January 2015

A lovely surprise to start the New Year – our 28-week old Leghorn hens started to lay on 1st January, the most beautiful pale blue eggs!

January is a busy month at Green Farm; the ewes are now just 8 weeks from lambing – these last few weeks of pregnancy account for 70% of the lamb’s foetal growth, so we have to ensure that the ewes’ rapidly increasing energy and protein requirements are catered for. We scan the ewes so we know which ewes are carrying multiple lambs and by keeping a close eye (and hand!) on their body condition score (BCS), we’ll be able to increase their ration gradually to keep pace with both their own needs and those of the growing lambs.

Their rumen capacity for bulk feed decreases as the lambs grow, so, in addition to the ad lib hay we’ve been feeding since November, we start them off on a small ration (0.25kg per ewe) of concentrates, gradually increasing this to up to 1.0kg (in two feeds) for the ewes carrying triplets. Have a look at our article 'Nutritional Management of the Ewe in Late Pregnancy' for a downloadable sample Feeding Chart, to help you manage your own flock at this time. Throughout their pregnancy we condition score the ewes (aiming to maintain a score of 3) – it’s an easy job when they’re all feeding at the trough!

If any are a bit on the thin side, they can be separated for extra feeding. By careful observation and nutritional management, you will hopefully avoid the most common metabolic and deficiency diseases of the pregnant ewe, these are:

• Hypocalcaemia (lambing sickness)
• Hypomagnesaemia (grass staggers)
• Pregnancy Toxaemia (twin lamb disease)

We’ve only once lost a heavily pregnant ewe to ‘Twin Lamb Disease’, or Pregnancy Toxaemia – this is one of the metabolic diseases that can affect ewes during late pregnancy. It’s caused by inadequate nutrition or stress, so it’s wise to be as calm around the ewes as possible – even moving to a new field can trigger a stress reaction. Sheep that are over-fat (BCS >3.5 are also susceptible. Signs to watch for are: reluctance to feed, laboured breathing, foamy mouth and nostrils, facial or body twitching and the smell of ketones on the breath (slightly reminiscent of nail polish remover – once smelt, never forgotten). The condition is treatable if caught early enough; as soon as we realised there was a problem, we gave the ewe a drench of Ketol, calcium (by subcutaneous injection) and antibiotic injections. An internal examination confirmed that she was not yet ready to lamb. We repeated the calcium and Ketol at 4-hourly intervals, but sadly the ewe died during the early hours of the morning. This was an unpleasant introduction to another aspect of stock keeping: what to do when an animal dies. The options are limited: it is illegal to bury livestock on the farm, and there are very few hunt kennels left that have the facilities to deal with fallen stock. Up until a few years ago, the local Animal Health Division would arrange to collect sheep free-of-charge under the National Scrapie Plan, but this has now been phased out. It’s a really good idea to have your local information to hand, for you will one day face this inevitability.

Also during January, approximately six weeks before lambing, we give all the sheep (including the rams and last year’s ewe lambs) a booster vaccination. This will also protect the newborn lambs against Clostridial Diseases for the first few weeks of life.