By Dr Dave Midgley

Farming is a business, whether you have 10 or a 1 000 female animals. The aim is to increase your wealth – to make more money or to have more sheep and/or goats.

The best way to achieve this is to get more lambs/kids and then to make sure they do not die or become sick.

Apart from theft, the main constrains most of us are dealing with are:

–   Nutrition           

–   Parasites

      – Internal

      – External

–   Diseases and death

In the past we have looked at those things separately or each one on its own. In practice we have learned that they all work together.

    When small-stock lose weight as a result of a food shortage, for instance, their resistance drops and they get more parasites. A food shortage can mean a drop in either the quantity of the available food, or a drop in its quality. They then become thinner and also often acquire diseases and die.

    Sometimes there is still a lot of food available, but they become infested with parasites. As a result they then become “thin” (lose weight), become more prone to ailments, and die.

    The third alternative is where a healthy animal gets sick – for example getting an abscess on the body. The animal then gets thin/weak, resulting in parasites and other diseases attacking it, and eventually causing death.

    Other losses that we have often missed in the past, are production losses. If ewes lose condition, they do not breed. If they do not grow out well, they miss or skip a breeding cycle and only start breeding a year later in their lives.

No lambs or kids mean no money

 If “young stock” gets sick or parasite infested, they grow slower and it takes them longer to reach the target or “market weight”.

    The longer they take to grow, the more animals you have on the avai-lable food source. If or when food gets scarce like during the winter months, you have more mouths to feed and to utilise the diminished food that is available outside.

    So our aim must always be to get: MORE LAMBS/KIDS + BETTER LAMBS/KIDS…

    Next, we want to sell off these lambs/kids before nature turns and food gets scarce. In other words, we strive to balance the number of animals we keep on the available food source.

    Most markets prefer a lamb or kid that weighs 40 – 45 kg live weight (giving a carcass of 18 – 20 kg).

Mutton breeds can reach these weights at ± 4 months of age, while dual purpose breeds take longer to achieve the same target weight.

Management guideline

Our aim is to get more lambs/kids and/or better lambs/kids (quantity and quality).

To reach this we need to do the right THINGS, in the right WAY, at the right TIME.

    It is important to understand the way the bodies of the animals we are dealing with, “work”.

    If the ewe or doe is sick or thin because of a food shortage or parasite infestation, she will not come on heat and breed. She feels that she is battling to survive and can’t bring a lamb or kid into this world under these circumstances.

    After good rains, the FOOD supply usually increases, but so do the parasites! Parasite control, as well as vaccinating against diseases, should therefore also be synchronised with seasonal changes which occur after good rains. By doing so, the animals feel better, come into cycle, and get pregnant sooner, leading to more progeny being born.

    The art or trick to get more lambs or kids, is thus to let the “mothers feel better”.

    Now we ask ourselves: “Can’t we make the ewes/does “feel better” when there is not really much food available and let them lamb or kid just before or just after we expect the rain to come, so that we have progeny when nature gives us food?”

    By deworming, vaccinating, administering trace elements, vitamins and LICK, we can actually make the ewe feel better and get pregnant when WE want them to and not if and when nature dictates.

More lambs/kids mean more money

The next important “production phase” is pregnancy:

A ewe or doe “carries” for 5 months; that is 150 days. There is nothing you and I can do to make this faster or longer. At 50 days the foetus is a little bigger than a matchbox. At 100 days it is roughly the size of a margarine tub (500 g). At birth (146-150 days) when the female “lambs down” or kids, the “baby” weighs 3 – 4 kg (the weight of a brick).

    The foetus grows most in the last third of pregnancy. When this happens, the mother’s body realises that a baby is going to be born and that it must make milk (food) for this baby, so the udder starts developing at the same time that the baby inside increases in size.

    The first milk is called colostrum. In addition to being an important food source, it also supplies antibodies which protect the lamb against

reigning diseases.

    If we vaccinate the mothers, they will make the best colostrum that will protect their offspring the best against the most important diseases! The ideal time to do this, is 4 – 6 weeks before birth, and that is roughly 4 months after we treated them to get pregnant!

    The worms inside the ewe also get the “message” that lambs are going to be born – so they start laying eggs to make sure that their children are outside on the veld or grazing when the babies are born and start nibbling on the grass.

    If we deworm the mothers 4 – 6 weeks before giving birth, there will be fewer female parasites in them to lay eggs and soil the pasture!

    We also make them feel good again, so that they have enough good milk to feed a healthy strong lamb that is well protected against the reigning diseases by the “good colostrum”.

More offspring and better offspring means more money

Remember to also give vitamins, trace elements and LICK during these times!

    We now know that the best times to treat the mothers are:-

–   Before mating

–   Before lambing/kidding

What about the offspring?

When must they first be treated?

It has been proved that the passive immunity given via the colostrum lasts between 2 – 3 months against most bacterial diseases and up to 6 months in the case of viral diseases!

    The START a lamb or kid gets in life, determines the quality of animal you will have for the rest of its life!

So at 2 – 3 months of age we should:-

– Deworm the lambs/kids for the first time.

–  Vaccinate them against diseases.

– Give them a tonic to grow (vitamins and trace elements)

– Supply them with food (creep feed to young stock and a lick to the mothers which will help them to make more milk)

When parasites are abundant or “in season”, you can consider deworming your sheep and goats again – in most cases this is ± 4 months after the last deworming and 1 month before lambing!

    So in a year an adult female is dewormed roughly every 4 months. Above all, you are doing the right things very close the right or “ideal” times.

    Always read the instructions

supplied on the package insert of each product. By doing this you can make sure that they are administered in the right way.

    Let’s take a closer look at vaccines and at immunity (protection) against disease:

    There are many diseases of sheep and goats, but the three causing most losses (production loss and deaths) are:

– Pulpy kidney

– Pasteurellosis

– Corynebacterium

Vaccination of sheep and goats:

The body produces soldiers that attack the germs and kill them before they cause disease.

    This differ
s from antibiotic treatment, where you have a disease and inject or treat the animal against the disease by supplying an agent which then kills the “bug” that is causing the problem.

    A vaccine is given to a healthy animal to protect it against a disease or diseases.

    An antibiotic is given to a sick animal to treat it.

    If you have lots of soldiers, they usually WIN the “battle” against the germs. Sometimes you have more germs or stronger germs and they then win the battle, with the animal then still getting sick or dying despite being vaccinated. In the case of a possible outbreak, you now might lose one or two animals whereas someone else who did not vaccinate might lose 8 or 10 animals!

More animals – healthy animals!

To summarise:

–  My aim is to help you make MORE MONEY!

–  I want to achieve this by helping you to do the RIGHT THING, the RIGHT WAY, at the RIGHT TIMES.

–  Adult sheep and goats are dewormed roughly 3 times per year – about every 4 months. This leads to fewer treatments – just enough to keep your animals healthy and producing well.

–  With these recommendations they are vaccinated against the most important diseases at least once per year.

–  Please remember that animals being vaccinated for the first time must receive a BOOSTER in most cases, especially when dead or killed vaccines are being used.

–  Deworm and vaccinate lambs and kids at 2 – 3 months for the first time and again a month later at

   3 – 4 months of age.

–  Supplement vitamin A, trace elements and give extra food or licks at times when animals might need it:

• Before mating
• Before lambing
• To young animals

It all comes down to – More lambs/kids – better lambs/kids.

To arrange a consultation with Dr Dave Midgley for a comprehensive animal health programme specifically developed for your farm, send an e-mail to dave.midgley@vodamail.co.za.