Sheep Photo Thread

wrangler

weatherbyfoxer wrote: »

nice sheep there wrangler,..are they texel x llyen?

Yea, even when buying texels I don't go for the wide headed rams

weatherbyfoxer

hoping to breed more of these type ewes in the future

OneMan37

wrangler wrote: »

Picture for Bord Bia inspection
have you anything for us

Attachment not found.

Would I be right in sayng they are Texel cross Belclare ewes ? Similar to mine.

wrangler

OneMan37 wrote: »

Would I be right in sayng they are Texel cross Belclare ewes ? Similar to mine.

No, Lleyn...... I don't want the belclare lamb crops.
It's nourishment not punishment that I want.

Kevhog1988

wrangler wrote: »

No, Lleyn...... I don't want the belclare lamb crops.
It's nourishment not punishment that I want.

I like the lleyns too. Have a few here and always no hassle with them.

wrangler

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

I like the lleyns too. Have a few here and always no hassle with them.

Yea, they're referred to as old mans sheep ,they're very quiet but I have a ram that's a right brat

weatherbyfoxer

wrangler wrote: »

Yea, they're referred to as old mans sheep ,they're very quiet but I have a ram that's a right brat

if llyens are old mans sheeps then cheviots must be mad mans sheep

Green farmer

wrangler wrote: »

Yea, they're referred to as old mans sheep

I've often held that before, in fairness it's easier to restrain a 60kg ewe then a 90kg one. The bit of texel you add to them would quieten themdown no end as well.

Kevhog1988

Happy out to be in after the past few days weather

https://flic.kr/p/2kxwVpv

razor8

Green farmer wrote: »

I've often held that before, in fairness it's easier to restrain a 60kg ewe then a 90kg one. The bit of texel you add to them would quieten themdown no end as well.

IMO there’s a balance. Running a 60kg ewes means your selling most of offspring after Xmas or selling small stores putting pressure on grass

Are you not better keep a bigger ewe and have your lambs off the farm end of sept finished?

OneMan37

razor8 wrote: »

IMO there’s a balance. Running a 60kg ewes means your selling most of offspring after Xmas or selling small stores putting pressure on grass

Are you not better keep a bigger ewe and have your lambs off the farm end of sept finished?

I know what you mean. But selling after Christmas would generally give you more for your lamb than selling in September anyway.

But maybe that just me as I lamb late anyway to catch the price rise after Christmas anyway.

Green farmer

razor8 wrote: »

IMO there’s a balance. Running a 60kg ewes means your selling most of offspring after Xmas or selling small stores putting pressure on grass

Are you not better keep a bigger ewe and have your lambs off the farm end of sept finished?

Maybe, no right or wrong answer. I suppose whatever ewe suits your setup best really. I just like working with the medium sized ewe and content with a 18-20kg lamb.

weatherbyfoxer

razor8 wrote: »

IMO there’s a balance. Running a 60kg ewes means your selling most of offspring after Xmas or selling small stores putting pressure on grass

Are you not better keep a bigger ewe and have your lambs off the farm end of sept finished?

a 60kg ewe is an awful small sheep especially for a lowland ewe...especially when you'd be looking for a ewe lamb to weight 50kg+ going to a ram

wrangler

weatherbyfoxer wrote: »

a 60kg ewe is an awful small sheep especially for a lowland ewe...especially when you'd be looking for a ewe lamb to weight 50kg+ going to a ram

Our ewes average 70k and ewe lambs 43+ kg, they do the same job with half the work. always selling the lambs at max weight

weatherbyfoxer

wrangler wrote: »

Our ewes average 70k and ewe lambs 43+ kg, they do the same job with half the work. always selling the lambs at max weight

a 70-75kg ewe would be what we are aiming for here...some of muled here are 85kg+. a recent observation here was the extra time the mules spent at the bales of haylage compaired to llyen type ones.

razor8

Are you not better have the majority of your lambs gone in sept/Oct rather than carrying that amount of lambs into the next year. I would imagine you are curtailing your stocking rate substantially

What ever gains you are making in a better price after Xmas you are losing on the number of lambs sold?

OneMan37

Agree Razor. But it’s better for me to only lamb 50/60 ewes. Lambing is the most intensive work wise. Not a lot of work involved keeping lambs until they are 50kg Hoggs in March.

razor8

OneMan37 wrote: »

Agree Razor. But it’s better for me to only lamb 50/60 ewes. Lambing is the most intensive work wise. Not a lot of work involved keeping lambs until they are 50kg Hoggs in March.

Agree with you there but your not farming to maximise profit made?

weatherbyfoxer

some of the inlamb ewe lambs that were brought in today..very happy with them considering they are only on a small bit of ration for the past 5 days

Kevhog1988

weatherbyfoxer wrote: »

some of the inlamb ewe lambs that were brought in today..very happy with them considering they are only on a small bit of ration for the past 5 days

Theyre in great order

OneMan37

razor8 wrote: »

Agree with you there but your not farming to maximise profit made?

I’ve never seen any study’s or research to say profits are maximised either way. I know this way cuts down on a lot of work and sleepless night during lambing season tho. As I lamb less ewes, but get more for my finished lamb.

Dinzee Conlee

razor8 wrote: »

Agree with you there but your not farming to maximise profit made?

That’s an interesting one...

Are any perceived losses from reduced sticking rate, offset by an increase in sales price of the lamb?

I tried to maximise profit this year, and bought a few too many store lambs than I probably should have...
I think I might have been better off buying less and so have less inputs maybe...

Kevhog1988

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

That’s an interesting one...

Are any perceived losses from reduced sticking rate, offset by an increase in sales price of the lamb?

I tried to maximise profit this year, and bought a few too many store lambs than I probably should have...
I think I might have been better off buying less and so have less inputs maybe...

was it a mortality or cost to produce issue?. would have thought anyone with store lambs made a good margin on them this year provided they bought in at a decent price

Green farmer

OneMan37 wrote: »

I’ve never seen any study’s or research to say profits are maximised either way.

I've a friend that halved his ewe flock a few years back. He said that in the lambing year directly after that, he had near the same numbers amount of live lambs on the ground with half the ewes. They say a ewes biggest enemy is another ewe , Makes you wonder ?

wrangler

Green farmer wrote: »

I've a friend that halved his ewe flock a few years back. He said that in the lambing year directly after that, he had near the same numbers amount of live lambs on the ground with half the ewes. They say a ewes biggest enemy is another ewe , Makes you wonder ?

Depends on whether he was over stocked, also you needn't judge every year on this year, you saw lambs being a bad price through January february before..
We sold 130 lambs off ten acres last year, I can't see halving the numbers improving that unless the ewes start to breed and rear litters,
If you don't have the lambs you're not going to have profit, your fixed costs per acre aren't going to change that much, you're not going to get any better prices for lambs because there's a weight limit, the only way your friend doubled his output was that he neglected them the year before and let them die

Young95

wrangler wrote: »

Depends on whether he was over stocked, also you needn't judge every year on this year, you saw lambs being a bad price through January february before..
We sold 130 lambs off ten acres last year, I can't see halving the numbers improving that unless the ewes start to breed and rear litters,
If you don't have the lambs you're not going to have profit, your fixed costs per acre aren't going to change that much, you're not going to get any better prices for lambs because there's a weight limit, the only way your friend doubled his output was that he neglected them the year before and let them die

It’s funny I’ve a friend who is always going on saying there’s no money in sheep . Which for him is true since he’s only selling around 1.3 lambs from his ewes .. he’s no interest in changing either . A lot of sheep farmers are doing what there fathers on so on did before them !

OneMan37

Green farmer wrote: »

I've a friend that halved his ewe flock a few years back. He said that in the lambing year directly after that, he had near the same numbers amount of live lambs on the ground with half the ewes. They say a ewes biggest enemy is another ewe , Makes you wonder ?

Interesting. I’m lambing 55 ewes this year, will keep lambs until they reach Hoggs early 2022 or even keep some ewe lambs until summer 2022 and sell as Hoggs. This suits me as I have the ground. But if I changed this system and started lambing 70/80/90 ewes I’d get tired of lambing. Besides my shed can only lamb 35/40 ewes at a time anyway. Only other scenario is I could lamb out side.

Dinzee Conlee

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

was it a mortality or cost to produce issue?. would have thought anyone with store lambs made a good margin on them this year provided they bought in at a decent price

Ah, the good prices this year will save me Kev...

I made a few mistakes this year, had 2 dead that shouldn't have been..
But, too many mouths meant the grass didn't go as far, so bit more inputs...

We'll do ok this year, but I must remember not to be so confident next autumn

This isnt a bad year to be caught, but not al years have good prices. So store lambs is as much about how cheaply you can do them as anything...

Kevhog1988

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

Ah, the good prices this year will save me Kev...

I made a few mistakes this year, had 2 dead that shouldn't have been..
But, too many mouths meant the grass didn't go as far, so bit more inputs...

We'll do ok this year, but I must remember not to be so confident next autumn

This isnt a bad year to be caught, but not al years have good prices. So store lambs is as much about how cheaply you can do them as anything...

Its something I want to do next year so I've a spreadsheet built to "forecast" profit/loss. Would need to be getting them at 25kg or over for under €65/70 to make a profit i think. The teagasc one didn't really include enough inputs for my liking.

Green farmer

Green farmer wrote: »

I've a friend that halved his ewe flock a few years back. He said that in the lambing year directly after that, he had near the same numbers amount of live lambs on the ground with half the ewes. They say a ewes biggest enemy is another ewe , Makes you wonder ?

A very sharp man I know said the best thing he ever did was reducing numbers. This guy would regularly top the prices at the local ram sales. I've been on his farm, his ewes reminded me of types my dad would have had back in the early 90's.