Over the weekend we marked the first group of lambs, tails off, tags in, and Gudair and 6-1 injections. Much easier task when we do it early, the lambs are not as big and strong, as they are at six weeks - the end of lambing. It is also much easier to mother up and work out which lamb goes with which ewe for stud purposes.
"What are we here for again?"
We really noticed the impact of fox predation on the lamb numbers. All the ewes in this early lot are maidens, and many of them had twins. When we did a count it seems that a lot of ewes lost their second lamb to a fox. We baited before lambing as did our neighbour, but the fox numbers are huge. A friend went shooting in the lambing paddock, and in one night shot two foxes and saw another three lurking around. Pretty hard for a young lambing ewe to deal with that pressure.
We are now finalising a heavily electrified paddock for the next group of ewes and hope that fixes the problem. It is a hard battle to win, with forest near by, and mainly cattle producers in the district, for whom the fox is not a threat.
We are now finalising a heavily electrified paddock for the next group of ewes and hope that fixes the problem. It is a hard battle to win, with forest near by, and mainly cattle producers in the district, for whom the fox is not a threat.
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