Marking season has a habit of creeping up fast.
A quick check-over of your Numnuts® kit before you start can make all the difference when things get busy. A clean, well-maintained device helps keep everything flowing properly, reduces downtime, and keeps your day running smoothly.
We’ve pulled together a few simple tips—alongside a helpful video—to help you get your kit ready for the season ahead.
First job—give everything a proper clean.
As we show in the video, that means:
It doesn’t need to be complicated. Warm, soapy water and a brush will do the job.
This is one of the easiest ways to avoid issues later. Build-up from last season can affect the performance of the ring applicator mechanism and the injector, so it’s well worth taking a few minutes now to get things right.
Replacing the consumable parts regularly, especially at the start of the season does a big job.
In the video, we show how quick it is to swap out old needles, fluid junctions and old dirty bottle mounts. If it’s been used a lot or sat dormant for almost a year, then it must be changed. The dirt and bacteria is something that you do not want going near your lambs so stick on a new needle, a fresh fluid junction and new bottle mount.
You can purchase an ‘Annual Service Kit’ from the numnuts® website.
A drop of oil goes a long way. Lubrication is one of those things that’s easy to overlook—but makes a real difference. A new o-ring or even one that has seen a handful of bottles of anaesthetic will need lubricated. Just like any other sheep vaccine or treatment injector system, the Numnuts injector is the same!
It’s a quick job, you’ll find some in your kitchen and less is more. See the video for more…
If there’s one thing not to skimp on—it’s needles. We recommend changing the needles every two bottles or 130 doses.
Fresh needles help:
They’re quick to change (as shown in the video), so it makes sense to do it regularly. Make sure you have enough for the season ahead.
Accidents happen. That’s farming.
Having a few key spares in the toolbox means you can fix small issues on the spot and keep moving.
We’d suggest keeping a few consumables on hand:
The Numnuts system is designed to be practical and farmer-friendly. Both the Fluid Junction and UK Bottle Mount are changed over easily due to the modular design – no tools are required and can be done super quick – but you need to have them in your toolbox otherwise you could be caught short.
Clean kit isn’t just about performance—it’s about the overall welfare for your lambs.
Numnuts is all about improving animal welfare by delivering targeted pain relief at marking. Keeping your equipment clean and well maintained helps make sure that process is as effective as it should be. We’ve made keeping on top of hygiene simple and all the consumables are easy to get hold of.
Good habits here go a long way so get sorted before you start. If you want to make it easy, our ‘Annual Service Kit’ bundle provides all the consumables together so you’ve got everything to hand before the season kicks off.
In this video, we run through:
The team at Numnuts are keen to support our users and there are a number of other helpful videos in our support section on our website. Find more helpful, short videos below…
Register My Interest and Become Eligible to Distribute NumOcaine
