Saturday, June 20, 2015

Moving sheep for worms.

We are trying something different with the management of our sheep herd.  Internal parasites or worms are a growing problem with sheep.  There are like two kinds of wormers on the market and neither product gets all the worms.  Each products gets some of the same worms and each product gets different specific worms from the other product.


So we worm the ewes after they have lambed and are in the jockey pen.  Then they are turned onto the fresh pasture.  As the lambs got big enough to go on pasture with their mothers they were gathered into one pasture.  They were in this pasture for about three weeks.

Then they all got moved to a fresh pasture around the end of  May.  Here they are in the second pasture.

They were in this pasture for around three weeks.   Then we moved them to a different pasture.


We have got them bunched and are just ready to head them through the gate.  They are ready for a new pasture.  It is always exciting for livestock to get new grazing.  They say the PH of their saliva changes with the anticipation of new pasture.

By changing pasture so quickly that you break the worm cycle. The experts say change pasture every two weeks. Then rest the pasture for at least 45 days to break the worm cycle. We can't seem to change that quickly, but we are changing every three weeks.  So we will see how it works.  We are sending fecal samples to the State University.


Here the ewes and lambs are enjoying their third pasture for the year.  The clover is thick and not as tall as last year so this is good.  They were put in this pasture on June 19 so sometime after July 4 we will move them again.  This time into a fourth pasture so the first pasture should rest for around 60 days.

We haven't had rain from last June 2014 till May of this year.  So we were really dry.  January through April of 2015 were like the driest first four months of the year on record.  From May 4 on we received over 8 inches of rain in May.  Now in June it keeps raining and we have another 2.50 inches.  Just stays wet. good for grass, but not so good for haying.

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