Our mass worming went well. Today we did the lambs and we also vaccinated them too. In an effort to maximize our time (and cause least stress to the stock), we were waiting for the youngest lambs to be of the right age (at least 3 weeks) so we could get all the vaccinations done at once. This meant that the oldest were over seven weeks, whereas usually it is recommended that lambs are vaccinated BEFORE they are six weeks old as at that point, any immunity from mum has started to wear off and so the lamb is at high-risk. Due to our low stocking rates and our knowledge that the sheep farmers around us also vaccinate and so help to reduce incidents of specific illnesses, we felt that we were safe-ish to wait this long in order to only have to bring all the sheep inside the barn twice (once for the first injection and then again for the follow-up)!! As ever, the feed bucket proved to be key to successful moving and handling and having got the goats safely ensconced in their field shelter, we then led the sheep up from the bottom field, past the said goats and on into the barn.
Everybody then had a bit of ‘TLC’ with jabs and drenching and in the case of the ewes: dagging; feet and udder checking. As we have not tagged the lambs yet, it was fun sorting out who belonged to whom but we made sure we sprayed each lamb when they had had their injection and drench, so that we knew for certain each one had been done and no lamb had been done twice!
We weighed the lambs too because we needed to know their weight in order to get the correct worming dose. Under-dosing can be a major cause of worming failure and can also promote resistance to the wormers used!!
We will need to get the vet to retest for signs of nematodirus again in 10-14 days and fingers crossed, there will be few, if, any signs!!!