Lambing work

farming93

I was asked to give a man a hand feed and bed his housed in lamb ewes an hour a day next week as he is unable to which would increase to two hours next week and so on as lambing increases. It would cost me 30 euro in petrol a week to travel alone. What price should I be getting for doing this? I was given a figure but it seems very low and to be honest at the moment I dont need any extra work for little money.

Dickie10

surely he could find a person closer to him to do a few jobs

farming93

No he couldnt, I refused the work in the end because the money was that bad that might be the reason none of the locals would do it in the first place.

sea12

farming93 wrote: »

No he couldnt, I refused the work in the end because the money was that bad that might be the reason none of the locals would do it in the first place.

Fair play to u. Ure dead right. If u were not hAppy with money.

dave747

got offered job of lambing 200 ewes outdoors for the month of april when my own ewes are more or less finished. what would be the going rate of pay for this work and would you pay per hour or per day?

farming93

Thanks Sea12. Ive done enough work for lads for too little money already ha

arctictree

How about paying someone per lamb turned out. Would that work? I was thinking of doing this - maybe €15??

paddysdream

arctictree wrote: »

How about paying someone per lamb turned out. Would that work? I was thinking of doing this - maybe €15??

When can I start?

That would work out very expensive me think's.Had 50 plus lambs born here this year on a few different days so 750 per day ;sounds nice!!

arctictree

paddysdream wrote: »

When can I start?

That would work out very expensive me think's.Had 50 plus lambs born here this year on a few different days so 750 per day ;sounds nice!!

Depends on quantity I suppose. I have 30 ewes, so probably 45 lambs over 2 weeks?

tomwaterford

dave747 wrote: »

got offered job of lambing 200 ewes outdoors for the month of april when my own ewes are more or less finished. what would be the going rate of pay for this work and would you pay per hour or per day?

you'd want to be getting min of e120 a day...to include charge for your dog
that is day from 8am to 6pm....at e12 an hour not exactly earth-shattering money

farming93

I know very few farmers that would pay 12 euro an hour, most lads I work for give in or around 9 euro but im happy enough with the work experience/ references for now. I will probably end up going back to college next year as I dont want to continue depending on farmers the vast majority of whom would be happy to pay 80 euro for a ten hour day if they could get away with it.

arctictree

tomwaterford wrote: »

you'd want to be getting min of e120 a day...to include charge for your dog
that is day from 8am to 6pm....at e12 an hour not exactly earth-shattering money

I don't see how a fixed 8am to 6pm day would work with lambing though...

J.O. Farmer

arctictree wrote: »

I don't see how a fixed 8am to 6pm day would work with lambing though...

You leave with the back end of a lamb hanging out of the ewe because it's quiting time at 6 and sure you won't know about anything that happens before you get there at 8.
How many ewes do you need to keep somebody busy for 10 hours every day without them sitting round most days waiting for something to happen.

tomwaterford

arctictree wrote: »

I don't see how a fixed 8am to 6pm day would work with lambing though...

usually it would be done hire 1 person to do either nighttime or daytime lambing,farmer would do the other
that's the way its done around here anyway (usually farmer deos daytime around here)

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

You leave with the back end of a lamb hanging out of the ewe because it's quiting time at 6 and sure you won't know about anything that happens before you get there at 8.
How many ewes do you need to keep somebody busy for 10 hours every day without them sitting round most days waiting for something to happen.

obviously you wont leave a sheep half lambed :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
usually you would be talking 300+ ewes (usually) sponged to lamb up quickly
sometimes 2nd person hire for larger 1000+ flocks for daytime shift
like I said farmer do one shift you do other...cant expect someone working to be there 24 hours
I used to do this type of work years ago when I in school and working weekends (odd week aswell-really should have concentrated on studying:p)

I used to be mainly moving sheep & lambs and doing tails etc (odd lambing though)...handy £50 back in the day;)

J.O. Farmer

I would hope nobody would leave a ewe half lambed. Maybe I'll have to figure out how to use smiley faces.
300 ewes lambing in a week should keep you busy alright. Doing lambs tails and moving them would keep you fit though unless you have good handling facilities. They can fairly move round the shed at a day or two. I had 2 hard enough caught in the 8x5 trailer yesterday.

tomwaterford

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

I would hope nobody would leave a ewe half lambed. Maybe I'll have to figure out how to use smiley faces.
300 ewes lambing in a week should keep you busy alright. Doing lambs tails and moving them would keep you fit though unless you have good handling facilities. They can fairly move round the shed at a day or two. I had 2 hard enough caught in the 8x5 trailer yesterday.

I have heard of people leaving animals half lambed/cows half calved and heading off home and still keeping there jobs!!!

usually around 80% inside 3 weeks they aim for (I think), that work is drying up now as it seems...people cutting back/getting into dairying around here anyway
pity as I used to love it....but went off done a mechanic trade during the boom....taught the writing was on the wall for shepherding/agri labouring at the time

we used to catch them in a shed/pick out ewe and her lambs out the field - how id love to have a dog as good as they had
they used to move them by jeep and box to place 4/5 miles over the road too far to walk young lambs

...learned a lot of tricks from a lad from Scotland during my transition year work experience from school...have really stood to me at home here...but most of more knowladgable posters here will more than likely know these and better all ready!!!
some very good posters here IMO

MayoAreMagic

...learned a lot of tricks from a lad from Scotland during my transition year work experience from school...have really stood to me at home here...but most of more knowladgable posters here will more than likely know these and better all ready!!!

Stick them up tom. If you have time of course. If only 1 person reads something they dont know it will have been a success. The day someone decides they know it all is the day they are left behind.

tomwaterford

even just some basic things like how to tube lambs properly etc...

ok...there used to be a fault with texels they were using,the lambs eyelids used to grow in and you'd have to go through each lamb 4-5 times a day...he showed me to use a right fine needle and water to inject under the eyelid it would take 2 days or so to go down,and the eye muscle would be developed properly by then!!
seen them still pulling out a farmwalk/open day in kildalton and seen a vet writing in the journal to pull the eyelids out years later.....never piped up incase it was totally the wrong thing:o-works 100% though

this might be widely known up the country...not around here
(sheep getting rarer and rarer around here :(..)

a load of other things...they only properly come back to me when I need to remember them:rolleyes:

like I said anyone who has a lot of sheep will more than likely know way more than me.....
an auld lad (80+) that I works an odd day with told me,he is still learning everyday and he have sheep all his life,
so what I know will be very little compared to most other posters....I do be always trying to learn more and more the whole time....every little bit I do be shown helps:)...so any tips ill happily take

there are some great shepards out there!!

ps if I think of anymore ill try to put them up,and hopfully some more posters will have something aswell (more than likely will have something more usefull than what I have imo)