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MO | anyone else having a bad year lambing?
admittedly, I got back into sheep about 18 months ago and hadn't been around them in 12 years, but this lambing year is the worst I can remember. Provided, MO is a lot different than TX, but man this is rough. first group of 440 ewes, lambing on wheat pasture, looking at a 22-25% DL on lambs. Granted they are ewe lambs but this just seems too high. lots of mismothering as we rotate around the pastures (drift lambing....moved every 3 days and not backfenced for another day to allow new moms to catch up). have dealt with type A clostridia and also e.coli in the lambs. ewes seem to be milking well other than a couple but they have singles anyway. have pulled 2 for mastitis. Starting to rethink how smart lambing on pasture is in a wet environment. Have another 100 starting this upcoming week and the big group of 1000 starting in mid May. hope things straighten out....can't decide whether we need to be more hands on or more hands off. seems to have bitten us either way lately. Rant mostly, but advice appreciated.
Ewe condition is great. Only issue with ewe/ewe lamb health has been high fecal count on one small group that I posted about earlier, but we isolated that group and treated. Apologies for not replying to that post, we got really busy. | |
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Lambing Wreck
