Livestock Farmer Focus: Bryan Griffiths has been teaching lambs to hop
Shearing at Southcott is not a frantic rush by a gang of contractors, but a more protracted DIY affair.
We normally gather about 120 ewes and while I shear them Liz will drench, footbath and apply pour-on to the lambs.
I keep the medicine box to hand and take time to treat such ailments as foot abscesses or bad udders. After re-marking the ewes, the flock are returned to pasture, hopefully sorted for a few days at least.
There is the usual dilemma over which pour-on to use. The product capable of giving a full seasons’ protection against fly strike has such a long meat withdrawal period that we only use it on late-born doubles that won’t reach slaughter weight before weaning. The early lambs and singles have received a rump-only treatment of a short meat withdrawal product, but those not sold will need a full second dose in August.
We have started selling lambs but the first pick included a fair proportion of 12-week-old Charollais cross singles that were a little too fat.
A few wet days had a tremendous effect on grass growth so we may yet get a decent crop of silage, although not before July. We have cut and wrapped one field, somewhat prematurely, to prevent the outrageous crop of docks seeding. We will try to spray them as they re-grow.
I have been trying to forward creep lambs into a field of new seeds but with little success. I placed inverted round feeders in the gateway hoping the lambs would hop through but after several days only a handful had learned to do so. Letting a few ewes through helped to draw more lambs in, but the majority seem reluctant to leave their mums.