it's easier to just do them all.

[Rosemary]

I do the same as Anke - my meat lambs are worth as much as breeding stock, so I'd be gutted to lose one to something preventable

[shearling]

We did our boys (no girls this year). We looked at this way. The cost is relatively small compared with the chances of loosing them/vet bills/preventable sleepless nights. Also we keep animals, and will eat them because we would rather they had a good life with us rather than eating packaged food that we do not know the provenience of.

[feldar]

If you work out the cost depending on how many lambs you have, ( small bottle of heptavac-p plus about £18.00?) then work out cost of loosing lamb, it just has to pay to vaccinate. We lost 3 good size fit to kill ram lambs one year;  p.m. results came back clostridial, very costly, so we always vaccinate now.

[waterhouse]

I think it's got to be done.

On which subject I was happily doing a ewe's foot yesterday when she kicked and the cutter thingy went straight into my other hand along with a goodly dose of sheep poo and mud.  Am diverting via minor injuries unit for another tetanus jab  tomorrow.  OH injected herself with heptavac earlier in the year when another ewe resisted treatment but I'm not following her example.