Winter grazing sheep.

Green farmer

What plans do ye have for getting the ewes over the winter.

Willfarman

Get them mud fat as I can between now and tupping. Then rely on the grace and generosity of my neighbours and hope to god for a dryish winter!

skoger

Try and keep them on fairly good grazing until a month before housing then introduce slowly silage. If the ground gets too wet then we'd move them into a drier rough grazing field and start the silage sooner

AntrimGlens

Will condition score again this weekend as they have been on rough grazing for the past month and then anything around CS 3 will go to the hill until 1st week Oct with anything lame or under CS3 will stay on better ground. Flush for 3 weeks prior to rams going in and then mantain grass intake for the period of tupping and then everything will go to the hill for 7/8 weeks until scanning mid jan.
House triplets at scanning and anything thin with twins getting silage outside with singles hammered back to the hill until 1st March.

Thats the plan on paper.

Green farmer

I'm splitting fields into paddocks with aim to extend out grazing season and make better use of grass. I managed to get a decent silage crop so might get some stores in as well.

sea12

Green farmer wrote: »

I'm splitting fields into paddocks with aim to extend out grazing season and make better use of grass. I managed to get a decent silage crop so might get some stores in as well.

Yep have the ewes strip grazing a field that's gone too strong for lambs. It was either cut for silage or strip graze. Working well so far. Ewes should be in v good condition for ram in few weeks.

D neighbours think I've gone mad. Strip grazing ewes.

Green farmer

Do you use electric fence that you move around ?

sea12

Green farmer wrote: »

Do you use electric fence that you move around ?

Well where it is now I use off the mains from when I had cattle but portable one would work fine I'd say

Green farmer

Anybody know how long a round bale of decent enough quality silage would feed 100 store lambs ( 30-35kg )for in the winter. ?

Willfarman

Green farmer wrote: »

Anybody know how long a round bale of decent enough quality silage would feed 100 store lambs for in the winter. ?

Depend on the quantity and qaulity of the silage but I would say 2 days if it's a descant bale.

paddysdream

Green farmer wrote: »

Anybody know how long a round bale of decent enough quality silage would feed 100 store lambs ( 30-35kg )for in the winter. ?

Are you intending to finish them on meal?
Anytime I creep fed stores to finish never used hay or silage as they are inclined to fill up on the forage and eat less meal.
Thats with ad lib feeding.

Green farmer

I was going to feed them good quality silage and meal.

paddysdream

Green farmer wrote: »

I was going to feed them good quality silage and meal.

Find it a bit of a waste feeding silage/hay to lambs.Well maybe a little bit but like I said some lambs are inclined to fill up on the forage and eat less meal.

To be honest though,anytime that I finish lambs on meal,its ad lib from the creep/hogget feeders with the lambs on a bare field or one with no major amount of grass anyways.Thats due to the fact that at that stage I am trying to move the lambs as fast as possible and not keep them over until a price rise comes(usually) post Christmas.Lambs will go through a fair amount on ad lib though but weight gain and finish is amazing at times.

Then again if you intend to keep lambs till Feb. then a small bit of meal with silage is grand and increase meal fed in the last month.
Friend does this.He buys lambs in September/October and sells in February/March/April.Aims for the heavy lamb /butcher trade in the mart.
He feeds a small bit on grass and stubbles to get all lambs eating and then picks out the heaviest 20 or 30 each week,seperates them and ramps up the meal.

Green farmer

Thanks paddy,

This is my first year trying stores. They'll be getting excess silage that isn't needed for the ewes. I'm aiming for a similar system to what your friend has, longer keep stores as opposed to short keep ones.