KNOW THE SCORE BY GETTING A HANDLE ON THE FLOCK
CONDITION scoring by hand as early as possible will give optimum results for ewe flocks.
During an open evening demonstration on the farm of Willie and Ann Fox in Tang, Co Westmeath, sheep farmers were encouraged to consider the effectiveness of how they condition score before going to ram.
“A lot of farmers here are probably happy about their condition scoring but it’s no harm to look at it again. You want to get the best idea of how much reserves are on that ewe.
“It’s very easy to see the condition on them but you do need to get your hands on them, you have to handle them to see what is there on a one to five scale – one being a bag of bones, 5 being very fat. Around 3.5 or a 4 is the ideal condition for going to the ram,” said Ciaran Lynch of Teagasc. Although Mr Lynch said every farmer will score differently, he stressed the importance of focusing on the ewe’s backbone and feeling the different corrugations on it and fat cover on her ribs.
“The reality is it might take 8/9/10 weeks to put on 8-10 kilos of weight. The earlier you start the easier it is to put on those kilos,” he said.
He said putting a thinner ewe in with finishing lambs on a good run of grass for a couple of weeks should pull them up, if not it may be time to consider killing her off.
“If you’ve done all you can do, you’re after giving her a good run for a few weeks on grass and she’s not pulling up, there is obviously something else going on there, that is not what you want so I would cull her off at that point,” he said.
Mastitis
He said dealing with cases of mastitis and lameness early on is also important to avoid problems later in the year.
“In terms of what you are going to cull for clipping is a good chance to go in and handle the ewes again to check for mastitus. You’re looking for lumps, if there’s lumps you’ ll be down on milk production for next year.
“The bag might be fine on her now but a week before you go to ram if you handle her again you might notice lumps so it’s a good thing to check them now when you have a chance,” he said.
When it comes to lameness he said separating a lame ewe from the flock is essential.
“Taking her out is important because the longer she spends in that group the more infection she is spreading to the rest of the ewes”.