Lambing season success: Essential tips
For most, lambing has already started or is about to start on farms across the UK. It’s the busiest time of the year, with research showing 25% off a sheep farms annual workload occurs at lambing. Here are some handy tips to help aid a successful lambing period.
Colostrum
Pre-lambing nutrition is essential, allowing ewes to produce high quality colostrum, whilst also ensuring the ewe receives the nutrients she needs to support fetal growth, to birth fit and healthy lambs.
Colostrum production is impacted by the ewes energy intake during the last three weeks of pregnancy. Therefore feed containing high energy and a quality protein source promotes milk production, while vitamin E improves colostrum quality and improves lamb survival rates.
Colostrum intake
Colostrum intake is vital for lamb survival, and provides newborn lambs with nutrition, as well as important antibodies to help prevent disease.
Lambs require 50ml/kg bodyweight colostrum per feed, amounting to 200ml/kg in the first 24 hours. By ensuring every lamb has received adequate colostrum, improves lamb survival rates.
It is vital that every lamb has received colostrum in the first 6 hours of being born, as the lambs ability to absorb the immunoglobulins into its bloodstream reduce.
If needs be you can top lambs up with cows colostrum, powdered colostrum or if a ewes got a lot of colostrum, milk and freeze her colostrum for later use.
Stock up on supplies
Being organised and prepared for lambing, reduces the amount of pressure you put yourself under. Stocking up on essential items will get you ready for the busy period:
- Gloves
- Lubricant
- Iodine
- Syringes and needles
- Powdered colostrum and lamb milk replacer
- Bottles, teats, stomach tube
- Marker spray
- Calcium injection
- Twin lamb supplement
- Lime / disinfectant for lambing pens / high footfall areas
- Jug and whisk
- Drinkers / feeders
- Castration rings and applicator
- Heat lamp and bulb or heat box for weaker lambs
Lambing pens
Adequate lambing pens both in terms of size and quantity are key for a successful lambing season. Aim for 1 lambing pen for every ten ewes, for instance 200 ewes should have a minimum of 20 lambing pens. Each pen should be roughly 1.5mx1.5m.
Having enough lambing pens is important for ewes and their lambs to have time to bond, before moving to a group pen or moving outdoors.
Lambing pen hygiene
Aim to clean out every pen between use. With pens disinfected with powdered lime or other disinfectant between use. Maintaining high levels of hygiene will help reduce the risk of infection spread between newborn lambs.
Lameness
In the run up to lambing, whether indoors or outdoors, lameness can become an issue. If a ewe is lame during gestation, she is less likely to get up and feed, which can leaded to loss of condition and in turn cause twin lamb disease, reduced milk production and smaller lambs. Ewes that are lame after lambing are likely to rear weaker lambs as they will spend more time lay down, preventing their lambs from suckling.
If lambing indoors, ensure there is plenty of fresh bedding, to keep the areas sheep lay clean and dry. Spread powdered lime beneath fresh straw in high footfall areas for example where sheep feed and drink.
If outdoors, check ewes feet for dried mud between the clays and treat for any worse conditions.
How Herdwatch can help
The lambing season can be challenging, but with the right preparation, it can be a smooth and successful process. The key is to have all the necessary supplies and technology to monitor your flock and step in if needed.
Log all new lambs against the respective dam in the Herdwatch App, record important data like number of lambs born, gender, birth weight, lambing difficulty, EID tag or lambing number (i.e. number or letter sprayed onto the lamb at birth).
