Lambing Live

Videos from Monday’s Lambing Live event held in conjunction with UCD Lyons Farm and Cormac Tagging, are available on the Farmers Journal social media platforms and online here. Videos provide an insight into management pre, during and post-lambing. Stephen Lott, chief livestock supervisor, has a strict hygiene protocol in place.

Group pens are kept topped up with fresh straw regularly, to ensure lambs are born into as hygienic an environment as possible. Once lambs are born, their navels are sprayed with iodine. This is carried out immediately after delivery and in the case of an assisted delivery with multiple births after each lamb is delivered to minimise the risk of disease entry into newborn lambs. Each ewe is also checked to ensure sufficient colostrum is present in both teats, with lambs closely supervised to ensure they are suckling. Feeding of ewes is kept as constant as possible with ewe numbers in pens counted before feeding to allow feeding levels to be adjusted accordingly.

Given there is research also taking place in the flock, there is a strong focus on ensuring records are collected accurately. Ewes and lambs are allowed to bond before any interruption with weighing, tagging, etc. Records taken immediately include: information on mothering ability, lambing difficulty, milk yield, cross fostering and mortality. The weight of any lambs which die is also recorded, to contribute to evaluations on the cause of death at a later stage.

Further management and recording is then carried out 12 to 18 hours post-lambing. This includes weighing of lambs and rubber ring application for tail docking and castration. Hygiene is critical and this extends to tagging. The outside and inner side of ears are sprayed with methylated spirits, as are tags, to reduce disease risk and lambs are carefully tagged to avoid insertion into cartilage.

Hypothermia in lambs

Mild hypothermia occurs when a lamb’s temperature is between 37°C and 39°C and is generally brought about by lambs being born into a cold environment or consuming insufficient colostrum to generate heat. It can be usually rectified by warming the lamb and ensuring it receives colostrum/milk. A lamb’s temperature dropping below 37°C is more serious. For newborn lambs still able to suckle, drying, warming and stomach tubing with colostrum should suffice. But if the lamb is weak and unable to suckle, giving colostrum to newborn lambs or milk to young lambs should be avoided. The optimum treatment route here is getting a rapid source of energy into the lamb, which is best achieved by administering a glucose injection into the lamb’s abdominal cavity (stomach). Veterinary advice is to administer 10ml of a 20% glucose injection per kg bodyweight (50ml for a 5kg lamb). Warm the solution to body temperature and, as always, if diluting use boiled water that has cooled.

The injection site is 1in out and 1in down on the right hand side of the lamb’s navel, with the solution administered into the abdominal cavity (inside the skin) and not the gut of the animal. This can be achieved by inserting the needle downwards at a 45° angle. The lamb should only be warmed once the injection has been administered, avoiding overheating. This should bring the lamb back to a state of being able to suckle or be stomach tubed.