I have been quite the fanboi for Cammy Wilson's YT channel The Sheep Game [though not so much as to get the merch! [R]. He loves his sheep; their care and maintenance. But it is super hard to make a living in farming without you already own the ground on which the stock graze. Wilson's cunning plan was to keep a video camera always on as he went about his day and then spend hours after-hours editing the footage and posting it to YouTube.
A while back he teamed up with his neighbour Iona Murrray to make studio-based footage for a podcast called Fed By Farmers. They are periodically amazed that 15,000 people will subscribe to get josh and banter with regular updates about farming in Ayrshire. In many of the episodes Cammy and Iona interview someone else in the trade [auctioneers, bankers!, contractors, dairyists, entrepreneurs, farmers, shearers, vets] , to discuss some aspect of modern farming. Michael Goldie for example, was recently on about his losses from Schmallenberg a midge-borne teratogenic virus whc Bloboprev. It is similar in effect to Zika whc Bloboprev along with other flaviviruses.
Not all farmers can master a GoPro as well as Cammy so they have tried other ways of turning an honest penny and keep the farm. Rebecca and Duncan McEwan, for example started a side-gig growing pumpkins for Hallowe'en which has grown to a Huge seasonal 🎃nt🎃rpris🎃 - parking! - coffee! - swimming pool!?! These people are clearly not gumboots-in-the-dung traditionalists. Possibly because they've given swathes of their acreage over to 🎃 they do all their lambing in sheds. There are advantages: you don't have to course over the ground from dawn to dusk looking for ewes needing obstetric attention. But cramming several field's worth of sheep into a barn is a recipe for the spread of infectious disease. Such as:
Joint-ill is caused by Streptococcus dysgalactiae [etymology = the string o' berries that messes the milk . . . from its propensity to cause mastitis in cows]. In sheep, particularly fresh lambs, the bacteria can cause infectious arthritis. Back in the day, Streptococcal infections were the original case-study for the roll out of penicillin which was really effective against those pathogens. But for the last 60 years, farmers have squandered this treasure by using penicillin as a growth promoter in chickens and not completing the prescribed time-course for treatment. So antibiotic resistance is now a thing. The related Streptococcus pyogenes can cause rheumatic fever and damage heart vales in humans.
Watery mouth. Never 'eard of it. This is another bacterial infection, often caused by rampant growth of Escherichia coli in the neonatal gut. Skittery shits can easily spread into the next pen.
The McEwans believe that bleaching the shed to within an inch of its life before lambing season is not necessarily the most effective way to prevent infection in the flock. They have bought into the ideas of Aled Rhys Davies that an ecosystem of good bacteria will be able to put manners on the pathogens. Davies recommends misting the shed, not with chlorine, but with probiotics. And a proprietary good-bacteria impregnated shed-bedding to improve a) bacterial load b) the smell. They can also mist the undercarriage of dairy cows with good bacteria after milking. Davies has the multi-product company - Pruex Ltd - for the purpose. He was bedding down on a Wexford Dairy farrrm in January.
You don't need this if you're lambing outside where Strep and Coliform are so busy fighting their corner to survive that they haven't time to infect lambs which have just been born in the lee of a hedge. Other players - Mr Fox, Our Lady of Blizzard and Lord Carrion of Crow - wait in the wings instead.
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