Question for Sheep Hill Farmers ( and lowland)

HillFarmer

Hi All,

I've 80 mostly scottish blackface ewes running on hill ground all year round.

I've a few small fields 8 acres of silage type ground but after that its all hill. The main problem is I tend to run out of good quality grass after the labs are born.

I've been offered 16 acres of tillage type ground for reasnable money.
Good new grass, all fenced water etc.
This land is about 1 hour and a half from the homeplace. I've a local lad that will keep an eye on them for me.

First of all how much lambs could this take continously and the second question is how soon could I wean the lambs without stunting their growth?

If i leave them too long with their mothers at home, they never become good stock, ie no good quality pasture.

Looking for advice, any help much appreciated

flatout11

HillFarmer wrote: »

Hi All,

I've 80 mostly scottish blackface ewes running on hill ground all year round.

I've a few small fields 8 acres of silage type ground but after that its all hill. The main problem is I tend to run out of good quality grass after the labs are born.

I've been offered 16 acres of tillage type ground for reasnable money.
Good new grass, all fenced water etc.
This land is about 1 hour and a half from the homeplace. I've a local lad that will keep an eye on them for me.

First of all how much lambs could this take continously and the second question is how soon could I wean the lambs without stunting their growth?

If i leave them too long with their mothers at home, they never become good stock, ie no good quality pasture.

Looking for advice, any help much appreciated

it should graze nearly all, how many divisions?

if it were mine i would put all the ewes with twins and ram lambs up to it depending on your scan it will prob be 60 to 70% of your flock

HillFarmer

I didnt think it would take that many.

Its 3 fields all roughly the same size.

So you reckon as soon as they lamb put twins and ram lambs down there.

Makes sense, although I'll have to wait until they lamb, I scanned last year for the first time but the scanner was fairly bad, he said we had 10 barren ewes and they all lambed fine and on time. Also he made good few errors with the doubles.

I didnt bother scanning this year, although I regret it already.

flatout11

HillFarmer wrote: »

I didnt think it would take that many.

Its 3 fields all roughly the same size.

So you reckon as soon as they lamb put twins and ram lambs down there.

Makes sense, although I'll have to wait until they lamb, I scanned last year for the first time but the scanner was fairly bad, he said we had 10 barren ewes and they all lambed fine and on time. Also he made good few errors with the doubles.

I didnt bother scanning this year, although I regret it already.

tis worth scanning but id change the scanner..........
if the land is tillage quality it should graze 4 to 5 per ac - will need fertilizer though but it would be worth it if you can get it on a regular basis, i would wait until they were a week old before i move them though

Username John

HillFarmer wrote: »

Hi All,

I've 80 mostly scottish blackface ewes running on hill ground all year round.

I've a few small fields 8 acres of silage type ground but after that its all hill. The main problem is I tend to run out of good quality grass after the labs are born.

I've been offered 16 acres of tillage type ground for reasnable money.
Good new grass, all fenced water etc.
This land is about 1 hour and a half from the homeplace. I've a local lad that will keep an eye on them for me.

First of all how much lambs could this take continously and the second question is how soon could I wean the lambs without stunting their growth?

If i leave them too long with their mothers at home, they never become good stock, ie no good quality pasture.

Looking for advice, any help much appreciated

I wouldnt be too sure - but I'll tell you what I am seeing, it might be some help...

I have about 50 sheep on roughly 3 acre paddocks of newly reseeded grass (reseeded Spring 2010) There was good grass came all winter on them.
The 1st & 2nd paddock did em for 2 weeks each, but these were closed in Oct and the sheep only went into em end Jan (so closed for 16 weeks maybe)
Current paddock which was closed last, around 10th Nov - it will only do em for around 7 - 10 days I'd say, there isnt the same cover on it.

Do you know when the 16 acres was closed up?

Given you have bigger fields at around 5 acres - I would say the figures of 60 - 70% Flatout listed above would be right - thats 50 - 60 sheep. You could try more, but I wouldnt be too sure how quick they would get through the 5 acres then and leave enough time to rotate between the 3 fields.

As for weaning - I weaned em last year at 14 - 16 weeks. I plan to do the same this year. If you wanted to wean em sooner, you could - I saw there are lads on BFF weaning around 12 weeks. You would want to give the sheep something to prevent mastitis.

Not sure that helped that much

HillFarmer

Thanks lads,

I'd say it was closed up early last year, there's a lot of grass there now, its top land. I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll try maybe 50 ewes there and see how I go