Late pregnancy feeding: This week’s sheep feature on pages 42 and 43 covers late pregnancy feeding of ewes and lambs. With extra stress on ewes on many farms, it is important to get plans in place early to ensure excess condition is not lost. Introducing a low level of meal feeding for a couple of extra weeks if required will deliver a cost benefit in ewes lambing down with vigorous lambs and adequate colostrum. Adequate colostrum intake is vital to lamb survival and minimising the risk of disease taking hold. Lambs should receive 50ml colostrum per kilogramme of bodyweight at five- to six-hour intervals during the first 24 hours of life.

Creep feeding early lambs: While ground conditions are slowly improving, they are still not at a level in many areas to allow farmers turn out large numbers of ewes and lambs. Some farmers are also holding ewes in for longer in the hope that when animals do go to grass, they will be able to achieve higher levels of grass utilisation.

Lambs retained indoors should be offered access to creep feed once they reach one to two weeks of age. Offering lambs access to crunch or cooked rations will help in getting lambs eating faster.

Once lambs are eating significant volumes, this source of creep feed can be gradually reduced and replaced with a standard cereal-based ration or nut. A protein requirement of 16% to 18% is recommended for lambs indoors in the first few weeks of life. This can be cut back to 12% to 14% as lambs approach slaughter weight.

With lambs consuming high levels of concentrates in early lambing systems, the focus should be to minimise feed costs, but at the same time not compensate on the quality of concentrate fed. High-energy ingredients such as those outlined on page 42 and 43 (barley, maize, soyabean and high energy hulls/pulps) should be present at the top of the ingredient list.

Levels of abortion: Most flocks will at some stage experience an incidence of abortion in late pregnancy. The cause can be one of a number of factors, including excessive stress during flocking, worrying from dogs, limited space at the feeding barrier and troughs or injuries suffered.

Twin lamb disease can also cause abortion, but this will be evident as to what has caused an animal to abort. Where there are multiple cases and the percentage reaches 2% or above, alarm bells should start to ring and signal a threat of an infectious agent being responsible.

In this case, all animals should be isolated until the cause is known, with penning cleaned and disinfected. Collect all foetal membranes and submit along with the foetus for laboratory diagnosis. Your vet will organise for samples to be received by the regional veterinary laboratories.

Fluke reports continue: Reports continue to circulate about significant losses due to liver fluke. The worst cases are individual flocks suffering heavy losses following an outbreak of acute or chronic liver fluke.

Vets are advising farmers to treat outwintered ewes at risk at least every six weeks and possibly at four- to five-week intervals where a history of issues exists. They also point to problem areas widening due to widespread flooding and waterlogged soils. Use a product that kills at least immature and mature parasites.