Switching to All Guard Lamb bolus leads to 90% of lambs finished by weaning

“We are so severely trace element deficient here that if lambs are not supplemented by eight weeks of age their ears will start falling off by weaning,” Aled explains.

Aled has tried numerous ways of curing his trace element problem over the years with varying degrees of success. In 2017 Aled decided to try the Mayo ‘All Guard Lamb’ bolus after they were recommended to him.

“Since switching to All Guard Lamb the growth performance of our lambs has been exceptional, all trace element deficiency symptoms have disappeared and our lambs are gaining 350g a day on grass at 14 weeks of age which definitely cannot be achieved without the use of the bolus”, says Aled.

“We start drawing lambs from 11 weeks of age and wean about 15-16 weeks. An astounding 90% of our fat lambs are now finished by weaning. We draw at 40kg providing the lambs have good cover, aiming for a carcass weight of 18.5kg deadweight. The Lamb boluses have been a game changer for us, and we’ve recommended them to lots of people. Because they are so small you can easily administer them at seven to eight weeks of age, that’s the secret,” says Aled.

“I hear people saying they bolus at weaning but in my opinion, you’re missing out on a huge amount of growth potential waiting until then. Get them in early and the lambs won’t be around by weaning! Two years ago, we did a trial where we didn’t give some of the biggest singles a bolus. What a mistake that was, the smaller singles and twins that had received the bolus overtook them and were sold several weeks before those singles that were the biggest at eight weeks of age.”

The flock comprises of 1,500 Glamorgan Welsh mules, Texel Cross and Exlanas. On the back of the success with the lamb boluses, the ewes are now also bolused twice a year with the Mayo ‘All Guard 4in1’. Boluses are administered to ewes in September and again in February. The Davies family lamb mostly outdoors from January until end of April. The farms scanning rate is around 190%.

Aled continued: “We are introducing more of the Exlana breed into our flock as they require less labour input. We are big fans of the ‘All Guard’ range as they contain such high levels of trace elements, especially Cobalt. Lamb welfare is better as lambs are not showing any cobalt deficiency and are far healthier. They are a firm part of our system and we would not farm sheep here without them now. It is nice to know that stock are getting a daily, continual supply of trace elements all year round. We’ve finally found a solution to the trace element problems that has caused us big headaches for many years.”