Feeding lambs: Reports from factories continue to indicate poor flesh cover on some lambs, with lambs falling out of spec and yielding carcase kill-outs as low as 40% in some cases.

It has been an extremely tough year on young stock, and the after-effects are that while lambs might have frame size, fat covers are lacking on many lambs on grass-only diets. At this stage it is worth weighing up the options as to what to do with store lambs.

Farms running tight on grass should be looking towards building reserves up for flushing of ewes next month (for March lambing), but where there is a large amount of store lambs still on farm, this will be difficult.

The mart trade is extremely hot at the minute for store and finished lambs, with a real hunger from factories for lambs, so much so that agents are purchasing well-fleshed lambs as low as 41 and 42kg.

The two options available are to offload some lambs as stores to ease pressure on grass, or to introduce concentrates to lower demand and push on lambs.

About 200-300g/head/day can be introduced to lambs below 38kg, while more forward types above this weight can receive 400-500g/head/day to push for a short finish period.

Blowfly strike: Muggy, damp weather has caused blowfly strike to become an issue on farms as the protection period for some pour-ons and plunge dipping products has now lapsed after a number of weeks.

Where lambs or cull ewes are to be sold in the coming weeks, caution must be taken to ensure that the withdrawal period has past before any sale of animals is undertaken.

There are some short withdrawal pour-ons on the market which will allow for slaughter from one week after application, while dagging dirty tail ends and frequent monitoring of sheep destined for sale in the near future might allow for no treatment to be used.

Plunge dipping can be completed, and is generally recommended to complete once a year to control sheep scab, with no pour-on product (or sheep shower) able to effectively control the notifiable disease.

However, with most protection periods of organophophate dips being six weeks, this may not sufficiently cover lambs for the remainder of the blowfly season which can continue well in to September.

Lameness: With the wetter weather has come more lameness issues, especially where stock are congregating around feed or water troughs.

Keeping conditions underfoot dry will go a long way towards preventing lameness becoming a serious issue.

Leaking water troughs should be fixed, and sheep should be moved away from extremely wet fields.

Where there is an issue with lameness, identify the cause eg footrot, scald, COD, consulting with your vet if necessary to draw up an action plan on how to deal with it.

Sheep affected by lameness should be separated from the main flock and treated, thorough foot bathing every five days using a suitable solution and procedure, or through antibiotics and painkillers where appropriate.

Chronically lame sheep should be earmarked for culling.

Breeding rams should have their feet trimmed where appropriate and any lameness issues rectified in good time ahead of the breeding season.