Lamb marking

Uh welcome everyone for the uh the second of our brief briefings on uh sheep animal health matters over this spring. Uh we've concentrated first on the two things that we traditionally look at pre-harvest. Uh that's the spring drench and also marking.

And uh the second of those today will be delivered by my colleague Dr Justine McNally. Uh and just what we need to look at to um you know avoid issues over marking. I'd just like to first start with an acknowledgement that I'm speaking to you here from Kamilaroi land.

And look with no further ado I'll hand over to Justine who will give us our 20 minutes. As we go through if you've got any questions please put them on the question box there. Uh alternatively please give either of us a call either later today or next week. Our numbers will be at the end. Thank you.

Um thanks Shaun and hi to everyone. As usual I always feel fairly awkward uh doing these because I can't see anyone else so I hope everyone else out there is well and happy and things are going well.

But I'm just going to actually turn my webcam off so you don't have to look at my um head the whole time. I'll just do that and um and so we can then go on. Just let me I've just got to work out how to get my oh yep that's right.

So today I'm just talking about um lamb marking and I know for many people this is sort of just part and parcel of your everyday operation. Like you do it year in year out. Um you'd be well versed on it but I always think there's little tidbits you can pick up from people.

And whether it reiterates that you're definitely on the right path or there might be just something you want to tweak. I hope everyone can get just a little snippet of information out of today's webinar.

Points to consider

So Shaun and I had a chat about a few things and what things we thought were points that really should be considered in today's discussion. And so I've got them listed here and we're really going to do this pretty briefly. It's going to be a bit of a flick and tick through it but trying to get you to work out what your priorities are and maybe what areas you need to reflect on and work out you know which path you should be taking.

So I'm going to just touch on hygiene and literally back to the basics like why we're doing it. Back vaccination, your options and most importantly probably vaccination technique.

Um with the tail docking it's the main aim is tail length. That's the important part of the tail docking procedure is the length of tail.

Pain relief and what options are out there and really because in the reality of today's world we've just got to consider pain relief as part of the lamb marking procedure.

An absolutely five-second reference to identification and why you should be putting ear tags in at lamb marking. And then if I've got enough time I'm just going to touch very briefly on wet and drying of ewes at lamb marking and potentially incorporating that spring drench for your ewes which Shaun spoke about last week at the lamb marking time.

And a very brief touch on fire prevention. So let's get cracking on this.

Why bother changing what I do?

So my first thing was and I do this often is why bother changing what I do? Well there are a few reasons and I suppose there's some short-term reasons and there's some long-term reasons.

The short-term reasons are around the post-marking disasters that you can get and this is in that period of anything from probably you know a few days to potentially up to a month after marking. So one of the big things is tetanus and that's just why it's imperative that you have vaccinated ewes so they can give their lambs some maternal antibodies to give them protection at marking and then getting that vaccination in there at marking to avert tetanus issues going forward.

Um the other thing is arthritis and we do see them. We sometimes see outbreaks of arthritis and a couple of guys that maybe even online today would know that Shaun or I have been up there when they've had the odd arthritis outbreak.

Um just general wound infection. Occasionally we see spinal abscesses and you know there's the odd person that would have had us out for those too. And just vaccination side injuries.

So they're those immediate issues that you can have post marking. Um and that's why you've got to consider how you're actually approaching things.

And then your longer-term issues are things like rectal prolapses especially when your ewes as they come close to lambing that can be a real problem. Clostridial diseases such as pulpy kidney and all of us have had issues with pulpy kidney. I've had them and it's very frustrating.

Um having the old wriggle stag or whatever you want to call them because you just haven't castrated them correctly and got both testicles. And also having untagged stock at the point of sale or having to turn around and tag stock just before you're getting them onto a truck.

So they're just those sort of longer-term issues that we want to look at.

How do I prioritise what to do?

So I think the first thing you need to do is just sitting down for five and working out what your priorities are and how to prioritise because absolutely every person on this webinar has a different set of circumstances.

So we all have different size flocks and mobs. We have different facilities on hand. We've got different labour forces.

Um lots of people have different farming activities pending like I mean harvest is literally only weeks away. If you've got canola in you could be um you know cutting it and windrowing within two weeks. You know there's just a lot of stuff going on at the moment getting prepared for harvest.

So you've got to consider those things and use those to help you prioritise what you're doing and what other sheep management activities you've got planned and that sort of comes into that whole thing around the spring drench.

Hygiene, Hygiene, Hygiene

Needs to be hygienic. And um I'm a big hand washer generally and I like things super clean because that is where a lot of issues just start.

Okay so it's just it's imperative for both outcomes with your lambs post-marking and just outcomes for yourself. Okay so hygiene is just super important and you don't have to go and do like insane stuff like auto clothing gear and things. This is just like basic things like having two buckets of disinfectant when you're lamb marking. Have one bucket for equipment and one bucket for your hands. Like at least have that.

If you want have three buckets: one where you're getting off the worst of the contamination and then you're dipping it into something that's the water and disinfectant less contaminated. Or just stick with the two. But it's super important and why it's important is going back to that other point I made about post-marking infections. Like you're trying to reduce the risk of arthritis, tetanus, wound infections and abscesses and just making sure for yourself you don't end up with some festy wound.

So a couple of other things to gain or achieve rather good hygiene is just having the area where you're going to drop those lambs needs to be not dusty or muddy. Like if you're lucky enough to have a grass area great that's fabulous. If you don't get some old tarps and put them on the ground just in the area where you're going to drop the lambs so at least when they're hitting the ground you're not actually grossly contaminating a wound. And that wound can be even just where the ear tag's gone and it doesn't have to be that you've got a big wound you know from cutting a tail or something if you do that or a mulesing wound. This is just anywhere where the skin is broken you've got potential for infection.

So have that sort of area where you're going to drop the lambs as clean. Have you a couple of buckets of disinfectant and have a clean area for your equipment so it's not sitting down on the ground and in the dirt. Could be the back of you. It doesn't have to be anything exciting just somewhere where it's up and out of the dirt. And also make sure you change your needles on vaccination guns. If you end up dropping the gun on the ground just take the needle off and put a clean one in.

So the first big thing I suppose is the old tail docking. Most of you would know timing two to eight weeks of age. It's about two weeks after the end of lambing give or take a little bit. But um it's not great to be trying to put rings and things and it's not even acceptable to be putting them on after a certain age. And even for yourself like trying to lift up some lambs and get them in cradles it's just it's impossible especially if you are me.

So just think about that timing and see how you can fit in with these other farming practices that you've got going on. The other thing is what method are you going to go for? Are you going to go the rings or the hot knife? And they're really the only two acceptable things to do. Using a lamb marking knife now is just really not best practice. You get a lot of blood loss, stress and it's just not good. You've got an open wound. So work out what you're going to do or what your contractor is going to do. But with your rings you can just go with your conventional pliers or go for the Numnuts which is that new applicator with the local anaesthetic as well.

Tail length – why it is so important

What's the importance of that? Well there's a couple of things that are really important and some of those things are just a shorter-term advantage and some are longer-term advantage.

But the position you want to look for is below the third joint. So in a female ewe it's just below the level of the tip of the vulva, but for males you're just going to have to gauge it by eye where that is and try and palpate it, which is always easier said than done. But you will get your eye in for where you're doing it.

Basically the short-term advantage of it is you will have a shorter healing time by being that bit further down. The surface area of the wound is actually smaller and that's part of the thing. But by doing that it's all this flow-on effect: shorter healing time, less infection, less likely to get arthritis or tetanus cases.

It's super important because the animal can actually lift their tail properly when defecating and urinating. If you cut it too short you can actually cause nerve damage and they can't lift it properly and you get a lot of contamination around the breech which can lead to breech strike.

Also you want to cover that sensitive area around the anus and vulva because they can get skin cancers in that area just from exposure to the sun. And the other big thing—and I've seen it—we've had a few where we've gone too short and you end up with rectal prolapses and they just end up as culls. That's just what ends up happening.

So there's a few long-term advantages around getting that tail length right.

Position for tail docking

These diagrams are freely available, but you can see the tip of the vulva and that's it—about the third joint.

Vaccination – what to use

Okay the next thing is vaccination: what to use. I personally just think go for six-in-one if you don't want to think about it—just go down that path. If you want to get into numbers and all the finance around it and want to work out per head, go for your life. But don't go beneath the five-in-one.

So it's either six-in-one or five-in-one, but six-in-one gives you that extra protection. You're not just doing tetanus and pulpy kidney and the three other clostridials, you're also doing cheesy gland. And cheesy gland has two implications: one is in trim issues at slaughter and the other thing is it's zoonotic and you can get it. And I know someone that got it and got it quite badly and it was really nasty.

So I just think it's one of those things—just go for the six-in-one. It's worth it and you're not only getting short-term benefit, you're getting long-term benefit. And of course do the booster at weaning. You need to have a booster shot—bit like the COVID—you’re not going to get proper cover if you don't have a booster.

Important vaccination tips

The big thing with vaccination is you want to make sure your cold chain storage is maintained. So that's from reseller to home to the yard. Make sure you get it in an esky to take it home and you've got it in an esky at the yards. If you have a break when you're doing lamb marking, get the vaccine back in the esky. It'll become inactive if it gets hot and don't freeze it.

Other thing: vaccination gun—before you even start just make sure the jolly thing's working and clean and have a spare up your sleeve. No point starting out for the day and then you can't even finish your job.

The other big thing: needles. Go for a quarter inch. Order them now—you can get trays of them with about 12 in them. If you can't get it from your reseller go to your vet and get them to order it for you. I'll show you a picture in a sec. You will not end up doing intramuscular injections if you use a quarter inch. Okay—quarter inch, 18 gauge.

And you must change those needles every 50 lambs or if it's blunt or dropped. If it's blunt you notice because you're trying to push it in and it's really hard and it'll be burred and you're just causing trauma to the tissue which increases your risk of infection due to inflammation and damage in the area.

And you want it at 45 degrees and you're putting it on the side of the neck behind the ear and the cheek. I'll show you in the diagram in a sec. But that 45 degrees is for lambs and for adults in low body condition or off shears, and 90 degrees in a wooled adult.

So as you can see on the diagram—just that area behind the cheek and behind the ear on the side of the neck. And you can see how short these little needles are—they're really tiny actually. And that's what you want. And this is the angle—the one with the green tick—it's 45 degrees. You're not going straight down, you're not going at a sharper angle—it's 45. Okay and if you've got that short needle you'll achieve it.

Pain relief options

The next thing is pain relief. You just have to use pain relief these days. Rings—if you go with your Numnuts it's all in the whole gadget so you're not having to give them the oral analgesic as well. But you can if you want to—that's Buccalgesic or Metacam.

You need to use one of those when using the hot knife. And if you're mulesing you have to use pain relief and you have to use something like Tri-Solfen which also has an antiseptic in it for application to the wound area.

So that's just a photo of the Numnuts applicator. You just use the normal rings on it. And look I'm going to try it this year and I'll let people know how it goes, but I know a couple of people have used it and they're really happy with it. So you put the ring on and then you plunge the local anaesthetic in through fire and needle obviously—so it's all in one apparatus.

Identification

Next thing—the quick one—identification. Get your ear tags in at lamb marking which I think 99% of you probably do anyway. And you know the routine: males tagging the left ear, females in the right ear.

And it just allows you that ability that if you want to sell on the hop for some reason or at a time you weren't thinking of before you're all prepared. Like you know they're tagged, you can get them on the truck and get them out of there instead of faffing around with a bigger animal trying to tag them.

Wet and dry ewes – why bother

Very quickly—wet and dry ewes—why bother doing this? If you have the facilities to do it on the day and the labour to do it on the day and the time, it just saves you an additional muster if it's done at marking.

And the whole aim behind it is to basically remove your unproductive ewes so you're getting rid of the ones that either had no lamb or lost a lamb. One of the most effective ways to do this is draft the ewes from your lambs when you bring them into the yards.

Then go and do your lamb marking with the lambs and in the meantime the ewes are sitting there and no lambs are suckling off them so the udder is filling. And then when you go to run them through the race and palpate them and visualize if they've got an udder or not, it's just easier because the udder's filled up again.

So that's a much easier way to do it than having them straight into the yards with lambs having suckled on them that morning. Just give yourself that little bit of time to make it easier.

I put a web address on there for YouTube and that's a DPI YouTube and it's really good. I had a quick look at it—it just shows you what to do, gives you examples of dry udders, wet udders, mastitis—all that sort of stuff. It's a really good little tool and I just put that there so you could use it when this comes through on the link.

And the other thing is basically the teats—if they're dark and greasy they've been suckled. If they're clean they haven't. And that bagging up—and if you want stripper teats—if it's watery they've lost the lamb. But basically you're just removing unproductive ewes and it gives you an option of what to do with them.

Some people want to sell them straight away. Others in a Merino operation might run them with the wethers and get a wool clip off them. Some people might want to try them again as a separate flock that showed that it wasn't potentially as productive. But anyway it's up to you—it gives you options.

Drenching – should you bother?

Drenching—should you bother? Lambs—no, don't bother unless they're over that 10 weeks of age. They're probably not pasture eaters and you won't really get a worm issue until 10 to 12 weeks of age. But just monitor them and you might find it hard when they're running with the ewes, but just pick up the smaller poo and that'll be lamb droppings compared to the ewe droppings. So keep it simple.

But make sure you're drenching at weaning if you wean at the end of sort of this harvest period—sort of November, December—or look to drench them in that November, December when you're bringing ewes back in for that drench that Shaun spoke about on last week's webinar.

But you may want to do your ewes' spring drench just when you've got them in the yard. Make sure you use a triple-active cue drench—do not go for one active or two actives. And you need to be making sure you're covering both black scour worm and barber's pole worm at the moment.

And monitor—use those worm tests to monitor—they're really important. I've dropped some in to a couple of the resellers. You can ring up the lab and get them, you can go into the office and get them, or ring Shaun and myself and we'll somehow get a worm test kit to you.

Fly prevention for wounds

Depends what you're doing. If you're doing your thing at the same time you just have to do something with fly prevention on wounds. It's up to people what they want to do around and around this time of lamb marking.

But just remember the chemical doesn't bond as well to lambswool because it hasn't got the lanolin content and the structure is a bit different. Make sure whatever you use at lamb marking on your lambs is what you're using for your dressing for the season.

I've listed those things there—have a look at this when you've got a bit more time or go back and look at Narelle Sales' webinar. It's up on our website or Facebook page or get on to Shaun or I and we'll flick it to you.

But avoid the powders—you just get reduced healing time and the options aren't fabulous and they're not as effective as they used to be.

Where to start – what do I need to do? Check marking gear

Okay really quickly—so I've just gone over by one minute. Okay where do you start? Check your marking gear—just make sure everything's ready to go.

Order your gear and your treatments—get onto your reseller now. There's no point trying to do it the day before. It's unfair expecting they're going to have it ready—especially with ear tags. So get on to it even with some of the vaccines and things—they've got to order the equipment and the medication and things in. So make sure you do that.

And check your yards and your marking area—make sure everything is working. Water troughs are working, your area to drop lambs is right, the cradles are operating well.

Summary – the bare basics

In summary—bare basics: hygiene—just keep things clean and keep yourself clean. Use a vaccination—five-in-one or six-in-one is an absolute must.

Make sure you get that tail docking length right for both short and long-term advantage. You've got to have pain relief these days—so just choose something. And get your ear tags in. And if you can, wet and dry your ewes and do your drench—drench your ewes for the spring if it's not already done.

So that's it from me and I'll just put myself back up here. And Shaun—are you there?

"I'm here as well—thank you."
"Thank you Justine—very quick—so you're only two minutes over so that's only two schooners of stature only."

Okay a couple of questions there—we've got one question about the use of hessian as a surface to drop the lambs onto. And just an idea where that compares compared to say ground or tarps.

I would just think if the weave on the hessian is pretty tight I'd think it's probably not too bad. I was just thinking some of those hessian weaves can sometimes be a bit open and you could be getting dust coming up through it. But I certainly think if that's what you've got and you can't get access to tarps it's way better than just straight onto dirt—so you're just reducing that amount of contamination. I think you'd be better off with something more solid but if you can't it's better than nothing.

Thank you.

Okay there's a question here—what's the new seven-in-one? Oh yeah—that doesn't include cheesy gland and I have looked at it. It's got a couple of extra clostridial strains and I think actually—and you might have a different opinion Shaun—but I would be personally for our sheep I'd be still going with the six-in-one because I want to have cheesy gland on board. I think it's super important—more than these other rare strains of clostridials—that's all.

"Exactly—there's some strains there—lamb dysentery—which I think I've seen twice in my career. It's essentially a disease of housed power sheep of the northern hemisphere. But you know as Justine said before—the key vaccine there to have is the ones that do cover you for pulpy kidney, tetanus and cheesy gland. There's a growing increasing number of vaccines on there that vary—give Justine or yourself a call for your personal circumstances."

And I think that's just about it in terms of questions Justine. So thank you everyone—that again was our nice little quick briefing. We're going to have a break over harvest while everyone's going to be very busy—wishing you all the best for that if you're involved in harvest. Then we're going to come back with another 20 minutes about the animal health issues we see with weaners because they're probably the most fragile animals we have on the sheep farm.

Hope everyone's safe and we'll see you next time. Thank you.