Preventing Lamb Losses: 30 Days Through Weaning

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For the purposes of this article, we assume that lambs will be weaned around 60-90 days of age. At 30 days old, lambs’ rumens are still developing, and they are not able to survive on just forage. They still need milk and/or adequate amounts of creep feed to thrive. Lambs that are fed only milk and forage should ideally not be weaned until 90-100 days of age, when their rumens are fully functional. Creep fed lambs can be weaned earlier, as long as you continue grain supplementation after weaning.  Making sure that your lambs receive adequate nutrition during this time…

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Not all sheep ailments are common ones

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In August we euthanized a Katahdin yearling ewe that was later diagnosed with large cell lymphoma (LCL), a cancer of the blood that leads to leukemia and tumors in lymph nodes, heart, lungs and other organs. LCL and other neoplastic (tumor-producing) disorders are thought to be rare in sheep according to surveys conducted at animal slaughterhouses, with an overall tumor incidence of around .002 percent, compared to .23 percent in cattle (ref. 1). Symptoms We first noticed the ewe’s lack of appetite. She would rush to the hay feeder with the others, but eat very little.  Since the poor appetite…

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Preventing Lamb Losses: The first 30 days

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Lambing is an exciting time of year, especially when everything goes well. It’s also an economically important time; after all, you can’t sell lambs that don’t make it to weaning. Getting your lambs off to a good start goes a long way to ensuring an enjoyable and profitable lamb crop. The old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is good advice for shepherds since it’s easier and more effective to prevent illnesses than it is to treat sick lambs. Part I of this two-part series will discuss management tasks to prevent illness, critical times to…

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Sheep Vaccines

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There are multiple vaccines licensed for sheep in the USA, and it might be difficult to decide which ones to use on your farm. We will discuss how vaccines work, as well as best practices for handling and administering vaccines. Finally, we will look at the different types of vaccines that are available as well as how to decide if a particular vaccine is indicated for your flock. How do Vaccines Work The general idea with a vaccine is to expose an animal to a specific pathogen (or combinations of pathogens) in a way that is not likely to make…

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Ruminations on Lambing Season – Updated 2025

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There are a lot of preventable problems that can arise during lambing season, derailing the health and productivity of your ewes and lamb crop. Below is a compilation of management tips to help keep your pregnant ewes healthy, get your lambs off to a good start and decrease the stress and workload for tired shepherds. These tips are compiled from EAPK blogs and newsletters published during 2021-2025. Preparation for lambing Nutrition and exercise Make sure that you are providing adequate nutrition and exercise for your ewe flock to ensure healthy ewes and lambs. Nutritional requirements Ewes have much higher nutritional…

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Why you should NOT use lye as a dewormer

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There’s been some talk lately on social media about using lye to deworm livestock and you may be wondering if it works. As with so many things in life, if something sounds too easy or too good to be true, it is probably not a good idea. What is lye? Lye is a strong alkali (can be either sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide), having a high pH, that is highly corrosive. That means it can burn the skin or eyes upon contact. It is often used to make soap from oils or fats (such as goats milk). Protective gloves, safety…

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Understanding How the Heat Beats Your Sheep

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Have you felt pretty beat up by the heat when you work outside for long hours in the summertime? Well, let me tell you that the summer heat does not only affect us, but also our flock. Imagine that you are training for a marathon at 100 degrees Fahrenheit with a quilted puffer jacket on. That is exactly how our animals feel when experiencing heat stress conditions. Heat stress is defined as when the ambient temperature and relative humidity increase to a point where it affects the animal’s capacity to dissipate their internal heat to the exterior, causing an increase…

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Evaluating Breeding Animals

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Unfortunately, defects show up in some of our animals and even though those animals might be exceptional in other areas, for the betterment of the breed we should not propagate these defects. Always check your animals before keeping them as replacements or selling them as breeding stock. Bite In lambs the bottom teeth should “bite” into the dental pad. They should not extend in front of it (monkey mouth, undershot), nor be too far backwards (parrot mouth, overshot). If a bite is VERY off you can easily see that the bottom jaw is markedly longer or shorter than normal at…

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Sick Sheep? Let Us Inspect Their Earwax.

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Reprinted with permission. Ambrook Research publishes original research and stories on issues facing modern agriculture, to read more:  Ambrook Research A USDA lab devised a way to ID toxins from common poisonous plants using “non-traditional” bodily excretions. Recently, Raye Walck recounted for this inquisitive journalist a grim story from some high-desert grazing lands in Grand Junction, Colorado. “I had a case a couple of years ago where these sheep came off the range and were brought into a dry lot situation, into a bunch of old pens,” the director of the Western Slope Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Colorado State University (CSU)…

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Preparing for the Storm

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As many are aware, and many experienced, extreme weather devastated the southeast region last fall. These storms caused significant loss of life and billions of dollars in damages. As we reflect on these losses and look ahead to future extreme weather events, we need to consider the resiliency of our operations. Some questions that I have pondered over the last few months include; how reliant is a flock on outside resources? How adapted are livestock to their environment? If you were shut off from the world for a week, would you and your flock survive? What about for two weeks?…

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