Talk to me about store lambs

JohnBoy

We're inching closer to starting livestock farming as opposed to our current system of simply selling silage.

One job that's planned for this winter is to replace the boundary fencing on a 14 acre field, which means it's time to decide what sort of fencing to put up.


Which means firming up on our farming system plans.

The current thinking is along the lines of what tipp man and darragh are discussing over in another thread at the moment, buying cattle yearly for grass, keeping few if any over the winter.

We'll be selling excess grass for silage, and our stocking rates will be low.

We're wondering would it be a good or bad idea to buy in store lambs in the winter time.

I have a couple of questions.....

1) would sheep be good or bad for the grass, particularly will they have any natural weed control effect, given it's the winter that they're grazing.

2) is there much "sheep specific" husbandry involved in keeping store lambs? or is it a case of buy em, dose em and let them graze?

3) do they need meal to be fed to them or do they grow away on the grass?




Basically we're considering making the extra investment in putting sheep wire under the HT fence.

eorna

put it this way..if you fence it for sheep you'll always have the option to get either stores/hoggets/ewes to fatten or whatever you want..it is more expensive fencing but no use every year saying i should get a few stores but the fence....
Is good to have some field divisions but in the winter i wouldn't worry too much about that...
if they are in top grass quality and the have plenty they might do ok but not sure..you really have to try and see..having the year we are having is likely the lambs will just maintain themselves at grass or go backwards...

snowman707

JohnBoy wrote: »

We're inching closer to starting livestock farming as opposed to our current system of simply selling silage.

One job that's planned for this winter is to replace the boundary fencing on a 14 acre field, which means it's time to decide what sort of fencing to put up.


Which means firming up on our farming system plans.

The current thinking is along the lines of what tipp man and darragh are discussing over in another thread at the moment, buying cattle yearly for grass, keeping few if any over the winter.

We'll be selling excess grass for silage, and our stocking rates will be low.

We're wondering would it be a good or bad idea to buy in store lambs in the winter time.

I have a couple of questions.....

1) would sheep be good or bad for the grass, particularly will they have any natural weed control effect, given it's the winter that they're grazing.

sheep defo will improve your sward, (we are dairying on marginal land and use sheep as toppers) most likely won't get the full benefits of weed control with winter only grazing.


2) is there much "sheep specific" husbandry involved in keeping store lambs? or is it a case of buy em, dose em and let them graze?

basically yes dont forget to cover for blackleg etc

3) do they need meal to be fed to them or do they grow away on the grass?


depends on the breed, grass and weather

Basically we're considering making the extra investment in putting sheep wire under the HT fence.

finishing sheep over the winter is a hit and miss some years .. more farmers are lambing later now as early lamb is costly with meals , this may favour you when buying as stores are more plentiful and seems to be back in price this year. however it means you might be selling when there is a flush of hoggets on the market ,

you will definably see an improvement in grass quality

may also save on fertilizer

also sheep tend to thrive better on ground where sheep haven't been kept for some time

Ok it's going to cost you extra but write off the cost over a few years I think it's a worth while venture

Tipp Man

No feck all about sheep but do know they do the power of good for grass quality

Anything really that is grazing the grass over winter will lead to a dramatic improvement in it - weanlings or sheep are the easiest when things get wet

If you have the money now is a great time to buy cattle - there are some absolute bargains to be had

FR bullocks - good quality - 480kg made 670 during the week - they will double that by this time next year

AA bullocks - good quality - 470 kg made 815 - again they should easily make 600 over that - and they be gone early

The arse has fallen out of the store market and fallen way too far

Richk2012

Im sure you have discussed this if you are considering to move into sheep farming , but i certainly think its worth a mention before any major fencing or changes takes place .
Its an aspect thats sometimes overlooked when your not used to dealing with sheep and reading your first post i presume it will be a new venture for you .
Is the land/area safe for sheep ?????
When i say "safe" , i mean safe from dogs . Dogs can smell sheep from a long way off , and take it from someone with expierence , its not a nice feeling walking into a field where dogs have being attacking for possibly most of the night .

Farmer Pudsey

Tipp Man wrote: »

No feck all about sheep but do know they do the power of good for grass quality

Anything really that is grazing the grass over winter will lead to a dramatic improvement in it - weanlings or sheep are the easiest when things get wet

If you have the money now is a great time to buy cattle - there are some absolute bargains to be had

FR bullocks - good quality - 480kg made 670 during the week - they will double that by this time next year

AA bullocks - good quality - 470 kg made 815 - again they should easily make 600 over that - and they be gone early

The arse has fallen out of the store market and fallen way too far

The arse has fallen out of the longterm store market also winter finishers are looking at at least at a 30% increase in costs this winter. Last feb/march cattle base was about 3.9-4/kg.s and few made a margin at this price. Winter finishing cattle last year were not much dearer than this year. However it will cost a finisher 35-45cent/kgs deadweight this year unless you have accces to loads of bread/cereals/ cake waste's.

Yes long term cattle are cheaper however there are a lot more of them around and we all know what the factories will do next August. Also it will cost more to winter this year with poor quality silage farmers may be required to supplement at 2-3 kds/head, this will cost 60-90 cent/head/ day minimum. 100 euro's extra for to winter an animal is a good estimate.

JohnBoy

Thanks for the advice folks, my logic would be that yeah, now is the time to do it.

but Rich here makes a very valid point. I dont know is there anyone around keeping sheep, and there's a lot of houses about. My wife says one of the neighbours used have them alright.

She nearly thinks sheep are below her land! feckin dairy farmers

Richk2012 wrote: »

Im sure you have discussed this if you are considering to move into sheep farming , but i certainly think its worth a mention before any major fencing or changes takes place .
Its an aspect thats sometimes overlooked when your not used to dealing with sheep and reading your first post i presume it will be a new venture for you .
Is the land/area safe for sheep ?????
When i say "safe" , i mean safe from dogs . Dogs can smell sheep from a long way off , and take it from someone with expierence , its not a nice feeling walking into a field where dogs have being attacking for possibly most of the night .

5live

You are looking at 2 euro a meter minium for sheep fencing, John boy. 100m ht sheep wire with gripples at 120 a roll, 3-4 in stakes every 5 meters@ 3 to 4 euro each plus bigger end posts and ht wire on top. On a 14 acre field that is a nice few euro:(.

With store lambs, as richk2012 said, dogs would be the biggest problem. If you were living on farm it may be different. Even to go to ALL your neighbours and they ALL agree to control the dogs and they ALL actually do it, the dogs may come from 2 or 3 miles away and cause havoc:mad:

Dose for fluke and worms and vaccinate with a clostridial vaccine like covexin8 and in fairness little will go wrong with them. The heavier ones (35 kg plus) wont be too long finishing on grass (150g gain/day?) but lighter ones will take longer and you may find yourself hitting the hogget trade.

But while it may be justified if you were going into it long term, i think the cost of fencing would outweigh the benefits on sward quality if it was only going to be done for a year or 2

JohnBoy

About 1200m in it. and I wouldnt even be thinking about it if I thought it could be done for €2 got one quick price on here a few months back for sheep wire + one strand of HT wire and it was a fiver a metre. so yeah, it's a big spend. I like the idea from both the potential grassland reasons, and also the potential flexibility it would bring, but if you have problems with dogs then it's all been for nowt.

Wooly Admirer

JohnBoy wrote: »

About 1200m in it. and I wouldnt even be thinking about it if I thought it could be done for €2 got one quick price on here a few months back for sheep wire + one strand of HT wire and it was a fiver a metre. so yeah, it's a big spend. I like the idea from both the potential grassland reasons, and also the potential flexibility it would bring, but if you have problems with dogs then it's all been for nowt.

The TAMS scheme will give you a 40% grant on the fencing. You can also claim for your own labour, which will cover an even higher % of the material cost outlay. The TAMS scheme is hugely under subscribed so anyone intending on fencing should get an application in. The forms on Daff.ie are very easy to fill in also.

You may find that you only need to fence a small porpotion of the boundry, some of it might be ok, so the cost might not be too bad.

Manoffeeling

Can poison be still used for dogs or is that gone?

ootbitb

Kept a few texel lambs one winter with temp mains electric fence. Had plenty of grass, no meals and they never moved.

Lost one to dogs.

Sold in February and broke even but pleased with pasture improvement.

bb12

with this summers and autumn's weather, the quality of the grass isn't great this year so even if you have enough to graze them, chances are they won't improve. most people would feed to add weight but with the price of feed this winter that's also a difficult one. I think most farmers at the moment are trying to hold onto their lambs as long as possible while the grass runs out and before having to feed them hoping prices will improve but i can see the market being flooded in a few weeks with everyone trying to offload them.

sheeper

As for the dogs shoot them and say nothing to any one

razor8

Anyone know if store lambs qualify towards stocking rate for the SFP and disadvantage payments?