Blowfly: There have been a few reports of ewes and lambs suffering from blowfly strike over the past week. While the reports seem to be confined to a small number of animals within flocks at present, nonetheless, it highlights the need to be more vigilant when checking animals daily and to be on the lookout for the presence of maggots.

The problems are occurring mainly on farms were sheep have not yet been clipped. Lambs that have a soiled fleece, especially those lambs that were not tail docked, are also at risk from a blowfly strike. These lambs will benefit from dagging when treating. If you are using a pour-on treatment on individual sheep that have maggots present, you should be paying attention to the withdrawal period for the product. Depending on the withdrawal period, some lambs may run overweight by the time they are permitted back into the food chain. In some cases this may require separating heavy lambs and treating them separately with a short withdrawal product.

Weaning ewes: Ewes that lambed in early to mid-March will be coming close to the stage where they are ready to be weaned as lambs will be coming up on 14 weeks of age. Lambs within two weeks of slaughter date are better off left alone to avoid any check in performance.

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Depending on your system and grass supplies, lambs that weigh 30kg to 32kg liveweight may be better off weaned within the next fortnight. Weaning these ewes will ease grazing demand over late June and early July, allowing grass covers to build. Dry ewes can be then stocked tighter together and used as a sweeper group to clean out grazing swards after lambs. Weaning will also free up the best grass for lambs which will help to limit any drop in performance post-weaning.

Lameness: Staying on top of feet problems can be difficult at this time of year as other tasks such as drafting lambs, shearing and general field work can take priority. Ground conditions have been generally good in recent weeks which have helped to reduce the incidence of feet problems such as scald or, worse still, foot rot. But on some farms there will still be a few sheep with persistent feet issues. Tending to these animals now will be a good idea before any problems escalate further.

If feet problems are confined to just one or two animals, paring of the feet along with an antibacterial spray will suffice. Keep an eye on these animals over the next fortnight to ensure that feet have properly healed, otherwise they will need treatment again.

If there are several animals with signs of lameness present, sheep should be run through a footbath to treat the whole flock. When using a footbath, remember to top up the bath with formalin or zinc sulphate as the solution becomes contaminated with faeces and dirt. For best results, allow sheep to stand in the bath for at least one minute if they are only passing through the footbath once.

For a more effective treatment, allow ewes to pass through the bath at least twice but reducing standing time to 30 to 40 seconds on each pass. Afterwards, ewes should be allowed to stand in a clean pen until their feet are dry, rather than returning them straight back to the field. Animals that continue to have feet problems, regardless of treatment, should be marked for culling.