Sheep farming

Regina A Murphy

Hi, Can anybody tell me how we can possibly make some money out of 17 acres.
We have 20 suffolk cross sheep and this year we had 36 lambs but we almost gave them away as we got crap money for them at the mart.
We have a bit of a shed and a car trailer but thats it, no tractor or machinery.
We are wondering what we are doing wrong and is there any point continuing messing about with these sheep....the kids love them that's the only thing but they are expensive toys.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

farm14

Won't make much money from 17 acres with sheep. Need something niche to sell off that maybe organic vegetables or something.

Connemara Farmer

I would agree, not sure how much money there is to be made in pedigree sheep, but it will be a loss for commercial IMO.

There are LOTS of diversification ideas out there that suit different farms, none of them are easy

Green farmer

Join every scheme you can. I'm sure you could get single farm payment , maybe join new glas scheme, etc. Combine that with a few sheep.fence land properly and make 4 paddocks. It's not a lot of land to make an income from,but if you were able to make a part time supplement or even something to put back into land, it mightn't be too bad. I suppose it's up to yourself to make as much or as little out of it as you can. If none of that suits you, then just rent the land out.

Sami23

Regina A Murphy wrote: »

Hi, Can anybody tell me how we can possibly make some money out of 17 acres.
We have 20 suffolk cross sheep and this year we had 36 lambs but we almost gave them away as we got crap money for them at the mart.
We have a bit of a shed and a car trailer but thats it, no tractor or machinery.
We are wondering what we are doing wrong and is there any point continuing messing about with these sheep....the kids love them that's the only thing but they are expensive toys.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Well from the 36 lambs you should have made 3600 euro @ 100 per lamb sale price which I think is good enough.
And like the others said join some schemes if you can to increase income.

RightHalfBack

Where was the major expence Regina? if selling at mart it can be a tough school, unless you are prepared to not sell and take them home again... which can be hassle if only parttime farming and you dont want to spend every Saturday at the mart...

From my Limited experience i would say, make sure to castrate the ram lambs if going to sell at mart, and if only getting 75 to 80 quid at mart for them, it can pay to spend €10 ahead on meal for them and probably get the 100 at factory then,

tomwaterford

RightHalfBack wrote: »

Where was the major expence Regina? if selling at mart it can be a tough school, unless you are prepared to not sell and take them home again... which can be hassle if only parttime farming and you dont want to spend every Saturday at the mart...

From my Limited experience i would say, make sure to castrate the ram lambs if going to sell at mart, and if only getting 75 to 80 quid at mart for them, it can pay to spend €10 ahead on meal for them and probably get the 100 at factory then,

At 36 lambs from 20 sheep in reality you aren't doing too much wrong...that's a good enough lambing percentage....as for making money....it's very hard...if you were set up better perhaps to keep 40 or so sheep it would dilute your dosing costs etc per sheep
Do you fatten the lambs or sell as stores??

ihatewinter

Your stocking rate is very low. What type of land do you have? To make a better return, you could increase your stocking rate. 5 per acre is the norm, so at 2 you're stocking density is low.

eorna

You could stock them good bit higher if ground is good which would give extra lambs.. You have to account for extra fodder for ewes in winter and probably extra feed for lambs as you will have more lambs at the tail end due to having more numbers.. In a normal year should be better off..

Country lad

Well I keep seventy ewes on 22 acres and with some ewes not going in lamb ended up with 110 lambs which are all sold end of July as stores to a local farmer .that together with sfp and grassland sheep payment make a nice little profit . I think you should be able to carry a lot more ewes on your land

Siamsa Sessions

Have you looked at GLAS?

This week's Journal has some details about various activities in this scheme, and there seems to be lots of scope for different little bits and pieces you can do.

Has anyone else looked at GLAS by the way?

Regina A Murphy

Thanks for all the advice, great to get it.

We know we are under stocked at the moment but we are new to this game, we both work and we have five young children. We were afraid to get too many sheep incase we couldn't manage them and also just to see could we make any few quid on them

I read about Glas in the journal but I think the minimum number of hectacres is 10 and we wouldn't have that many HA. Open to being corrected on that.

Do any of you know anything about electric/solar temporary sheep fencing? We have the perimeter of the land properly fenced with sheep wire but no money at the moment to divide the field so was going to inquire about this temporary sheep fencing that can be moved around.

Thanks again for all the help, really appreciate it.

ihatewinter

What about creep feeding the lambs, put an extra few kg on them. Might be worth it, as you could push them up to the 40kg and get a decent price for them

The minimum of 10 hectares is for commonages for a plan, not individual farms

Nekarsulm

if you could get a battery fencer , that runs off a car or tractor battery, then look out for a cheap solar charger. ask in the camper van forum, in the motoring section on Boards. 3 strands of that white tape might keep them in.