siddharthfarms
Member
Dear all,
Its been sometime we have finished the Dorper sheep embryo transfers and still have 3 more months to go! planning to leave the rams on the flock to have a rough idea of conception rates this week.
During the time of embryo transfers,I did come across a situation which i felt should be shared. Hope you guys find it useful!
As most of you are aware that we did a very stringent selection of the recipient ewes and they all had a good record of lambing and mothering for the last two seasons.The inception of Embryos was planed for three days at an average of 100 embryos per day and things went really well.
There were some rejects on all the three days but hardly any on basis of non ovulation. ,This was good news to us and music to my ears as we worked very hard on the feed to achieve this.
Yes,you can do wonders with slight alterations in the feed and magic with vitamins and minerals to get good conception rates in you sheep,I am talking about "How many lambs for the ewes you have mated",How many times have we really got a 100 out of 100,Please do not consider the twins and triplets in the breeds with high prolificacy as an average.Lets look at a lamb for every ewe and more is welcome.
In my earlier posts,I have expressed my reservations on stall feeding of sheep with a similar diet through out the year,This experience of mine supports my earlier views on it further.As explained earlier, raising the plane of nutrition from a lower level to a higher level which is otherwise called as flushing will improve ovulation in sheep and will lead to good conception rates.
Please understand that lower level of nutrition means that you do not have to starve your sheep,allow them to graze on poor grasses and supplement them with minerals and vitamin mix if you were doing it earlier,remove the leguminous fodder from the diet if you are giving any.
If you are stall feeding your sheep with a daily dose of whole maize crop and lurcene.Take the lurcene away from the diet 6 weeks prior to the breeding and in place of whole maize crop feed only maize fodder and other additives remains the same.
Here In both the cases you are not changing the daily intake quantity and the basic structure of the feed,but only making it nutritionally low.
Remove Lurcene ? ,As most of the leguminous plants contains phyto estrogens which mimic the naturally occurring estrogen in the body and might delay estrous and excess of proteins is bad for the fetus.
This will continue for four weeks and in the last two weeks add small quantities of maize grain ( 300gms per sheep), start with 150 grams and take it to 500gms per every ewe till the day of breeding gradually,While you add grain to their diet also incorporate an extra dose of Vitamin A,D,E and zinc. into their diet( Ask your veterinarian for the dose as different brands has different compositions).
Soon after the breeding, gradually bring the grain to 300gms per sheep and maintain the same for the first four weeks of pregnancy.In the fifth week of pregnancy introduce lurcene back and slowly phase out the grain part.
Stall feeders can get back to their regular diet of whole corn maize and lurcene by the end of eighth week of pregnancy and people who follow semi intensive system can also stop giving grain and supplement the ewes with lurcene/horsegram or any other leguminous hay.
Happy lambing to you all.
Best Regards
Ravi
Siddharthfarms@gmail.com
Its been sometime we have finished the Dorper sheep embryo transfers and still have 3 more months to go! planning to leave the rams on the flock to have a rough idea of conception rates this week.
During the time of embryo transfers,I did come across a situation which i felt should be shared. Hope you guys find it useful!
As most of you are aware that we did a very stringent selection of the recipient ewes and they all had a good record of lambing and mothering for the last two seasons.The inception of Embryos was planed for three days at an average of 100 embryos per day and things went really well.
There were some rejects on all the three days but hardly any on basis of non ovulation. ,This was good news to us and music to my ears as we worked very hard on the feed to achieve this.
Yes,you can do wonders with slight alterations in the feed and magic with vitamins and minerals to get good conception rates in you sheep,I am talking about "How many lambs for the ewes you have mated",How many times have we really got a 100 out of 100,Please do not consider the twins and triplets in the breeds with high prolificacy as an average.Lets look at a lamb for every ewe and more is welcome.
In my earlier posts,I have expressed my reservations on stall feeding of sheep with a similar diet through out the year,This experience of mine supports my earlier views on it further.As explained earlier, raising the plane of nutrition from a lower level to a higher level which is otherwise called as flushing will improve ovulation in sheep and will lead to good conception rates.
Please understand that lower level of nutrition means that you do not have to starve your sheep,allow them to graze on poor grasses and supplement them with minerals and vitamin mix if you were doing it earlier,remove the leguminous fodder from the diet if you are giving any.
If you are stall feeding your sheep with a daily dose of whole maize crop and lurcene.Take the lurcene away from the diet 6 weeks prior to the breeding and in place of whole maize crop feed only maize fodder and other additives remains the same.
Here In both the cases you are not changing the daily intake quantity and the basic structure of the feed,but only making it nutritionally low.
Remove Lurcene ? ,As most of the leguminous plants contains phyto estrogens which mimic the naturally occurring estrogen in the body and might delay estrous and excess of proteins is bad for the fetus.
This will continue for four weeks and in the last two weeks add small quantities of maize grain ( 300gms per sheep), start with 150 grams and take it to 500gms per every ewe till the day of breeding gradually,While you add grain to their diet also incorporate an extra dose of Vitamin A,D,E and zinc. into their diet( Ask your veterinarian for the dose as different brands has different compositions).
Soon after the breeding, gradually bring the grain to 300gms per sheep and maintain the same for the first four weeks of pregnancy.In the fifth week of pregnancy introduce lurcene back and slowly phase out the grain part.
Stall feeders can get back to their regular diet of whole corn maize and lurcene by the end of eighth week of pregnancy and people who follow semi intensive system can also stop giving grain and supplement the ewes with lurcene/horsegram or any other leguminous hay.
Happy lambing to you all.
Best Regards
Ravi
Siddharthfarms@gmail.com
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