A little over a year ago, assessing the wellbeing of ten sheep was as easy as walking into the paddock with a handful of grain and waiting for everyone to come and say “hi.’ I could touch, FAMACHA and evaluate all of my sheep in a few minutes. Simple!
With 60 sheep now present in the main group and many of them more independent and less friendly than my sheep last year, this approach is no longer feasible. So we put together a panel-pen, shook a bit of grain, and collected most of the flock. I had set up a new paddock for them to enter, so “inspected” sheep could exit into a different paddock than the location of our un-caught flock. Trust me, it made sense.
Here are the notes we took. Dagging means trimming poopsicles off bums – the flock is now dingleberry-free! Ivermectin and Fenbendazole are wormers, we treated sheep who looked more anemic with Ivermectin. We are still struggling with the wide variety of tagging systems present in our flock – Letters denote the color of the tag, so B122 is Blue (appropriate for Bluefaced Leicesters!), crossbred lambs are Yellow, pure Border Leicesters are green, and we have a few stray pink and white tags for Cormo crosses and other crosses. Other ewes from other flocks, well, let’s just call the system eclectic:
Notes as follows:
- Ozzy is now numbered B112
- GWAR got 2.9 ml Fenbendazole
- Summer looked fine
- Judy looked fine
- Emma looked fine
- Sue looked fine (Judy, Emma and Sue are all yearlings from our starter flock)
- 65 looks good and has regained weight since lambing.
- 1606 looked good.
- 95 was thin and received 1.5 ml Ivermectin.
- Fannie had pale eyelids and received 2.9ml Fenbendazole
- Tag-torn unknown lamb is now Y132 – torn ear has mild infection and will need to be addressed.
- 210-Bisdorf was thin and pale-lidded and received 2.5ml Ivermectin. (This ewe has huge, vigorous lambs who’ve taken a lot out of her- she will be 7 next year)
- Fancy B124 had pale lids and received 1.5ml Fenbendazol
- Krombopulis Michelle had pale lids and received 2.9ml Fenbendazole
- 1616 required dagging
- Chloe had pale lids and received 2.9ml Fenbendazole. We should have retagged her, but we forgot. (Chloe tore her tag out while at Rhinebeck! She never even made it home with her scrapie tag).
- Lamb 130 is fat and healthy! (This is the youngest lamb of the main group, though there are some later-born lambs from yearling ewes)
- 2503 is fat, received a bum-trim
- Ewe 13-266 from Sue is now G100 (this fixes the Border Leicester ID issue – there are three more ewes who needed visible flock-tags. Luckily most had existing ear piercings and weren’t subjected to a new taghole)
- Another tag-torn lamb is now Y133 and received 1.5ml Fenbendazole
- 122Blue had pale lids and received 1.5ml Fenbendazole
- 123Y is small and poopy. Was dagged and received 1.5ml Fenbendazole
- 115Y was poopy and was dagged
- Sheppenwolf was thin and had pale lids and received 2.9ml Fenbendazole
- 128Y is fine
- Ewe 13-264 from Sue is now G101
- Lamb Y121 looks good
- K-Michelle’s son is now White347
- Lamb y126 is good
- Lamb 103 is all wool, no sheep. Concerned about poor growth
- Lamb 110 had pale lids and received 1.5ml Fenbendazole. Eyes are perfectly clear and healthy!
- Ewe 72 looks well
- Ewe OH-Bisdorf-K looks good, considering her advanced age. Ewe was born 2010.
- Erin looks good
- Y118 looks good
- Y122 looks good
- OH34, the skinny one, is concerningly skinny and was dosed prophylactically with 2.9ml Ivermectin. Will have the vet inspect next time she is over.
- 1411 Border Leicester is now G102
- 1620 needed dagging
- 13-270 is now G104
- 13-262 is now G105. Tag 103 broke in tagging.
