Worming lambs and moms

[elevan]

WOW with the greatest respect thats large amounts - I have a flock of Romney and use nothing ever. I would try to encourage folks out there to use the minimum or none

If I am going to invest grain into my sheep, and hope for maximun growth/ gain-- I intend for every nutrient to be absorbed by the sheep- not the worms.

I deworm my bigger than normal, show sheep-- not nearly as much as most of my counterparts.

What do your ewes weigh mature- 100? Mine are over 200.

are you bragging by any chance - Why on earth would I want a 200lb Romney ewe, 120 is my biggest which is more than enough and thats with strictly no grain and no injections, just good old grass and hay. If your methods work for you then I'm pleased its just some members on here who are new to sheep need to be wary about your orig post mentioning - at least a double dose and every 30 to 45 days - even you must agree that is very intense worming program.

Aggressive overuse of dewormers leads to drug resistant worms. You should do a Drench Rite Assay to figure out what the dosage that you really need on your farm is for each chemical dewormer. At the rate that you're going you may find in a few years that you have super worms that you can't kill. JMHO

 

[bonbean01]

Thanks Royd sheep farmers here think us crazy...but if it works and does not cause a resistance then what harm done? If we had just started this I wouldn't be touting it...buy hey...was four years this spring, so I am. The beauty of hair sheep is their natural resistance to worms...so why mess with that?

p.s. they love the molasses in there...licking their lips after.

 

[Southdown]

Can you share more about the natural wormer? It sounds like something I would be interested to learn about. So far, I have been reading the directions on the labels of wormers and calculating the amounts to match the sheep's weights exactly. I don't go a CC over or less. I'm hoping that my being precise is the right thing to do. It makes me too nervous to go over (or even double) the amount because I don't want to hurt the animal or create resistant worms. I think my approach this year might be to bring in fecal samples to my vet to monitor how they are doing and then get his recommendations based on what he finds in the fecal samples. But I wouldn't mind doing at least one worming this Spring now since the new lambs have never been wormed yet. I'm not worried about pushing weight gain as I don't do market lambs. However, I do want me ewes to put on some weight after birthing.

 

[Remuda1]

WOW with the greatest respect thats large amounts - I have a flock of Romney and use nothing ever. I would try to encourage folks out there to use the minimum or none

If I am going to invest grain into my sheep, and hope for maximun growth/ gain-- I intend for every nutrient to be absorbed by the sheep- not the worms.

I deworm my bigger than normal, show sheep-- not nearly as much as most of my counterparts.

What do your ewes weigh mature- 100? Mine are over 200.

are you bragging by any chance - Why on earth would I want a 200lb Romney ewe, 120 is my biggest which is more than enough and thats with strictly no grain and no injections, just good old grass and hay. If your methods work for you then I'm pleased its just some members on here who are new to sheep need to be wary about your orig post mentioning - at least a double dose and every 30 to 45 days - even you must agree that is very intense worming program.

X2. Plus, I don't have that kind of money to spend on my sheep and if my sheep required that kind of maintenance, I'd have to find another breed. For me, the bottom line has to matter. If there is not an apparent need for the wormer, then there's no apparent need to spend that money. I also agree with the multitudes of research that indicates overuse results in parasite resistance.

 

[kfacres]

WOW with the greatest respect thats large amounts - I have a flock of Romney and use nothing ever. I would try to encourage folks out there to use the minimum or none

If I am going to invest grain into my sheep, and hope for maximun growth/ gain-- I intend for every nutrient to be absorbed by the sheep- not the worms.

I deworm my bigger than normal, show sheep-- not nearly as much as most of my counterparts.

What do your ewes weigh mature- 100? Mine are over 200.

are you bragging by any chance - Why on earth would I want a 200lb Romney ewe, 120 is my biggest which is more than enough and thats with strictly no grain and no injections, just good old grass and hay. If your methods work for you then I'm pleased its just some members on here who are new to sheep need to be wary about your orig post mentioning - at least a double dose and every 30 to 45 days - even you must agree that is very intense worming program.

I can't think of a single reason why I would want to raise a Romney-- of any size-- or any ewe that weighs 120 pounds or less mature. Different strokes for different folks.

i've also attended these same seminars with overusage in mind... and according to these-- even at 2 or 3x the rate-- you're still not overdoing the dewormer. I know people who use 10x the ammount- and for certain instanced that's needed.

In my ordeal- I have a strict de-worming program on my lambs for the first 8 or so months of their life. Why- these sheep are needing strict growth in order to achieve max productivity. You don't win shows with wormy lambs, nor do heavy wormed lambs sell for thousands of dollars.

Hi input sheep- yield out output sheep.

I don't think deworming my old flock 2x a year is out of line- I think those two times are almost required for wool sheep.

The other thing- how many of you have had sheep for more than 5 years? 10? at the same location? How many sheep do you have, on how many acres? All of these things all need to be taken into account when you're talking about deworming and parasite resistance.

If I had 5 hair sheep, on 5 acres, and have had them for 2 years-- then I wouldn't deworm them either... Heck for that matter I wouldn't vaccinate them, wouldn't grain them, wouldn't hay them- wouldn't do anything but gather up lambs in April or May and sell them... Heck, for that matter, I wouldn't do anything but sell them for whatever my local lamb buyer wanted to pay for them either...

 

[Royd Wood]

I'll give you a single reason - Very resistant to worms

 

[Southdown]

I'm hoping to have my sheep for 10+ years, until the day they die on my farm. Would that mean I need to worm more or less?

 

[kfacres]

I'm hoping to have my sheep for 10+ years, until the day they die on my farm. Would that mean I need to worm more or less?

not necessarily. But the longer you have your livestock, using the same equipment, and facilities... the more and more prone they will be to experiencing problems. Problems such as foot rot, foot scald, abortions, tetnus, sore mouth, and of course worms.

A good old timer told me once- those who are most successful, move every 5 years to a new clean place and start over- and leave all their germs behind.

I know when I moved from my parent's place-- it seemed that the health program changed completely. The only care over problem that we took with us seemed to be pinkeye, of which we battled like crazy last summer.

 

[Southdown]

Yes, it would be good to move to fresh land and leave the old land idle. I read in a book once that it is also good to rotate different species of animals on the land because they have different kinds of parasites/worms/etc. But realistically, most people don't have a large variety of animals to do that. Our vet asked us if this farm had other sheep on it in the past because that would affect the worm load here. It hasn't had sheep to our knowledge, so he thought that was a good thing anyway. But over the years, it should add up. He basically told us to use Valbazen and we could rotate it with Ivermectin. So that's what we have pretty much doing up until now. But I am not real keen to continue this way because I want to know if it's working. That's why I think I will do some periodic fecal samples. They don't cost that much to do and it's probably worth it.

 

[Cornish Heritage]

It's not just the dosage that would concern me it would be the fact that of what you would be eating in the end product! The only animals we worm here are the piglets at 8 weeks old (weaning) & mostly because they are headed out to other farms. Other than that we do not worm any of our other livestock routinely - it is not necessary. In fact I was just reading today & I quote:

"Rule of thumb regarding parasites.... 20% of the herd will carry 80% of the parasite load. No one seems to know why this is... just some pigs are more susceptible to infestation."

Now this quote was admittedly for pigs but I suspect it is applicable for other livestock also & would explain why some die once in a while. Most of us panic & think they had some hideous disease when in fact it could just be nature's way of getting rid of the weak ones.

Raising livestock to be hardy without chemicals in this 'chemical laden world' is a big plus in my opinion because no matter what others may say what goes in does come out & all that wormer/chemical is going into your pastures leaving a residue, killing off all the good bugs etc.

Liz