Not Our Favourite Job - Lambmarking

[@TheSheepGame]

Great video. They have started trialling the numb nuts here in UK. We have to castrate within 7 days of birth which is impractical for outdoor lambing systems. Numb nuts could be the answer. 👍

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

Wow! Coming from the guru of sheep vids we'll take that as a compliment!! Responsible Wool Standards mandate castration within 6 weeks which is pretty tricky for a lot of Australian farmers with 6 week joining and even with our 5 week joining it wasn't possible given the weather conditions this year. The government veterinary advice is within 12 weeks which is much more realistic for outdoor lambing systems. If pain relief is used there should be no problems. When Covid is done you'll have to come down and shear a few merinos!!!

[@TheSheepGame]

@@kalgaramerinos7085 that’s much more realistic.! Yeah I’m looking forward to covid being finished and getting out to some new countries to see how the farm sheep!! Aussie will be high on the list! 😁

[@TheGrmany69]

Yeah, Those "animal rights" lobbies are dangerously influential in the economic welfare of many countries.... radicals nonetheless.

[@richardsilver98]

Thanks for this video. Very pleased to see that you are using NumNuts - I bought one of the first applicator units (in Australia) and very much want to use it. My issue is, with only a few breeding ewes and fewer than, say, 5 lambs a year, a near whole bottle of the anaesthetic is wasted. So I need to find a work around for that. Having said that, having now observed vet administered injection with ring use, and ring without injection, I was not able to observe any difference in lamb response. Indeed, the lamb with injection displayed more discomfort than those without, which is curious. I have two ram lambs to do this weekend and I am dreading it. They are only 10 days old so, I'm hoping, that will lessen their discomfort (I'd prefer to do under 7 days).

[@sheepdogman1]

Excellent content

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

Thanks sheepdogman! 😀

[@vwvw4]

Really enjoyed the video and especially the camaraderie. The lamb cradle was new to me, what a great invention. Have not seen a muzzle used on herding dogs before, is it just to prevent gripping of lambs by an eager dog like Woody?

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

Thanks Tayfield! Yep no doubt about it the lamb cradle is a great thing - especially that one, which tips the lambs out automatically. With the older manual release ones there was always the potential for the operator to get smeared with Clik. Yes that's what the muzzle is for on this occasion. Pud is pretty good now but when she was younger she was inclined to want to grip them. The other time we use muzzles is when we have fox baits out before lambing, we don't want her to inadvertently pick up a bait.

[@vwvw4]

@@kalgaramerinos7085 We don't lose lambs to fox, here, just coyotes, cougar and bear. Good livestock guardian dogs are worth their weight in gold, I never lost sheep or lambs having various breeds of exceptional LGD's over the decades.

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

@@vwvw4 That's interesting. Coyotes I would have expected but didn't think about cougars and bears! Just a few miles from us are some fairly deep gorges which are a refuge for wild dogs and dingoes. A mate who farms adjacent the gorges uses LGD (Maramas I think) and they are very effective. So what is your enterprise? I assume you have to keep livestock indoors for at least part of the year?

[@vwvw4]

@@kalgaramerinos7085 I had sheep for decades, but currently sheepless, not sure if I'm on hiatus or retired. I've always provided unheated shelter well bedded with straw, but find given the choice my sheep would mostly bed down outside in the winter. Many times have gone out after a blizzard to find sheep under a blanket of snow with no ill effects. But a lot of producers lamb in winter and so they shear their ewes, those sheep choose to bed down inside or are kept full time inside. I lambed in May so my ewes had lots of wool for the winter. I started commercial then produced replacement ewe lambs and breeding rams ( Ile de france and franceau). My dogs only had to deal with coyotes and stray dogs, but bears and cougars are a an issue in AB and BC.

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

@@vwvw4 I just find it amazing what a versatile animal sheep are - they can cope with all sorts of extremes. I can't get my head around those sorts of temperatures! Just unbelievably cold! I remember thinking how tough the sheep were we saw on a miserable November day on Skye (Scotland) but what you are talking about is another order of magnitude altogether! No doubt about it we get it easy here.......

[@jcmac47]

How old is the machine you use to hold the lambs? Is this common in Australia?

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

Not sure exactly how old that one is, it was second hand, but probably less than 10 years old. The machine is commonly called a "lamb marking cradle". They have been around in one form or another for a long time - up until last year we were using one that was made in the 1960's. They are very common in Australia and New Zealand - it would only be hobby farmers with very few sheep with that would not use them. I would imagine they would be used in just about anywhere sheep are raised.

[@jcmac47]

@@kalgaramerinos7085 Whoever invented that thing was a genius! Someone who saw a need and did something about it. : )

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

@@jcmac47 Agreed, it is a well thought out bit of kit. In some of the earlier cradles the operator had to manually lift the lamb out of the cradle so the self tipping mechanism is a very useful improvement over previous designs.

[@26angelaa]

I absolutely love seeing true blue aussie farmers and seeing some traditional beautiful australian Land. They are beautiful lambs, and I would love to give them a cuddle, you guys are too busy for that. ;)

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

Thanks Sparrow. The orphan lambs (the ones in The Unbearable Cuteness of Lambs video) get a few cuddles at feed time!!

[@HushE2AskolE]

Why ring on testicles???

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

The ring cuts off the blood supply and after a while the testicles drop off. The alternative is surgical removal of the testicles which involves cutting off the bottom of the purse and then extracting the testicles. Using anesthetic and rings is now the recommended method of castration.

[@HushE2AskolE]

@@kalgaramerinos7085 uffu this act injustice with animal, I'm soft earted towards voiceless, I have different breeds of ram sheep goat and I looking after when I sense , so I never do that. In our region it's social norms that such handle meat or animal don't like to eat bcz it lead infertility in manhood. People like proper churzi ram with testicles smell sorrounding like cent and large size.

[@missmoth2588]

Stops them from working and they will shrivel up and drop off just like the tail does, They will only care about food and not humping.

[@pack2668]

Why are you not mulesing the lambs...?

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

That's an interesting question, easiest answered with another question - Why would we mules? We haven't mulesed since 2007 and we haven't noticed any increase in flystrike as a result of not mulesing. Given the above there is no reason for us to inflict the pain of mulesing on the lambs. And a third reason is that our customers have stopped buying mulsed wool because its contrary to their business ethics and the expectations of their consumers. We strongly support that.

[@chrisoconnor5880]

There’s no need at all for mulesing, Australia is the only country still doing it, and other countries like NZ have exactly the same blow flies as Aussie

[@kalgaramerinos7085]

@@chrisoconnor5880 Totally agree Chris! Arguably South Africa have an even worse problem with blowflies.