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MAXIMISING QUALITY COLOSTRUM AND MILK PRODUCTION This has not been an easy year on most farms and hill farmers have had to cope with prolonged heavy frost and in many cases very deep snow for weeks on end. Reports suggest that many ewes are fit but lean. Pre-lambing feeding where possible will be important to ensure that lambs born are not too weak. However at this stage feeding is unlikely to do more than prevent further loss of condition on the part of the ewes. The production of adequate quantities of quality colostrum will be a challenge under these circumstances. Colostrum is always important not only to provide that first vital feed to meet initial nutritional requirements but also to ensure that passive immunity against infection is passed to the lamb to give it the cover needed until its own active immune response system is fully functional. The back up insurance of purchasing colostrum replacer could prove difficult this year due to the EU ban on the importation of colostrum powder from outside the EU. Most manufacturers have adequate initial stocks of raw material imported before the ban was put in place on the 2nd February. Hill farmers lambing later in the season might find it more difficult to obtain and due to the very limited new stocks now available from within Europe it will no doubt cost a good bit more. To enable ewes to produce quality colostrum one has to ensure that they are provided with the broad spectrum of the vitamins and trace elements needed to boost their own immune response systems. Ewes that have gone through periods of living off their own backs due to lack of readily available forage on the hills will be at risk of being deficient in those essential elements that play such vital roles in immune response and therefore colostrum production. In addition to providing protection against those challenges they encounter every day on your particular farm, ewes must adequately respond to the vaccines administered to them before lambing. Deficient ewes are not capable of an efficient vaccine response and therefore will not pass adequate protection through their colostrum to their lambs. This situation will not only result in a poor return on the money invested in the vaccine, but more importantly, un-necessary losses and unthrifty lambs. Vitamins A, C, D3, and E with essential elements like Iodine, Selenium, Cobalt, Copper, Manganese and Zinc all play important roles in foetal health and immune response. In addition the B group vitamins and the amino acids Lysine and Methionine are necessary for rumen function and milk production and hill ewes in particular are going to need all the help they can get if the crop they are carrying is going to turn into profitable lambs this year. A cost effective and efficient way of providing your flock with the micro nutrients they need to enable them to produce enough quality colostrum and milk to do the job, is in the lead up to lambing to drench them with 15 to 20 ml per head of Chanelle Thrive Extra or Chanelle Thrive Extra + Copper. Mitchell Waugh |
Blackface Sheep Breeders Association Woodhead of Mailer, Perth, Perthshire, Scotland, PH2 0QA |
 01738 634018 |
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