What criteria determines your lambing date?

Conmaicne Mara

Think about that one carefully

What is your lambing date and what reasoning do you use to figure out that date? And is that date the best date to be lambing on your farm?

I believe that I am lambing two to three weeks too early for Spring growth on my farm at the moment. I may have fallen into a vanity trap into looking to produce am earlier more costly larger framed store lamb, instead of - and it may not work out - a better fleshed slightly smaller store lamb, produced for less.

There may be more profit in the job for me if I change that date into April. Though I am not sure whether this and last Spring are typical, I should save in concentrates what I can eat on grass.

Mr Pseudonym

"Criteria" is plural...so, "What criteria determine..."

rangler1

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

Think about that one carefully

What is your lambing date and what reasoning do you use to figure out that date? And is that date the best date to be lambing on your farm?

I believe that I am lambing two to three weeks too early for Spring growth on my farm at the moment. I may have fallen into a vanity trap into looking to produce am earlier more costly larger framed store lamb, instead of - and it may not work out - a better fleshed slightly smaller store lamb, produced for less.

There may be more profit in the job for me if I change that date into April. Though I am not sure whether this and last Spring are typical, I should save in concentrates what I can eat on grass.

I find that by the time an april born lamb is fit to utilise grass, grass is starting to get stemmy, ie late may /june. April born lambs always seem more than a month behind march born.....that's in a normal year anyway, wasn't the case last year, I don't think the lambs ever got over the shortage of grass last spring

Conmaicne Mara

rangler1 wrote: »

I find that by the time an april born lamb is fit to utilise grass, grass is starting to get stemmy, ie late may /june. April born lambs always seem more than a month behind march born.....that's in a normal year anyway, wasn't the case last year, I don't think the lambs ever got over the shortage of grass last spring

No, and the heat in July probably didn't help much either.

If I remember right, you have two lambings, what dates were those again if you don't mind me asking, think the latter was 1st of March or April, can't remember.

When you say you find the April born lamb is behind the March lamb, are you weighing and finding that difference by weighing, days to slaughter or other means?

jt65

no need to think about this ,

running high livestock numbers with dairying the main enterprise , need about 80% of lambs drafted by third week of may to allow us to build up silage stocks


previously we lambed shortly after Xmas & supplied butcher's lambs, now moved back to second half of January and all lambs go to factory at 18 to 20 kg DG

sea12

For me its about when I can get the time off work. Its not the most scientific but it is the most practical.

This year we also had a new baby in January so left it until April so that we couldnt be completely wrote off altogether.

So we started lambing this year on 1st of April and are almost there now 3 weeks later.

Would prefer to be lambing from mId march as I agree with rangler post above. Find we have too many left over at the back end when we lamb in April.

rangler1

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

No, and the heat in July probably didn't help much either.

If I remember right, you have two lambings, what dates were those again if you don't mind me asking, think the latter was 1st of March or April, can't remember.

When you say you find the April born lamb is behind the March lamb, are you weighing and finding that difference by weighing, days to slaughter or other means?

Yea, main bunch lambs in march, half of them starts on 1st and then the other on the 15th but there'd always be around 30 dragging into April and they'd be in a bunch of their own and always seem to be there later, we wouldn't be weighing them, so it's not scientific.
Ewe lambs lamb in April her but it wouldn't be fair to compare them.
March lambs are approx. 6wks on the 1st May, ewes are reducing in milk, lambs eating more grass, but grass quality is improving, same thing is happening to the april lamb on the 1st june and grass is getting stemmier.
However my ewes are still eating the winters growth of grass and if that wasn't there it would be very very expensive to lamb in March here, so if you can't get them off the grass for the winter, you have to consider that too

Username John

rangler1 wrote: »

Yea, main bunch lambs in march, half of them starts on 1st and then the other on the 15th but there'd always be around 30 dragging into April and they'd be in a bunch of their own and always seem to be there later, we wouldn't be weighing them, so it's not scientific.
Ewe lambs lamb in April her but it wouldn't be fair to compare them.
March lambs are approx. 6wks on the 1st May, ewes are reducing in milk, lambs eating more grass, but grass quality is improving, same thing is happening to the april lamb on the 1st june and grass is getting stemmier.
However my ewes are still eating the winters growth of grass and if that wasn't there it would be very very expensive to lamb in March here, so if you can't get them off the grass for the winter, you have to consider that too

When do you bring then in Rangler?
Lambing march, so in around mid - late jan.
With a rotation that'd give about 3 months rest to the ground?

rangler1

Username John wrote: »

When do you bring then in Rangler?
Lambing march, so in around mid - late jan.
With a rotation that'd give about 3 months rest to the ground?

Main bunch housed early dec, these are stocked at 5/ac now so needs good grass accumulated, 1st March bunch just now starting their second round, used to leave them out much longer strip grazing, but found it was decimating the ryegrasses in the sward

Green farmer

I have lambs arriving 1st April, to coincide with grass arriving. Also I do a lot of the work in the evening. A lot easier going to a shed at 7-8 o'clock in the evening and still being bright and warm. My sheds are abit exposed to the wind and rain. Easier on lambs in field as well then feb/march time

solerina

We aim to have the first lambs arriving about April 15/16 ish every year....we don't get any decent grass growth to go any earlier. Entire flock lamb outdoors
This year we had about 70 lambs before that (not our fault)starting from Mar 20th, and it just proves that mid April it the right time to start lambing for our particular farm.

sea12

There was a poster but I can't recall the username and he is either gone off boards or changed his name like everybody else. He was based up in the glens up north. Just wondering when he lambs. Think he had a good few as well

Conmaicne Mara

sea12 wrote: »

There was a poster but I can't recall the username and he is either gone off boards or changed his name like everybody else. He was based up in the glens up north. Just wondering when he lambs. Think he had a good few as well

AntrimGlens.

sea12

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

AntrimGlens.

That's it. Havn't seen him posting on here in a long while

AnFeirmeoir

Lamb the last week in feb finish end march. I'd delay a bit if I believed anyone could tell me the weather in March will be better than February next year

I've. Been lucky last few years with this date so sticking with it.
Is there any point changing dates because of what happens this year ?

Conmaicne Mara

AnFeirmeoir wrote: »

Is there any point changing dates because of what happens this year ?

Where I am (badly) trying to come from is to dig out more profit from the farm. I've had good grass in Feb one year, and I've had no grass in May (last year).

For the farm I have I think, without having the figures done yet, that I am spending too much on concentrates in particular. Now, some days (like today) I think I'll lamb later and let the ewes make out on grass. The other days I think like rangler, and lamb in March.

Green farmer

When you figure it out, let me know how you did it. Making money out of sheep isn't easy. For my farm anyway, the key, that I'm trying to achieve is good fencing and grass quality. A tonne of fertiliser will go further then a tonne of concentrate ?? Rangler has a different setup. From memory he feeds straw and concentrate. He also has numbers and knows what his doing. I'm assuming built up from years of experience knowing what works for him.

rangler1

Green farmer wrote: »

When you figure it out, let me know how you did it. Making money out of sheep isn't easy. For my farm anyway, the key, that I'm trying to achieve is good fencing and grass quality. A tonne of fertiliser will go further then a tonne of concentrate ?? Rangler has a different setup. From memory he feeds straw and concentrate. He also has numbers and knows what his doing. I'm assuming built up from years of experience knowing what works for him.

That's right, a system seems to evolve that suits you and your farm, you won't be long finding out if you're lambing too early, but you can't go by what happened in spring 2013 either.
Feeding straw and concentrates is just easier, it takes 50kg concentrates (€15) extra over the 3-4 mth winter plus straw per ewe to replace probably a bale silage per ewe so there isn't a huge difference in cost

Green farmer

Did you ever come across a man up north named isaac crilly. I think he does similar to yourself rangler. I read a few articles about him. I think straw and a soya ration. Grazes all his paddocks as his heavily stocked so doesn't make any hay or silage.
With your system rangler, do you house the stock for much of the winter ?

I just did the maths and I think I used about 1 bale or maybe a little bit more of hay / silage last winter per ewe. I applied some fertiliser last august which took me a good bit through winter. Very little concentrates used. I also poured molasses over hay which I found gave the ewes abit of extra energy in the cold weather, as hay was only medium quality, but I had good quality silage. Ewes were in decent condition after winter, but all had milk and lambs were a decent sized. The singles were abit too big. I think it's tweaking what suits your farm and what food you can source !

rangler1

Green farmer wrote: »

Did you ever come across a man up north named isaac crilly. I think he does similar to yourself rangler. I read a few articles about him. I think straw and a soya ration. Grazes all his paddocks as his heavily stocked so doesn't make any hay or silage.
With your system rangler, do you house the stock for much of the winter ?

I just did the maths and I think I used about 1 bale or maybe a little bit more of hay / silage last winter per ewe. I applied some fertiliser last august which took me a good bit through winter. Very little concentrates used. I also poured molasses over hay which I found gave the ewes abit of extra energy in the cold weather, as hay was only medium quality, but I had good quality silage. Ewes were in decent condition after winter, but all had milk and lambs were a decent sized. The singles were abit too big. I think it's tweaking what suits your farm and what food you can source !

I wouldn't be in the same league as Isaac Crilly, I think he's stocking at 16ewes/ha+, I've been there, done that, got the T shirt for high stocking rates, I'm slowing down big time now.
Minimum nitrogen, but will probably have to make some silage this year.....some growth this year.
I used to practise extended grazing into Jan, but the land didn't stick it, so I put up a tunnel and put in most of the sheep early December, Definitely have good grass now because of the early housing..... as I said the system is evolving all the time.
Haven't enough paddocks, so the groups are very big, we had to dose and footbath about 280 lambs today and footbath over 160 ewes, so won't need a story to sleep tonight

Birdnuts

Its very tough to get this right given how variable our springs are. This year has been grand but last year was very grim between costs and mortality. It really is pot luck, more especially on poorer/wetter land. Early lambing would never be an option for me in any case given the soil type,climate etc. I have to deal with.

eire23

Lamb the majority of lowland sheep here from mid march on. All the lowland ones are housed from mid december on slats. It suits us and give the land a rest and generally there is a good supply of grass built up for lambing.

The mountain ewes start lambing from the end of march, they are brought down to grass around that time and stay there till weaning time. These get no concentrates at all in the run up to lambing once the silage is good enough.