Why dosing for fluke will be done in two batches

As ground conditions have deteriorated over the past number of weeks, I’ve decided to house the remaining lambs for finishing. Grass is getting scarcer and I feel saving fields for ewes and lambs in the spring will be worth more to me then. The amount of grass that was available to them was not offering them much in terms of thrive. All of the lambs were being creep-fed outside and were built up slowly over time.

They were put in when I got the sheds ready for them. It’s important to have clean water for them all the time. I check the bowls regularly to make sure they are clean and working.

I also clean out where they are eating the meal, just to make sure this doesn’t get dirty and mouldy.

The lambs were put in when they were dry and are now on straw bedding. They were footbathed with copper sulphate (bluestone) as they were put into the shed. These lambs will be short keep as many of them are very close to killing weight but perhaps need some more flesh and cover.

The meal mix they are getting is made up of maize, barley, beetpulp nuts, and a small amount of soya bean meal — approximately 16pc crude protein.

They will be built up to ad-lib meal. This shouldn’t take them too long as they were getting the same meal outdoors with creep feeders. The plan is to have them gone as soon as possible, and who knows maybe the price will be on the rise too?

The last batch of lambs that were sent to the factory killed out well, averaging around the 20kg mark with half U grades and half R grades. It’s just frustrating that the price wasn’t great.

Nearly all the ewes are tipped at this stage. Apart from ewes tipping for the first time and some repeats, the rams won’t have much for doing from now on.

I had one ram that wasn’t working 100pc, with some ewes holding and then some repeating. I took this ram up and joined two batches together with a more mature ram that ewes weren’t repeating out of.

I will start to take up the Bluefaced Leicester rams this week and replace them with Blackface rams and ram lambs (Lanark type). These will be left out for another month to clean up any repeats.

This will also give the Bluefaced Leicester rams a chance to recover and get in out of the elements as the weather gets more wintery.

I’m planning to perhaps dose ewes again for fluke on wetter ground earlier than I usually would, after the past few months of wet weather.

I will remain vigilant with the other batches of ewes on drier ground but I don’t intend to dose these for fluke as soon.

Ewes are generally in good condition. There have been a few lame ewes but I treated these when I had them in for changing the raddle on the ram.

The Bluefaced Leicester ewes will be scanned in December. I have seen a few of these ewes repeating at an unusual stage but hopefully the majority are okay. Only the scanning will tell.

The replacement ewe lambs will be given a fluke dose soon along with a trace element bolus that includes cobalt, copper, iodine, zinc and selenium and vitamins.

The land that they are grazing is very deficient in these trace elements and I found by supplementing the lambs last year with minerals that they were very healthy and thrived well over the winter.

All the replacement ewe lambs will be double-tagged also with a wraparound tag; it will be probably done on the same day. It’s a job that has to be done before the end of the year.

The last batch of lambs that were sent to the factory killed out well, averaging around the 20kg mark with half Us and half R-grades. It’s just frustrating that the price wasn’t great