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future new sheep farmer !
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20-04-2014 5:20pm#1Hi all new to this thread but I grew up on a farm and am seriously thinking of renting some land and keeping sheep for the lifestyle more than the profit but breaking even would be good
so if anyone can help me with theses questiond than I would very much appreciate it, again I dont have land rented at the moment but is 7 ewes to the acre an achievable figure with the correct fertilizer application ? What is the least amount of machinery that is needed to start up ? It will be lowland in east cork so what is a good lowland comercial bread and what kind of price would I be expecting to pay for land in east cork per acre ? Probably will be looking for between 10-20 acres
All responses greatly appreciated0
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futurefarmer wrote: »Hi all new to this thread but I grew up on a farm and am seriously thinking of renting some land and keeping sheep for the lifestyle more than the profit but breaking even would be good so if anyone can help me with theses questiond than I would very much appreciate it, again I dont have land rented at the moment but is 7 ewes to the acre an achievable figure with the correct fertilizer application ? What is the least amount of machinery that is needed to start up ? It will be lowland in east cork so what is a good lowland comercial bread and what kind of price would I be expecting to pay for land in east cork per acre ? Probably will be looking for between 10-20 acres
All responses greatly appreciated
Something I've been looking at recently were NZ suffolks, Easyrams in the UK import them from NZ, or frozen semen into their own flock at least. They're wedged shaped, so no huge chests, which makes for easier lambing. Supposedly they have very good vigor at birth, something Suffolks this side of the world wouldn't be too well regarded for - "dopey lambs". Also meant to be a lot better on the "black head, black arse" curse, meaning dirty rear ends.
Machinery for a sheep farm, nil. Maybe a quad at a stretch. Good fencing and handling system way more important, and a good dog most important of all.0 -
futurefarmer wrote: »Hi all new to this thread but I grew up on a farm and am seriously thinking of renting some land and keeping sheep for the lifestyle more than the profit but breaking even would be good so if anyone can help me with theses questiond than I would very much appreciate it, again I dont have land rented at the moment but is 7 ewes to the acre an achievable figure with the correct fertilizer application ? What is the least amount of machinery that is needed to start up ? It will be lowland in east cork so what is a good lowland comercial bread and what kind of price would I be expecting to pay for land in east cork per acre ? Probably will be looking for between 10-20 acres
All responses greatly appreciated
Five ewes to the acre would be a good target until you get used to it,
even at that the land need to be good and the grass well managed.
Belclares/lleyns out of suffolks or texels are a good crossbred.
mules are good too but can be expensive.
You don't need much machinery, tractor, loader, topper and fert spreader,
and a shed to get them off the land for the winter.
Land rental if you have dairy farmers around you will be a big problem...very expensive0 -
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Hello,
This may sound a small bit unhelpful, but I don't mean it to be... Maybe being devils advocate a bit...
You say you grew up on a farm - I would say I did the same. But I found the change from 'helping out' about the place, to being the one responsible for it all, a big change
You mention 10 - 20 acres - can I ask why so much? If its only the lifestyle you want, would lesser ground do you? 20 acres is a bit of ground.
At 4 ewes/acre, thats 80 sheep lets say, even the financials of starting off would be a bit of money - lets say at 100/ewe, thats 8k. And chances are, you'd pay more than 100 a ewe.
And as you will be renting, land might be expensive in East Cork. I am not sure what it would be , but it could be anywhere from 150 to 300 / acre. At 200 / acre, thats another 4k on top. Plus - thats assuming you'd find the land, and it would be fenced for sheep. For you starting off, you would have to get land that would have fencing in place IMO.
Managing 20 acres would take a bit of time as well. You wouldnt need much in the line of machinery, fecning would be key. I dont have a dog - but I have quiet enough sheep, and I have paddocks, so they are used to being moved about. Having the place in paddocks would be good, for managing both the sheep and the grass.
Also - I think New Zealand suffolk could be very interesting, and by the sounds of it, have a lot of merit. But as you are starting off, is there more value in starting with a 'known' breed. One that can lamb fairly unaided, and manage themselves fairly well. The NZ suffolk could be a great idea, but if it went badly, maybe a hard lambing ram or something, the potential is there to go very wrong, which would be rough enough starting off. You could always buy a NZ suffolk down the line maybe.
Timewise, lambing would be the biggest thing. Would you lamb outside, if so, then a dog is prob a necessity. If inside, obviously you'd need a shed. Would you be able to take the time off work? (say 2 - 3 weeks)
Again, would it be better to think a bit smaller to start? Say a few acres, but a few in lamb ewes, see how lambing them goes and then go for the 20 acres once you have that under your belt?
Jesus, re-reading that, it all sounds very negative. I just wouldnt like you to rush in, and then find yourself under pressure after taking too much on, and end up jacking it all in...
I will admit that once you have the grá for it, it will be a constant question of how you can manage more ewes, whilst juggling other things.. but sure that's life
Best of luck with whatever you decide anyways.0 -
Username John wrote: »Also - I think New Zealand suffolk could be very interesting, and by the sounds of it, have a lot of merit. But as you are starting off, is there more value in starting with a 'known' breed. One that can lamb fairly unaided, and manage themselves fairly well. The NZ suffolk could be a great idea, but if it went badly, maybe a hard lambing ram or something, the potential is there to go very wrong, which would be rough enough starting off. You could always buy a NZ suffolk down the line maybe.
The flocks I have read of select for easy lambing. The rams don't have the deep wide chests of the show ring variety this side of the world. The ewes are selected for wider pelvis' making lambing easier on them. The lambs are supposed to have better vigor at birth and I believe they've done quite a lot of selecting on worm resistant sheep.
I visited a farm recently with known breed, not suffolk. The farmer daren't feed the ewes before lambing as he said himself, you wouldn't get them out alive. Even with that he had to get the vet in to do two c sections.
I know which I'd rather have
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Conmaicne Mara wrote: »The flocks I have read of select for easy lambing. The rams don't have the deep wide chests of the show ring variety this side of the world. The ewes are selected for wider pelvis' making lambing easier on them. The lambs are supposed to have better vigor at birth and I believe they've done quite a lot of selecting on worm resistant sheep.
Sounds a lot like Charollais to me 0 -
Sounds a lot like Charollais to me
It's funny you should mention Charollais actually Cran, I started a thread not so long ago that got a poor response on purebred or something like that. Lately goodtime charlies are to the forefront of my thinking on that little project, if I were ever to get it going.
And well done on the plug lol.0 -
Conmaicne Mara wrote: »The flocks I have read of select for easy lambing. The rams don't have the deep wide chests of the show ring variety this side of the world. The ewes are selected for wider pelvis' making lambing easier on them. The lambs are supposed to have better vigor at birth and I believe they've done quite a lot of selecting on worm resistant sheep.
I visited a farm recently with known breed, not suffolk. The farmer daren't feed the ewes before lambing as he said himself, you wouldn't get them out alive. Even with that he had to get the vet in to do two c sections.
I know which I'd rather have
Hi Con,
Yeah - to be honest, I have read the same. And it all sounds very promising. But a part of me is unsure if its all true, and would it be true for the ram you'd buy here?
My thinking is if the only change was the head was smaller and less boxy, it would be a big one 0 -
Username John wrote: »Hi Con,
Yeah - to be honest, I have read the same. And it all sounds very promising. But a part of me is unsure if its all true, and would it be true for the ram you'd buy here?
My thinking is if the only change was the head was smaller and less boxy, it would be a big one
I don't know if there are genuine NZ types in Ireland (I'm not saying there isn't, just that I don't know), Easyrams in the UK seem the safest bet I know of, but I haven't looked into it properly myself, just done some reading on them.
Time is the most valuable thing, I watched sheep fairly well this lambing but only due to the fox - otherwise I'd not bother. Watching them because they may not be able get the lamb out seems a waste of time, IMO. A ewe should be able have her lambs and show you them in the morning. It should be a normal routine operation for her - an operation without a vet
There's enough work with sheep already.0 -
Conmaicne Mara wrote: »I don't know if there are genuine NZ types in Ireland (I'm not saying there isn't, just that I don't know), Easyrams in the UK seem the safest bet I know of, but I haven't looked into it properly myself, just done some reading on them.
Time is the most valuable thing, I watched sheep fairly well this lambing but only due to the fox - otherwise I'd not bother. Watching them because they may not be able get the lamb out seems a waste of time, IMO. A ewe should be able have her lambs and show you them in the morning. It should be a normal routine operation for her - an operation without a vet
There's enough work with sheep already.
The main reason we supervise lambing closely here is mismothering, Id imagine even the nz suffolks would get mixed up if she was near two or three others lambing in a shed.
True you don't want to have to get a vet ,but you don't need to go to NZ to get easy lambing breeds, I wouldn't count a head out or a leg down hard work.....you're going to be around anyway.
The number of lambs on the ground determines your income, so it's important to mind them.0 -
The main reason we supervise lambing closely here is mismothering, Id imagine even the nz suffolks would get mixed up if she was near two or three others lambing in a shed.
True you don't want to have to get a vet ,but you don't need to go to NZ to get easy lambing breeds, I wouldn't count a head out or a leg down hard work.....you're going to be around anyway.
The number of lambs on the ground determines your income, so it's important to mind them.
We lambed indoors for a number of years and never checked them at night, late 80's early 90's. We had 6 pens and could house 160 at the time if I remember right, 25 in each corner pen and 30 in the middle pens. There were 25 sets of twins one morning, took a little sorting but got done. (Blackface to blackface & suffolk rams, Border Leicester to Suffolk rams)
I saw a lovely simple shed layout on a UK site that had about 10 ewes per pen. If I remember right there was one row of pens along a wall, a driveway for feeding, two rows back to back, a driveway, and another row along the far wall. It was a whopper of a shed, all the pens could be removed.
Where I am coming from is the farmers own labour time. I value my time at lambing and I value my sleep more. While I don't have many sheep at all, Dads farm takes a lot of time due to disorganisation and fragmentation, many days are wasted "firefighting" issues that needn't have arisen at all. So I like to look for the handy ways of achieving the same thing. Not that I maybe come across that way all the time
I'm not talking about less lambs at all, a similar amount, (or neglecting them) but with less time input from the farmer. I checked mine at night this year because of the fox trouble I had last year, no fox loss to my flock in 14 so far, touch wood. So next year please God I can lamb them indoors in the tunnel, that saves me time because I sure as fook won't be checking on them outside of normal routine once I have them safe indoors. That's time I can use to do something else.0 -
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For arguments sake, say ya lost 1 lamb for every 12 ewes lambed. In a flock of 200 i think that works out at 16 lambs. At a minimum price of 80 euros a lamb thats nearly 1300 euro lost. And then ya might have more on top of that, it wouldnt be long adding up.
If you have a breed that lambs themselves, you get to keep the money and get sleep, as well as not paying a helper 0 -
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Sheep breeder wrote: »There is a huge difference in the size of flock from a large flock to a small flock with all the things that are associated with lambing, and the same applies to lambing percentage from a 1.2 to a 1.9 flock as the more lambs to mind and hopefully sell at the end of the day it is about the bottom line figure, no point selling a big 48 kilo lamb when you could be selling two 42 kilo lamb from your ewe, it is easy to say little time minding ewes in a 35 or 11 ewe flock compared to a 300 ewe flock where you have to put the work in to get the money out.
Every year lambing is different with what was a problem last year not a problem this year,to my mind loosing a lamb to a fox is madness why not take care of the vermin before lambing when there is very little food available and spring lamb is off the menu.we lamb in doors and to loose a lamb is very hard to take and would not lamb out side for all the tea in china, easier to catch a ewe or foster a lamb inside than under the ditch.
I've read this a couple of times and find it hard to agree with. I lamb 50 ewes inside and its a lot of work and losses ran just under 5% this year. I would have had to handle all these ewes for one reason or another, either to lamb or move pens. Only for these are pedigree not sure it would be worth it.....
I lamb 600 ewes outside (scan 1.85 include Hoggets), a different breed than what I lamb inside and have a well organised routine at this stage. Losses this year ran at about 5% outside as well, I had to catch 40 ewes who had difficulties for one reason or another, singles kept together for ease of adopting lambs onto them and all triplets removed adopted or on milk machine. I personaly believe ewe breed is of huge importance lambing out and cannot be underestimated when it comes to workload and lamb survival.
My land is dry and well sheltered so that helps hugely as can travel with jeep rather than quad at lambing. Would I consider bringing in some commercials to lamb
Not unless I brought lambing back few weeks to spread workload or the weather got really bad TBH 0 -
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AnFeirmeoir wrote: »Great set up ... but shows you even in a state of the art setup .. theres room for some binding twine !
There's always room for baling twine If I remember right, they can remove all of those pens etc. for mucking out by machine. Then they have a great big open space shed to use for whatever the rest of the year. 0 -
Just on the checking em at night, I used to do that, every 3-4 hours, so get up once most nights, maybe twice if I was feeling a bit lazy, and wanted to go back to bed the second time
This year I checked em before bed, if I thought one was very near lambing, I would check at night. Otherwise leave em for the night, and check em again close to first light.
It worked this year - but to say "not checking is better than checking" would be wrong, as I think there is a massive amount of luck in it. You could do everything right, and just be unlucky that one ewe that will have problems lambing, will start lambing at 3am... or she might wait til 7am when you are around the place...
On this lambing indoors or outdoors...
I think as has been said by a few posters - breed probably plays the biggest part in this discussion. If you have ewes that for the most part will lamb unaided, then minimum intervention is needed.
Once you have this, its prob about facilities & management.
Do you have facilities to bring the ewes indoors? (shed plus all the trimmings)
Do you have facilities / location / skills to lamb outdoors? (I imagine a dog is a much have here, plus good sheltry fields, way to bring em in such as quad / jeep, way to feed em outside if necessary etc)
Is your stocking rate very high, that you have to house em, to rest the land?
Next is probably preference? And maybe this is the biggest item...
What do you value more - a lamb that will be big at lambing, and grow like hell. Or a lamb that will be smaller, prob lamb easier, but maybe not grow as quick? (I know this raises an arguement of we all want bits of both - but IMO - you trade one item off another, so what you gain in easier lambing, you might lose elsewhere... nut we're back to breed again a bit here)
Even if you had all the necessary things to lamb outside, would you just prefer to lamb indoors (if you had all the sheds, etc)
How do you value your time? We all balance the time we spend watching them a bit differently, so we all value our time differently.
What breed do you prefer to work with? I like suffolky type ewes, cos they are what I know, and what I was raised with. They have a LOT fo faults, but I like em... I imagine some lads wouldnt have em for love nor money
One system isn't better than the other... One may be more profitable than others, but you need the setup for it, so hard to compare at times...
But I suspect all systems can be done badly... 0 -
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AnFeirmeoir wrote: »Do ye think there's profit in sheep on rented land ??
Maybe...
How much profit are you making on your own land? 0 -
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got a second big lamb near 30 kg dead in the field yesterday evening, anyone know what could be cause and if there is a lab in north east I could bring to get a check
Feck - that's sickening...
Its hard to say what the cause is. Do you inject the ewes for clostridal (not sure of spelling) diseases, with Covexin or the likes?
We used to have the odd one or two die like that - perfect one day, dead the next. And it always seemed to be good, strong lambs. But when we started using covexin, it seemed to stop...
*I think* there may be a correlation between fast growing and more susceptible, but not sure...
Not sure this helps - may be unrelated, just my experience.
Hope you get to the bottom of it, and you get it sorted as its sickening to find em like that
EDIT : Given Razor's comments above re having given em heptavac P, and they still die-ing, really not sure my post helps...0 -
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