Farm - 07-03-2019 - William Sommerville - 0 comments
Lamb Care, Colostrum and recording

Lamb Care and Colostrum

As lambing gets underway, measures to ensure lambs have a good start in life are essential.  This will both help to minimise losses and lead to stronger lambs that grow well. The main points to consider are ewe condition, colostrum and hygiene. Ewe condition pre-lambing is vitally important. A body condition of 3/5 is the aim. Maintaining ewe's body condition pre-lambing is important to prevent twin lamb disease. Ewes in the optimum condition (3/5) have also been shown to produce better quality colostrum.

As well as quality, quantity is also very important when thinking about colostrum. A typical 5kg lamb's colostrum requirements are 50 ml/kg (~250ml) in the first 4 - 6 hours, and 200ml/kg (~1litre) in the first 24hrs of life. Freezing and storing excess colostrum from a ewe is a good idea to help supplement any lambs which are short of colostrum for whatever reason. This needs to be collected and stored hygenically and defrosted gently (maximum water temperature of 50 C) when preparing it for use. In an emergency, powdered colostrum may be used. We stock Lamaid colostrum which is one of the better powdered colostrum products and can be purchased in individual sachets if required. 

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