Ewe Sorting and Some Lamb Vaccinations

We got one batch of the ewes sorted out. This group will go to the live cover ram as a control for the AI procedure. They are all now sorted into the breeding pen and have had their fall dewormer to kill the nose bots. The potential AI girls are now in the other pen closest to the sweep. I still need to sort out 2 of them as possible butcher sheep.

We also got the ram lambs dewormed and the late lambs got their second shots. Still have to do the ewe lambs as well as deworm adult rams and the AI girls.

We've got a batch of potential butcher ewes selected as well. Ten will be going to slaughter next week so no wormer for them.

Toe Trimming & Deworming

Finished trimming toes on the last half of the adult ewes today. The sheep have better feet this year compared to other years. We've been culling for poor hoof growth patterns for a while but not very heavily. Seems to have made a big difference this year though. Next batch to do are the adult rams. Then we have to do toes on all the lambs from this year in 2 batches, ram lambs and ewe lambs. We use a grape pruning shears to trim hooves. They've got rounded tip blades that are curved and they work much better than any other type of trimmer. I like to have several sets of trimmers so that when one gets dull I can easily switch to a sharp set.

We also gave this batch of ewes their fall dewormer to remove nose bots. Nose bots are a significant parasite for our flock and ivermectin is the only dewormer that works on them. We still have half the ewes to deworm and all the rams, ram lambs and ewe lambs but at least we got started. We won't have to deworm until next spring before we turn out onto pasture.

Sheep Shots

31 July we gave all the lambs their first vaccinations and also did a deworming. Nose bots are a real problem this year so we have had to watch carefully and deworm more frequently. Here the sheep are going back up to their grazing segment. We use electronet just as a guide rather than a herding dog to move our sheep from place to place.

Sheep Dewormer

The pregnant ewes got their dewormer yesterday. One of the ways we reduce the parasite load in the pastures is to be sure to deworm the ewes 24-48 hours before they go out for the summer. That combined with our hard winters mean that we rarely have to deworm lambs until late summer when we start getting nose bot problems. So yesterday was a run through of all the pregnant girls into the sweep for a dose of dewormer. They all thought they were going to the pasture and were eager to get out. We had a lot of irate sheep when they had to go back to dry hay for breakfast.

We are still really short of grass. The long exceptionally cold winter means our pastures are running several weeks behind in grass growth so the yearlings and rams will all stay in winter corrals until the pastures catch up. We need to get the lambing ewes out before they start popping. It's much more sanitary to lamb on pasture.

The official due date is tomorrow.

Sheep Sorting & Dewormer

Yesterday we got all the ewes resorted into their secondary breeding groups and their fall/winter wormer done. We have to deworm with ivermectin drench after a hard freeze to kill the nose bots that infest sheep. Well we had a cold snap, then warm weather and there was a hatch of flies so we held off doing the dewormer. Then it got so cold that the thought of sticking a metal tube into delicate sheep mouths was horrible. Yesterday it warmed up enough that with a bucket of warm water to store the drench gun in we were able to get all the ewes done. Ewe lambs got done in the last weather hole. Still need to do rams and ram lambs but there aren't as many of them. We're now also set for the backup rams to go in on Monday.

For those who have no clue what drenching means. It's not soaking the sheep in some sort of nasty pesticide as some folks think. Drenching is giving a carefully measured dose of a parasiticide via mouth. It's been called drenching for hundreds of years. A lot of people seem to think it means the same in sheep management as it does when someone gets drenched and soaked to the skin but the terms are different. For nose bots the only effective drug is ivermectin. It's a synthetic version of the same chemical found in some soil funguses. Its drug effect is carefully controlled unlike the natural version but it's very safe. Ivermectin is used in human medicine to kill internal parasites too.

The sheep equivalent of getting soaked was the old way of dealing with external parasites like sheep keds, ticks, lice and other nasty critters. It is called dipping. I've never heard of anyone still dipping sheep for at least the last 30 years and if it's still done at all it's very rare. Dipping was the only option to deal with external parasites until the development of safe pour-ons. Now if we have to treat the sheep for lice or keds we can pour a measured amount of an insecticide on them, much like you would use a mosquito repellant. The last time we did it we used a pyrethin based insecticide. We no longer have to rely on vats of nasty chemicals and the disposal problems that creates when you are done.

Our flock rarely gets infested with external parasites. So we only use an insecticide when we need too. But the nose bot comes every year and it can cause sheep deaths. We try to reduce next year's infestations by killing all the larvae when they are resting inside the sheep over winter. The fly can travel so it's not perfect but it's our only management option. We have until the weather warms up again to get the rest of the sheep done.