Dan wrote in a comment:
I read your blog every day and wonder if you could do a loooong blog post on how you care for your sheep… for example how much hay you give them, do you flush and with oats, do you creep feed your lambs and for how long, do you get a 1lbs per day growth rate on your lambs… At what weight do you sell… Do you breed yearlings or wait for next year… do you always achive 1.8 … what is your loss rate of lambs…
Thanks Dan, for reading! Ok, here goes:
During winter, I usually plan for feeding 3% of the ewes’ bodyweight per day. That’s the “standard figure” for sheep in general. I assume my ewes weigh an average of 150 lbs each (though they really range quite widely: from about 120 lbs to 200 lbs). But actually, my sheep eat more like 2.5% per day, and maybe I can get them up to 3.5% or 4% in late pregnancy, but that’s pushing it. They are just very efficient compared to some breeds upon which the standard figure is based. And it likely depends on the quality of hay, if it’s lower in protein and TDN, they need to eat more to maintain their weight.
I let them have as much hay as they want; and make sure there is always a little left over each day, so I’m confident nobody is getting aced-out. I only feed local grass hay; although sometimes with my ewelambs, I will separate them in late pregnancy and give them a little alfalfa to give them a boost since they are still growing.
I do flush with corn-barley (cheaper for me than oats), 1 lb/head/day, for 17 days leading up to, and through, breeding. Then I cut them off, and bring that back for the last thirty days of pregnancy. I might lengthen that a bit if I think they are lean at 4 months along in pregnancy. I tail the ewes off of grain the week after lambing is done. I plan my lambing around the grass, so the ewes start grazing a few weeks prior to lambing starting.
I do not creep feed my lambs, I’ve tried before, but it’s too much hassle to drag a creep feeder around every two days when I move the pasture. And for me, grain just adds to cost, when I have plenty of graze; I just need to be patient and let the lambs grow at the slower pace. So grass is it for my sheep. This means that maternal milk is fairly important to get good early growth on the lambs, because milk is all they get until they can start ruminating and digesting fresh grass on their own. This takes longer than if they are on hay; because of course they can take in more nutrient volume with hay since it has very little water weight.
I get about a 1/2 lb per day of weight gain on the lambs, plus or minus. I sell them around 6-9 months old, when they exceed 85 lbs live weight. Sometimes people buy smaller ones for BBQs too.
I do breed all my yearlings, though not all of them take (and those get penalized). I have come close to 200% in the past, but the last couple of years, my flock has been heavy on pre-three-year-olds since I’m trying to expand, so I’m more around 150%, if I count the ones that don’t lamb at all. I intend to get it up over 200% once I get a mature flock, that is what’s considered optimal for our breed. But first, I’m focusing on improving my weaning- and post-weaning-weight metrics, as well as maternal milk, so I’m not selecting so hard for birth rate (yet). I’ll keep a singler and drop a triplet-bearer if the latter can’t wean lambs that are ready to butcher by November; because I hate feeding butcher lambs over winter.
Last year I had a 17% loss of lamb crop, and that includes counting tiny perished fetuses when I find them in the placenta (I try to always look for them so I know how many lambs the ewe conceived. She gets credit for the conception, but penalized for the loss in her NSIP metrics). More than half my losses happen pre-birth, so that is where I focus my energy on prevention. I usually only lose a few post-birth, from random things; but I’ve been lucky not to have a trend or spike of a particular problem pre- or post-weaning. For the most part, for me, once I verify the lambs are up and have colostrum in them, they are almost always good-to-go!
This is just how I do things and what works for me. Hope that helps!
The Collie Farm Blog 
April 7, 2014 at 4:49 pm
How about pre-partition shots – CD&T – or worming?
Over the years I have never done this but am reconsidering. We have had 75 live and healthy lambs this year but from that group lost five lambs at various times and at about 3/4 weeks for no explainable reason. A neighbor who raises sheep and is also a vet suggested that it might be because we didn’t do the shots to give the lambs immunity.
I know that everyone loses lambs but ……..it really hurts.
Peter
April 7, 2014 at 6:01 pm
Awesome reply, Thank you. Dan
April 7, 2014 at 7:35 pm
You’re welcome Dan! Peter, I didn’t originally do vaccinations, but started to after I was losing enough lambs pre-birth, right at birth, and right after; often with weak lambs born that didn’t have strong get-up-and-go; which made me suspicious that I was dealing with an abortifacient like vibrio. So now I vaccinate the ewes for vibrio (campylobacter), chlamydia, and CDT.
I believe my lambs have lower risk for tetanus since I don’t dock tails, their umbilical cords would be the only likely entry point for it. But, it is in the soil, so still possible.
I feel my clostridium risk is mostly concentrated early when the lambs are getting a lot of rich milk, so I’m ok with the knowledge that the maternal antibiodies will wear off- by that time, the lambs are mostly subsisting on grass.
I also inoculate the lambs for e. coli, using an oral vaccine that’s administered right at birth. After this, I don’t give the lambs any other vaccines, because I feel their risk is very low. It’s different for people who creep feed, they often have to give one or more series of CDT to lambs to ensure clostridium doesn’t get them later, after the maternal immunity declines.
I think vaccines should be used with caution, as they carry their own risk, so I don’t believe people should do them “just because.” Not to mention, they add cost and labor, so it has to be justified by a rationale that it’s likely cutting losses. In the future, I intend to experiment with cutting back on vaccines, like only doing mature ewes every three years. I suspect they probably have longer-lasting immunity, but it’s just that nobody has tested it. Of course, the manufacturers would rather we buy fresh doses each year… But I feel the less I’m sticking dirty needles into them, the better, and it would go faster if I only did ewelambs most years…
April 7, 2014 at 9:20 pm
Tons of really good stuff here and that shot of the lamb on TOP of its mother is priceless. I am going out of sheep though, every ewe lamb Mama has thrown has had trouble.. much as i love to eat lamb, I am giving it up.. I would have to start all over again ..either the ram or my original ewes had a bad gene in there somewhere.. everyone was penalised.. the ram has gone and i will do wool for a while.. however your work is wonderful.. your are a stunning shepherd of your flock.. c
April 7, 2014 at 10:35 pm
I have always tended to your way with the vaccines – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Our loses this year have been with good looking healthy lambs. You mention the moms immunity wearing off … so now for the mea culpa ….
I have always creep fed in an area that gives the lambs free access to local ground corn mixed with soy. The neighbor vet thought that the last death might be over eating or clostridium so i stopped with the corn about three weeks ago.Maybe it has just persisted.
Maybe the Mom’s immunity has dropped. I think that your idea of vaccinating less often is a good one. Also I think that I’ll give up on the creep in the future .Everyone seems fat and happy — good baleage really helps. I’ll send you some photos of the babies.
Peter
April 8, 2014 at 3:44 am
Nowwwww you’ve done it. Now you’ve opened up the questioning and I can t resist! And THANK YOU for your willingness to be so open.
I’d love to know how you learned all your vet and pharmacy care and how I can learn it, too. I’ve got a lot of the basic administrations down, but things like knowing what to look for and diagnosing and having the right meds on hand and turning a fetus. Where do they teach that? And autopsies?…holy moly. Thank you!
April 8, 2014 at 4:38 am
Cecilia- that’s too bad! Genes definitely play a big role; maybe someday you can start with an easy-car breed and see if it’s less troublesome?
April 8, 2014 at 4:50 am
Peter, yessss…. so maternal immunity wears off at an uneven and unpredictable rate. The tricky thing is that while it’s still “there” vaccinations don’t work! So this is why people end up doing multiple vaccines on young animals, they are trying to hit that magic window right after maternal immunity drops off, but before the animal has been vulnerable for too long. If you do unlimited creep, especially something high protein like soy (not so much with corn…) I think it’s def worth vaccinating lambs for clostridium. The bummer thing with that disease is it usually gets the biggest and best lambs- the ones that are eating the most aggressively. 😦
April 8, 2014 at 5:35 am
Janya, well… A lot I just find in books when I need to look something up, I have several good ones on hand. I have David Henderson’s “Veterinary Book for Sheep Farmers”, that is pretty comprehensive. I also often reference Sheep and Goat Medicine by Pugh and Baird, which has a cool online copy that’s searchable. I keep meaning to buy a copy b/c I use it so much. I have a couple of veterinary parasite books for ID’ing worms in fecal egg samples, too, though those aren’t strictly necessary.
For general stuff, I think Paula Simmons’ book is the best (which is now published as a Story’s Guide, I think). Several books tell how to re-position lambs in the womb, though I find their cartoon illustrations don’t quite prepare one for how hard it can be physically! It just takes practice.
I’ve run across a couple of how-to’s for doing necropsies; there is a youtube video somewhere, and I have a photo essay from a sheep magazine that I keep on hand. I’m certainly not highly skilled, but feel like there’s nothing like experience, so I try to do them whenever I have time.
April 8, 2014 at 12:39 pm
Hmmm, interesting conversation about vaccinations – I vaccinate all ewes about 4-6 weeks prior to lambing with Tasvax 8 and also with Case-bac. Then I do nothing else except at 3 months vaccinate replacement ewe lambs with the same two vaccines. I have no losses of lambs but we do not creep feed – the lambs however do eat their mother’s grain once they are old enough. Lambs are born in March and ewes are being fed a good alfalfa grass mix hay and 2 pounds of corn and roasted soybeans a day until they go on pasture in May, at which point they switch to grass only. This year my daughter has been given two bottle babies from a neighbour (sigh) and I was thinking I’d try to creep feed them in order to reduce the amount of time spent bottle feeding…so now I’m think that for those lambs a clostridium vaccine might be in order – or should I limit their intake of creep? And they had a couple of days of limited access to their mother’s milk before she dried up so I’m think they wouldn’t have a ton of maternal immunity so are again good candidates for a vaccine, but at what age??….and to make it all worse they are the loudest lambs I have ever met – annoyingly loud…we call them Screech and Scream!
April 8, 2014 at 3:46 pm
Andrea, I believe the maternal antibody window declines at around 6-12 weeks old. It’s a gradual tail-off, and varies quite a bit by individual. So it could be that you are hitting this window pretty successfully vaccinating lambs at 12 weeks. I think if you’re only going to do one, that would be the time. If your lambs are just eating some of the ewes’ grain, they are probably not getting enough to be so much at risk for clostridium, as compared to creep-fed lambs where they can eat as much as they want, all day.
Maternal antibodies come from colostrum only, and a lamb’s stomach cells are only set up to accept them in about the first 8 hours of life. After that, the cell structures change, and though colostrum is still a richer food source after that, the lamb will not get any immunity benefits from it. That’s why it’s so critical that lambs get their own mother’s (or another local ewe’s) unpasteurized colostrum right away after birth. Otherwise, they must limp along and develop immunity to everything on their own, and are usually sickly.
For standard sheep husbandry recommendations, I always look to Susan Shoenian’s site- she says “Lambs should receive their first CD-T vaccination when they are approximately 6 to 8 weeks of age, followed by a booster 4 weeks later. If pastured animals are later brought into confinement or dry lot for concentrate feeding, a third vaccination should be given.” http://www.sheep101.info/201/vaccinations.html
From this, you can see, the attempt is to catch those lambs with early drop-off at 6 weeks, catch the bulk of them with drop-off at 12 weeks, then catch any stragglers that had late drop-off with a 3rd vaccine sometime later (or this can act as a booster for lambs being brought in to feedlot). That would manage to protect most of the lambs in a population.
April 8, 2014 at 7:14 pm
Yes – I like that site too – I use it a lot. I think the reason we wait until 12 weeks to start lamb vaccines is the fact that we are also giving the CL vaccine which our vet recommends giving at 12 weeks – so since both these shots also require a booster we prefer to give 2 shots at 12 weeks then 2 shots 4 weeks later rather than handling them all more often for single shots…and of course this is only the replacement ewe lambs – all other lambs get no vaccines and exist off their mother’s maternal immunity like yours do – and being a grass based system it seems to be ok like this. Thanks for starting this conversation – it is always nice to be able to bounce ideas off other producers and hear what other do in similar circumstances!
April 9, 2014 at 2:43 pm
Andrea, I agree- I don’t think in a grass-based system, or a case where lambs are stealing nibbles of grain while competing with the ewes at feeding time, is cause for much worry with clostridium. That said, I will say I think I may have lost a few to it, I think it’s still possible if they are on heavy milk or really rich grass. But I haven’t had enough of those suspected cases to justify the labor and expense, and added risk, of starting a vaccine protocol for lambs. I figure if I “only” lose one lamb a year to it, it’s not worth it to vaccinate twice. But the risk-benefit analysis is different for everyone.
April 9, 2014 at 3:19 pm
i have to tell you about little black and little white today – again, i’m amazed at these lambs behavior toward a stranger.
i was admiring the garden of a neighbor and heard a baa and i remembered the lambs and excitedly took my horse over for a visit. they’ve expanded their pet flock to include two black and tan sheep (colored very strikingly, brown with black points, no white at all). then there’s the mother still nursing a small one, and those two incredible little ones, who, somehow, really like us!
they saw us and came cantering to the fenceline, leaving all the others, who are obviously nervous. they put their faces right through the wire of the hog fence and acted as if i bring their food everyday. i gave them each a horse treat but they couldn’t chew them, darnit, they’re too hard for them. they let me pet them this time.
isn’t it odd, these two babies being so attracted to a stranger WITH HORSE?
April 9, 2014 at 4:44 pm
Haha, Lytha, this is exactly how bottle lambs behave though. They totally don’t know they’re sheep, they lose all flocking instinct, all wariness of other animals, like dogs. It must be that wariness is more learned from the mother than hard-wired, because they seem oblivious to danger. They assume every human has potentially brought milk. My husband was laughing the other day, he was down in the field, and the two bottle lambs were sticking their noses up his knee-length shorts, looking for a teat! 😀 They had never seen him before in their lives, but they get excited if any random person shows up, and come barreling over, hollering, making a huge racket.
They really are funny and cute. That is, until they are grown up, and are constantly trying to push buckets out of your hand, shove gates open and stuff, because they’re so conditioned to be demanding. 😛
April 10, 2014 at 7:19 am
thanks for sharing that – no wonder they’re so friendly. i’ll have to tell my husband (who says i really shouldn’t try to feed other people’s animals, and he’s right).
i remember when the flock first came to our field, i asked the shepherd if there was one i could pet, and he said, “no, but see that one there? stay clear away from him!” the last time i had an encounter with him and his herd, he was about to move them across a street, and i wanted to see the new lambs and show my horse there’s nothing to fear, but when the flock saw us, they immediately took off for the far end of that field, and he had to send his dogs out to get them back. all the while, the horse was pulling to try to escape the dangerous flock, despite the fact they were quite gone.
i have to ask you – do you smell them anymore, or are you so used to that smell that you don’t notice it? i rarely smell my horse, my nose is numb to that. if the donkey accidentally lets rain fall on her back, i notice her odd smell right away. sheep have such a distinctive scent. it reminds me of the petting zoo at woodland park.
did you see those articles on boundary dogs from the mugwump blog? i’m totally fascinated by it: http://www.german-shepherdherding.com/ i especially liked the article “herding with nicky” how one dog taught another how to react to sheep. caution – you might spend a few hours on that site like i did!