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• Wear arm-length disposable plastic gloves during assisted lambings

• Change gloves or wash hands between each ewe, especially when checking her bag.

Lambing pen: A high load of bacteria in the environment causes stress on young lambs and their immune systems, which aren’t fully developed until later in life. This can limit growth rates, as ghting o infection uses valuable energy which could otherwise be put into growing.

Individual lambing pens should be cleaned, disinfected and rebedded between each use, and the same done regularly for group pens. Straw is one of the cheapest and most e cient ways to maintain a hygienic environment as it keeps lambs dry and away from bacteria. When bedded deeply it also helps to provide a warm environment, therefore reducing the risk of hypothermia developing.

After lambing: Dip navels with 10% iodine as soon as possible after birth to prevent navel and joint ill, as the umbilicus remains open for a time after birth, providing a fast-track route for bacteria to enter a lamb’s system.

If supplementing colostrum, take steps to ensure that is has been freshly made up or stripped o ; avoid using colostrum that has sat uncovered in a bucket for any length of time as this is the perfect medium for bacterial growth. Ensure that the container and feeding equipment such as stomach tubes have been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. This also applies for any bottle-fed lambs. FG info@hydor.co.uk | 01725 511422

Ms Jones lambs 400 primarily Beulah Speckled Face ewes from 10th March onwards, and would traditionally blanket treat all ewes with a wormer in May. But with the support of independent sheep consultant Lesley Stubbings (pictured), who was involved in the research project, she was able to target wormer use to only those ewes that needed it, cutting total wormer use last year to just 37%.

The study, a European Innovation Partnership project, found nutritional stress, as measured by a loss in body condition score (BCS), was the key to determining which ewes had the highest faecal egg count (FEC) and when this occurred relative to lambing.

Previous advice has been to only worm ewes with a low body condition score, but following recent research, the recommendation is now to target ewes losing body condition in the six weeks up to lambing.

On Ms Jones’s farm, ewes are body condition scored at scanning and then again when given their clostridial vaccine in mid-February. Anything that has lost condition is marked and drenched with the long-acting wormer Cydectin 2% LA at lambing.

Cydectin 2% Long-Acting Injection has a worm persistency period of up to 111 days. Its long persistency means it can help reduce the risk of pasture contamination and therefore reduce the need to treat the lambs, saving time and money, and reducing the number of wormer doses on the farm. However, its use must be considered carefully to get a balance between preventing anthelmintic resistance and controlling worms.

Although the data is yet to be analysed, Ms Jones believes the new worming policy has resulted in fewer worm counts in the lambs and treatments.

"We regularly FEC lambs from six weeks old until they are sold. We think we used less drench in the lambs last year, but we will know once we have analysed the data.

"Working with Lesley has given me the con dence to move away from blanket treating and only to target those ewes that need it. We must do what we can to reduce wormer resistance," she added.

While the project has now ended, Ms Jones has continued to target wormer use in the same way, earmarking ewes losing body condition this year, to be targeted with Cydectin at lambing.

Ms Stubbings commented: "Just because you have a low body condition score ewe, it doesn't necessarily mean they are the ones to treat. It's those ewes that are losing condition that are the ones to target," she said.

“By worming in this way and using a long-acting product, farmers can reduce pasture contamination without blanket treating ewes.”

Zoetis vet Ally Ward urged farmers to embrace the new advice from the study and use Cydectin responsibly, working with animal health advisers to understand what’s happening on their farm. FG

Fife farm impressed with sheep handling system

Balcaskie Estate is in the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland and covers 2,000ha with a mixture of let farms and in-hand farming operations. Last year, they purchased a Racewell HD4 Sheep Handler from Te Pari.

Shepherd Ewan Ramage commented: “The Racewell Handler has been great to work with, it’s been very simple to set up. Generally, we use it for drafting lambs, getting weights for them; we can put them into separate groups so we know roughly what lambs are ready to go this week and we know roughly how many lambs we’ve got to go the next time, but we also use it for drenching lambs, crutching ewes, and just general sheep work really.

“It has a tipping mechanism on it so we can tip the ewes out and open the back up so we can go in and see bags, feet, tail ewes anything like that.”

Giles from Te Pari delivered the system and stayed on the farm for an hour to make sure it was set up they way wanted – “he’s been brilliant”, Ewan added.

The system has resulted in less aches and pains at the end of the day as less bending and manual labour is required. “Any sort of tool that can help like that is a big bonus for the farming community,” Ewan concluded.

Find out more at www.tepari. com or contact the company directly. FG

Forage Analysis Assurance Group email: roberta@faagroup.co.uk www.faagroup.co.uk

Feed Adviser Register email: far@agindustries.org.uk www.agindustries.org.uk/feed-adviser-register.html