General sheep thread

wrangler

Cyclist101 wrote: »

On a small scale, I operated at 7 to acre, but:
a) Housed over winter
lambed late Mar
C) housed ewes after weaning for 3 weeks
D) bought in all winter feed
E) cleaned offf a neighbours fields in late Nov / Dec

Each of above was key to my stocking rate to build grass covers

80 ewes here on 11 acres, lamb early march , house in December so 4 out 5 years we don't need meal after lambing, we'd be flooded with grass if we housed after weaning,, buy in all winter feed but had to cut two paddocks for silage today so will be feeding some silage this year but mostly straw and meal fed for the winter.
Lamb thrive is always a problem here, grass was growing so fast here lately that we didn't feed much meal to keep the lambs eating grass so thrive is slow.

tractorporn

roosky wrote: »

3.5 to 4 ewes/ha is the ideal on my heavy ground, Anything above this and heavy ground struggles to carry that stocking rate in the shoulders of the year.

It takes 1 tonne of grass to keep a ewe to the HA so like if your growing 12 or 13 tonnes you will carry the 5 ewes to the acre but it takes good land and a lot of management to grow that much grass consistently across the whole farm.

I was up at 4.8 ewes/ac (12 ewes/ha) for a few years but land is heavy so I struggled in early spring and late autumn so i pulled it back a bit and found i was getting lambs away without meal which made up for carrying less ewes

Thanks for the replies, it's looking like 5/acre is pie in the sky stuff although I will be making silage from an outfarm and can keep hoggets there too. I think with heavy land 3.5-4/acre is more realistic

Young95

Lamb here with no use of his back legs so can’t stand. Anyone seen this before and know what to give him ?

charolais0153

140 ewes on 42 acres, always caught in shoulders of year so dunno how u could keep more without having more sheds/rape or turnips, don't get anyone else's land during winter most years either. Keep 15 or 16 cows and a few weanlings to keep the place ate during the summer aswell.

I'm really apprehensive of this grass fed sh! te, just running through the bastreds.

charolais0153

140 ewes on 42 acres, always caught in shoulders of year so dunno how u could keep more without having more sheds/rape or turnips, don't get anyone else's land during winter most years either. Keep 15 or 16 cows and a few weanlings to keep the place ate during the summer aswell.

I'm really apprehensive of this grass fed sh! te, just running through the bastreds.

Young95

charolais0153 wrote: »

140 ewes on 42 acres, always caught in shoulders of year so dunno how u could keep more without having more sheds/rape or turnips, don't get anyone else's land during winter most years either. Keep 15 or 16 cows and a few weanlings to keep the place ate during the summer aswell.

I'm really apprehensive of this grass fed sh! te, just running through the bastreds.

You have 140 ewes plus 15 cows on 42 acres ? That’s fairly heavy stocked

wrangler

charolais0153 wrote: »

140 ewes on 42 acres, always caught in shoulders of year so dunno how u could keep more without having more sheds/rape or turnips, don't get anyone else's land during winter most years either. Keep 15 or 16 cows and a few weanlings to keep the place ate during the summer aswell.

I'm really apprehensive of this grass fed sh! te, just running through the bastreds.

Anyone that has grass or catch crops avilable is fortunate, I went a farm walk years ago and once I heard that local catch crops were available I just switched off, there's just no comparison.......... another farm walk had a dairy farm available.
A shed is vital, sheep go in in early December here and most years at lambing early march there's enough grass to get them to end April

charolais0153

wrangler wrote: »

Anyone that has grass or catch crops avilable is fortunate, I went a farm walk years ago and once I heard that local catch crops were available I just switched off, there's just no comparison.......... another farm walk had a dairy farm available.
A shed is vital, sheep go in in early December here and most years at lambing early march there's enough grass to get them to end April

Had 1st lambs here 14th Feb this year , will push out till nearer march, too long til April otherwise. Have slatted shed here ti's hard on there feet esp on trebles.
Ya hear all sorts at them meeting's very few farms have systems that can be replicated at home

Dinzee Conlee

wrangler wrote: »

Anyone that has grass or catch crops avilable is fortunate, I went a farm walk years ago and once I heard that local catch crops were available I just switched off, there's just no comparison.......... another farm walk had a dairy farm available.
A shed is vital, sheep go in in early December here and most years at lambing early march there's enough grass to get them to end April

Would you have the ground closed for about 100+ days every year Wrangler?

Would you graze bare on Dec - or would you leave some grass behind?
Found here if grazed too bare late in the year, there could still be nothing there come springtime...

charolais0153

Young95 wrote: »

You have 140 ewes plus 15 cows on 42 acres ? That’s fairly heavy stocked

140 ewes will be let out to the ram, cows only out April till October, peak grass months. Would only be topping all around ya during summer only for them

Farmer_3650

Young95 wrote: »

Lamb here with no use of his back legs so can’t stand. Anyone seen this before and know what to give him ?

This was discussed in this thread yesterday, my guess would be swayback or an abscess on the back. No point guessing though, you are as well to see the vet. Swayback is from a deficiency of copper, so if you are deficient in copper, it is likely to be swayback, more common in suffolks than other breeds.

charolais0153

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

Would you have the ground closed for about 100+ days every year Wrangler?

Would you graze bare on Dec - or would you leave some grass behind?
Found here if grazed too bare late in the year, there could still be nothing there come springtime...

1 bite in autumn is worth 2 in spring

Dinzee Conlee

charolais0153 wrote: »

1 bite in autumn is worth 2 in spring

100% Charolais, just hard to get it right between getting what grass you can in October, and leaving enough to make sure you have growth...

wrangler

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

Would you have the ground closed for about 100+ days every year Wrangler?

Would you graze bare on Dec - or would you leave some grass behind?
Found here if grazed too bare late in the year, there could still be nothing there come springtime...

Yea the earlier the better but there's even a huge difference between closing 1st December and closing 1st january.
We'd graze all the paddocks out, leave nothing if we can.
Last year was different, sheep never went in as early, about 15 Nov, yet very little grew for lambing.
Some years you'd have too much grass , we're not like dairy farmers, we can't just let them out when there's enough grass, we have to wait for them to lamb.

tractorporn

wrangler wrote: »

80 ewes here on 11 acres, lamb early march , house in December so 4 out 5 years we don't need meal after lambing, we'd be flooded with grass if we housed after weaning,, buy in all winter feed but had to cut two paddocks for silage today so will be feeding some silage this year but mostly straw and meal fed for the winter.
Lamb thrive is always a problem here, grass was growing so fast here lately that we didn't feed much meal to keep the lambs eating grass so thrive is slow.

Do you mind me asking wrangler how much meal and fert you would be using in a normal year?

wrangler

tractorporn wrote: »

Do you mind me asking wrangler how much meal and fert you would be using in a normal year?

On a normal year the ewes get 75kg meal each in the winter and the lambs get .5kg meal/day from weaning until they're slaughtered ....... that's the theory anyway.

Fertiliser is 25kg/acre urea in march and 100kg/acre 18.6 12 now, some years we need 50kg/acre CAN early june

tractorporn

wrangler wrote: »

On a normal year the ewes get 75kg meal each in the winter and the lambs get .5kg meal/day from weaning until they're slaughtered ....... that's the theory anyway.

Fertiliser is 25kg/acre urea in march and 100kg/acre 18.6 12 now, some years we need 50kg/acre CAN early june

Thanks. Doesn't seem overly excessive on either front.

Do you find that the saving from not making silage covers a good bit of the cost of the meal or does it not work like that?

charolais0153

wrangler wrote: »

On a normal year the ewes get 75kg meal each in the winter and the lambs get .5kg meal/day from weaning until they're slaughtered ....... that's the theory anyway.

Fertiliser is 25kg/acre urea in march and 100kg/acre 18.6 12 now, some years we need 50kg/acre CAN early june

That's not much p/k?

wrangler

charolais0153 wrote: »

That's not much p/k?

We're at index three and four now and it seems to keep it there, we'd be watching that, the two acre that I cut yesterday got a 50kg/acre of 0 7 30 along with the 100kg/acre 18 6 12 just to top it up.
Every kilo of lamb out the gate does bring off some P and k but that dressing seems to be enough, we soil test every three or four years

Siamsa Sessions

Buying in fodder beet and feeding the ewes outside, if the ground allows, is also a fairly economic way to stop them skinning the place

Cran

charolais0153 wrote: »

Had 1st lambs here 14th Feb this year , will push out till nearer march, too long til April otherwise. Have slatted shed here ti's hard on there feet esp on trebles.
Ya hear all sorts at them meeting's very few farms have systems that can be replicated at home

Every farm is different, that’s missed by lot of advice I find. Ewes run on turnips here for winter, 3 batches and 3 fields of turnips. Ewes will be split into breeding groups over next month and are currently grazing paddocks away from turnips fields. Will soon turn and work way back with paddocks being closed behind them. Aim is 2nd week of December onto turnips with run back & silage, come off the end of February if works right (it never does)

wrangler

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Buying in fodder beet and feeding the ewes outside, if the ground allows, is also a fairly economic way to stop them skinning the place

Is that mid pregnancy or did you feed them fodder beet after lambing.
A lot of people feed beet to sheep and swear by it, they say they milk well on it too. hard to understand
Oats works well with sheep, yet if you read the breakdown of Oats it's a low protein, low enegy feed, yet there's something in it

charolais0153

wrangler wrote: »

Is that mid pregnancy or did you feed them fodder beet after lambing.
A lot of people feed beet to sheep and swear by it, they say they milk well on it too. hard to understand
Oats works well with sheep, yet if you read the breakdown of Oats it's a low protein, low enegy feed, yet there's something in it

Enzymes I'm told, teagasc man swears by it, says u can feed oats as lib without a problem, no chance of acidosis

Beet is awkward and rare in this area hah

Dickie10

my local feed mill uses a lot of barley in their intensive lamb ration nut, i cant feed ad lib as if the feeder runs dry then when i fill it they eat too much and i have lost a few that way. need to keep it full all times hard to do with big numbers of lambs. if u feed in troughs though its seriously powerful stuff, you can see lambs frame up within a fortnight on very little nuts. paul and vincent have a safe nut for ad lib feeding i will use that this year. our local feed mill uses all thier own barley thats why the content is so high.

Siamsa Sessions

wrangler wrote: »

Is that mid pregnancy or did you feed them fodder beet after lambing.
A lot of people feed beet to sheep and swear by it, they say they milk well on it too. hard to understand
Oats works well with sheep, yet if you read the breakdown of Oats it's a low protein, low enegy feed, yet there's something in it

Fed from mid-pregnancy to post lambing in 2018-19, along with nearly all-concentrate and straw (thanks again for the advice). The weather was good so feeding beet outside was manageable. But it’s awkward.

I’ll probably price up oats and compare with beet this year as oats would be easier for us to feed outside.

wrangler

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Fed from mid-pregnancy to post lambing in 2018-19, along with nearly all-concentrate and straw (thanks again for the advice). The weather was good so feeding beet outside was manageable. But it’s awkward.

I’ll probably price up oats and compare with beet this year as oats would be easier for us to feed outside.

I've no experience of oats in case you thought I was recommending it, just saying that it reads very bad, yet lads like it.
and beet is similar

Dinzee Conlee

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Fed from mid-pregnancy to post lambing in 2018-19, along with nearly all-concentrate and straw (thanks again for the advice). The weather was good so feeding beet outside was manageable. But it’s awkward.

I’ll probably price up oats and compare with beet this year as oats would be easier for us to feed outside.

Fed oats before - it’s a good feed, but you’ll still need something for minerals...

We’re exposed enough in some fields, big issue I had with oats was half the bag could be carried off by the wind before it hit the trough

Planning to feed some beet to out wintered hoggets here this year...

Green farmer

Going feeding oats here again this winter on ewes left out on poor / rough grazing. before swapping over to proper ewe nut for last 4 weeks pre lambing . Seems to work here anyway.

Tileman

Green farmer wrote: »

Going feeding oats here again this winter on ewes left out on poor / rough grazing. before swapping over to proper ewe nut for last 4 weeks pre lambing . Seems to work here anyway.

Yea I fed oats to hoggets last year along with a bit of rough grazing and access to hay. They did very well on it.

Green farmer

Tileman wrote: »

Yea I fed oats to hoggets last year along with a bit of rough grazing and access to hay. They did very well on it.

Maize meal was also reasonably priced last winter, so used also buy a bag or two if it
and sprinkle it along the top of the oats in the cold hard weather. It gave them the extra boost of energy when needed.