In this episode, we’ll discuss the 3 most common reasons why your lambs may not be growing: genetics, nutrition & feed and environmental conditions including parasites, weather and stress.

Subscribe on your favourite podcast app:

Sign up to receive updates, recipes and more from Hallston Valley Farm:

Episode Transcript:

Jill Noble 0:04

obsessed with all things oh vine, there is seriously something about sheep and always something new to learn about keeping, breeding and farming them. Welcome to the sheep Show podcast. I'm Jill noble from Holston Valley Farm and sheep start and your host, the sheep Show podcast exists to help you no matter where you are in the world, what sheep you breed, what size your flock is, this podcast will help your sheep knowledge and your shepherding confidence grow. And it's a two way street. I love to hear from you. And find out how your sheep journey is going contact me via Instagram at Holston Valley Farm or via email Jill at Holston. Valley farm.com.au. Come along on this episode as we explore the amazing world of sheep and sheep farming together

Jill Noble 1:03

high nutritional content, but they will never grow beyond their genetic capabilities. So whatever that genetic capability is in that particular lamb animal, that's their potential. That's their genetic potential. So obviously, breeding and choosing good genetics to breed from is number one. Yeah, this also is reasons why you might not want to inbreed. Even if the progeny is terminal, you're going to eat it. Because damn genetically inbreeding can result in ill thrift or little weird, wonderful sizes in shape and slow growing and all that sort of stuff. So best genetics, you can choose from really good growth patterns, particularly in your RAM. And, you know, good growth patterns in your use, even though that can vary some times in your animals in particular news, and I'll sort of explain them a little bit as we as we move through. The other thing, so the other thing was genetics here is that the you got to think about what is the what is the birth weight of your lamb. So there's, if you're thinking about a lamb, the two main weights are the weight at birth, and then the weight at the time when you're going to perhaps slaughter that or that animal is going to enter into that meat market. So those are two sort of wait times. And obviously, the lighter that animal is at birth, the less or the lower typically the lower growth, right. So if I just give you some examples of this, a Lamb that was a single lamb born, is going to be heavier, is going to have no competition when it comes to milk. And therefore that animal will wean heavier than all your other animals. Compare that to some of my, for example, my ewe lambs that were born as triplets. And their birth weight is fine. You know, four kilos, maybe three and a half, four kilos, as opposed to five kilos, for example. But the competition that that little triplet has each of those triplets have for milk is going to be significantly less. Yeah. So you'd have to teach they feed two lambs, two lambs can grow quite well. So the birth weight on the staff about animals had in life. And again, that can be somewhat genetics, although we know that multiple births are more to do with environment than genetics, even though genetics do make a difference. So thinking about that those two birth weights, and then that, that sort of weight at the end or the weight you're aiming for at the end, to sort of think about there as well.

Jill Noble 4:28

nutrition food. So Wow, there's so much here to think about in terms of our lambs and our growing our growing animals when it comes to food, particularly at weaning. weaning is such a vulnerable time, they're literally having to transition from using one stomach to another. It's, you know, um, that's that's quite a serious thing, and hopefully the better the better chance they've had to activate their rumen The more, the more efficient their rumen will be compared to their Abba Mason, which has been digesting milk. So again, there's their, their whole body is shifting and changing, plus the stress placed on them, when you wean them, typically, some of them don't care, but some of them really get freaked out with their missing mum for the first time. And then the other thing would be because they're now eating pasture, they are highly, highly vulnerable to parasites. We'll talk about that in a second. But bear in mind, so animals that have lesser nutrition are going to be more vulnerable to parasites. So we've got to really think about getting the best nutrition we can into those newly weaned lambs. Yeah. Plus the fact that their mineral requirement will be particularly high on my lambs, I cannot keep up with their requirement for seaweed meal, it is just astronomical, astronomical. And course. You know, hopefully, they've learned to take the seaweed meal because they've been seen their moms taken and their moms basically teach them that's the right thing to eat. So they're getting it. But sometimes it's quite hard to administer seaweed and encourage all the lambs to get equal amounts, and have all the lambs access to a particular type of seaweed. So it's quite, actually quite challenging to sort of allow for that. I have one paddock, which we have been able to book a little hay shed but quite a big hay shed in this particular paddock. So there's a permanent infrastructure set up in that paddock. And we have permanent lik feeders in there. And that has been amazing. And if we were able to have one of those in every single paddock, then they have constant supply, they're able to sort of come take the minerals move away, and then another lamb can come take the minerals and move away and so on. And then they can all they're all going into that particular area, perhaps for a bit of respite, a bit of shelter, so they see the other ones doing it, and then they get access. And then it's just brilliant. And it's just been working really quite really quite well for us if you're interested, that lick feeder that we are using, which is not perfect for shape. But you know, in the absence of you actually designing and creating and making one yourself that one came from advantage feeders, which is a sort of a plastic Lake feeder that you can hang on star pickets, or you can hang on a gate, and they're reasonably waterproof, or when though you need to direct it or hang it where it's not going to be facing the rain. So it has its own challenges. Anyway, it really, really does help. Also, from a feed nutrition point of view, how much competition do they have? If you're anything like me, you've got all of your lambs in one paddock. There's so much competition. So of course, there are going to be shy feeders there are going to be ones that just aren't quite able to hunt for the food, there are going to be the ones that find the food first, the older ones are going to have a much more developed rumen. So again, you're going to have those little anomalies within your within your flock. So the better quality food have higher that food value, the better the bat lamb or the quicker that lamb will grow. The other thing to think about cannot overestimate this, this particular thing is see are your lambs getting enough forage? What are they actually doing?

Jill Noble 9:07

Particularly for me often when I go out and check my animals, it might be eight or nine o'clock in the morning. And what you want them to be doing at around that time is sitting down chewing their cud Yeah, sitting down somewhere chewing their cud if they are not, if you're not seeing them have multiple times during the day, relaxing and chewing their cud and they're walking around all the time focusing on intake. They are simply not getting enough. Yeah, they are going to be losing a battle for a good growing lamb needs. Because if they're if they're short on pasture on forage, they're going to have to spend all of that I'm walking around hunting or looking for food in that particular paddock. And they're not going to have enough time to process that food. And therefore, they're not going to be chewing their car to the knockabout adjusting properly. And they're going to be constantly going around all the time, and too much time walking, and that's not good. That's what they should be doing, you know, a happy lamb is a is a laying lamb, a lamb that's laying down, enjoying what they have been able to actually gather what forage they were able to gather. And I think it's a really interesting one. I mean, you might have even heard, you know, heard me talk about lambs are your lambs getting enough milk. And if they get up and stretch themselves, then one they've been relaxing and lying down, and then they get up. And they're, they're stretched, because they have been actually relaxed. And I even see this with my, my six month old, seven month old lambs. Now, when they are chewing their card, they get up and they have a little stretch. And I think he's telling me that this paddocks, okay, that what they're getting is what they need, you know, so you're observing that and really watching that, and that is helping you to make some decisions about your lamb. Obviously, you can see it a lot of the time in their condition. If you're like me, you might be weighing your lambs this year, I've been weighing my lambs a lot. So think now they have been way maybe five times already. And that has been really, really interesting. So interesting. That here, right? At my little hand, I have a list of what I've described as my sort of heavy lambs, the ones that are VIP growing lambs, because I've done an analysis. I've also identified the ones that were the lightest, and I've tried to identify why, for example, are they a triplet? Yeah, okay, I'll let you have a free pass, then yeah. Or I'll go back and I look at the EU, and I look at any comments that I made on that you. And then I've been able to make a bit of a list of coal use, because there's no reason why that lamb shouldn't have had a good start in life. They were born at an ideal birth weight, they had plenty of time, maybe some of them like this one, for example, I'm looking at here was number 20, born reasonably early, in, you know, my sort of lamb cycle. But that mother isn't performing the way I would like that mother to be. Yeah, so I'm thinking well, that you then needs to be removed from my breeding program, she might be fine in someone else's. But she's going to be removed from my breeding program. Because her progeny isn't performing to an average to the average that other buildings are below average, these particular ones are below average for me. But again, make sure you are looking at all the data you have got, you're not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, you know, throwing out your little cute triplets, just because she's four kilos lighter than everyone else. Because she's a triplet, she's got a lot of other things to offer you in your breeding program. And again, if there are elements, which we know there are some elements of multiple births associated with genetics, then you may want that multiple birthing gene in your breeding program. Not to say The triplets are ideal, but you get the program. So trying to make sure that there is enough nutrition minerals, and vitamins that they're getting enough for it at the quality of forages good with a good clean water. All of those things are what we're wanting our little lambs to get to give them the best start that they possibly can. Yeah, any lick blocks, any sold anything like that, again, is going to help them utilize the feed to the best of their abilities that they particularly can last area before we get to sort of the aging area, but the last area would be the environmental conditions. Now environmental conditions can include stress, for example, they've been chased by, you know, foxes or dogs or whatever it might be regularly, you know, that's going to cause additional stress to that particular animal and that's not going to be good for their well being. But that's unlikely.

Jill Noble 14:47

are they experiencing very challenging weather conditions? So it's easily hot? Is it unseasonally cold is it rainy and Do they have shelter in their paddock? Do they have shade in their paddock? All those sorts of things? Because all those things can make a difference. Even if there's forage there. They may not feel like eating because it's too hot. Yeah. So different things to think about would be around that. And probably the the, the other key thing with lambs is that because they are growing, and because they are new to their environment, they are highly susceptible to a worm burden, whereas older animals have developed a natural immunity. And you can, of course breed to increase a natural immunity in your flock. And at the same time, you've got to be aware of the fact that your lambs will not gain weight if they are experiencing a parasitic load. And that can include even somewhat benign parasites, for example, tapeworm. So tapeworm is probably the most obvious worm because you can actually see it with the human eye, the most obvious worm that you're going to see in your lambs, and particularly in your newly weaned lambs. And the challenge with tapeworm is that he will need a white drench. I think I've talked about this before on some on some podcasts, a Prezi quantal drench, so it's a very particular chemical ingredient to deal with the tapeworm. tapeworm won't kill them, but it will cause ill thrift and they will not be growing or putting on weight to the capacity that they actually can. And that's not ideal, you know, you want to give them the best chance the best chances they actually can have in in, in life. What what we know about tapeworm is the tapeworm actually can absorb the nutrients from the food, and therefore you get skinny labs. Yeah, so if they got a high worm burden, so monitor the worm burden, monitor the conditions. For example, different weather conditions can be associated with different worms. So watching for weather conditions that might be associated, for example, with Barbara's pole worm, hot, wet, humid, those sorts of conditions, even if it's not raining. If it's wet in the morning, the air wet dew on the grass in the morning can be enough to increase that Barber's pole worm burden. The best way to do it is to do to monitor the worm egg count in a fecal sample and then you'll be able to know for sure and go back and have a listen if you haven't listened to the podcast with Robin Smith from numbnuts or Robins dad talked about Barbara's Vax Have a listen to those two podcasts they'll definitely help you with your your lambs, getting them the best start in life particularly with the numbnuts device and giving them some pain relief when their tail dogs because that can cause a problem with them before weaning and then the barbers Vax as well. Which Barbara Vax which is a great option if you have challenges with Barber's pole and you don't want to be drenching too frequently. Yeah, so parasites and as I said particularly barbers, Paul, for me and tapeworm for me, were probably the two the two main main ones to think about there. So those things are the main things main three things that will impact your lambs. Now, older sheep, why might older sheep be skinny, all sheep might be skinny, because they may have

Jill Noble 19:05

overdone Yonis disease, which is a degenerative disease, like the human version of Crohn's disease. So basically, it's a disease where their intestines and bowel starts to sort of steal nutrients. And even though they're eating, they are not being able to survive or thrive, so they will look skinny. Now a lot of studs will vaccinate for ovarian Yonis with a vaccine called good air like we do, for example, and that means that your entire breeding herd breeding flock are protected but it's not impossible that they wouldn't get it but that could be one reason. Particularly if you see multiple us who are very skinny. Other reason for us being skinny would be their teeth. Do they have a full mouth or a broken mouth, go back and have listened to the podcast episode on teeth. It's quite a short one. And it will help you work out about teeth. But basically, your you will need teeth to be able to eat. If she has worn down teeth, flattened teeth, missing teeth, or broken mouth, or even a very gummy mouth, then she may be challenged, it may be challenging for her to get enough feed, you utilize that feed, chew that feed. And that's going to impact her her health. I'm always amazed at how sometimes even the skinniest of us after you wean her just blues, yeah, just blooms, she's been able to focus on herself stopped feeding lambs, and she's been able to sort of put on weight. So, you know, don't worry if your use are skinny at weaning, that's kind of what they should be doing. And bear in mind, they probably gonna have four months to get themselves back into tip top shape before they get pregnant again, which is what they're supposed to be doing. So if they're skimming check their mouth. And, and and, and make sure that they're in tip top shape for to rejoin. So, um, and that, of course, that the yo knees and the teeth, they are particularly relevant for older sheep, obviously older sheep can get parasites, obviously older sheep need the nutrition and obviously genetics can impact older sheep too. But by and large, our lambs are the most vulnerable. And the lambs are where we're wanting to see a growth rate, probably a growth rate of if you can get it 200 grams per day, 200 grams per day growth rate is what you should be aiming for. So if you wean, and you weigh them at weaning, and then you weigh them again, three weeks later, they should have put on between three and five kilos right there. 25 Yes, three, five kilos. Yep. So that sort of idea. So that's the sort of growth pattern you are wanting your animals to get to. Obviously, there's going to be breed differences. Just bear that in mind. Not all animals have a mature weight that will be equivalent to that sort of growth pattern. And bear in mind, the birth weight, all those sorts of things. But that's typically in a commercial environment, maybe 100 grams per day. But most of us are probably going to be aiming for a little bit more than that if we can. So hope your lambs are thriving and surviving and growing well for you this season of the sheep Show podcast please take a moment to share this episode via your podcast app, email or social media channels. Each share helps us reach listeners just like you who can benefit from our sheep focused content. Let me know how your sheep journey is going contact me via Instagram at Holston Valley Farm or via email Jill at Holston Valley farmer.com.au. Until next time, sheep well!