Lamb target weight

Green farmer

Just read an interesting article on agriland, from kepak's athenry speech. Basically they and the consumer want leaner lamb's with live weights about 42kg and k.o as near to 50 % as possible. In reality how does with fit in with what the average farmer produces ? Historically I'd keep the lambs around until 50kg as anytime I had good lambs in the mart early 40kgs , Financially I always come out second best to lambs that was up around 50 kg's. What weight do ye sell your lambs out at ?

arctictree

I aim for 50Kgs myself but always end up at about 47kg at the Mart. Must be my scales or something. I think we get bad value for anything under 43Kg.

Cran

Depends on time of the year, first lambs here go at 44kg and usually average around 21.5kg dw. As it gets later in the year weight raises until later ones would normally be about 50kg or even heavier for 22-23kg dw as ko % reduces

Green farmer

If anyone knows how to copy link to agriland article, feel free to copy it here as I don't know how to do it.:D

orm0nd

Green farmer wrote: »

If anyone knows how to copy link to agriland article, feel free to copy it here as I don't know how to do it.:D

http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/why-kepak-is-not-paying-out-on-heavy-lambs-see-optimum-spec/

hope it's the right one

Username John

Generally assume a 47% kill out

So as Cran says - send off around 44 - but I don't have big numbers. So by the time I have a load to go, they could be anything from 44 up to 50 - it really depends...

ganmo

Username John wrote: »

Generally assume a 47% kill out

So as Cran says - send off around 44 - but I don't have big numbers. So by the time I have a load to go, they could be anything from 44 up to 50 - it really depends...

If bringing to the mart we'd aim for avg 48
For the factory 46 to 52 would be our normal range,some of the chevs can get fairly heavy before they get into good condition

Username John

ganmo wrote: »

If bringing to the mart we'd aim for avg 48
For the factory 46 to 52 would be our normal range,some of the chevs can get fairly heavy before they get into good condition

Actually - the first draft would prob be around 44...
After that, I'd up it to around 46/47 as well - a mix of both the factory paying for more weight, and the lambs need if that extra condition...

Arrow in the Knee

arctictree wrote: »

Must be my scales or something. I think we get bad value for anything under 43Kg.

Agree

Every time I go to the Mart my lambs seem to be a kilo on average below what I weighed them the night before?

And they're only in the trailer for 20 minutes!

They only seem to be correct when it's rained that morning.

orm0nd

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

Agree

Every time I go to the Mart my lambs seem to be a kilo on average below what I weighed them the night before?

And they're only in the trailer for 20 minutes!

They only seem to be correct when it's rained that morning.

when we were selling through marts we used to keep the lambs on a bare field the day before, then late that evening let them into flush grass ... try it !!

Western Pomise

orm0nd wrote: »

when we were selling through marts we used to keep the lambs on a bare field the day before, then late that evening let them into flush grass ... try it !!

Would you not find then though that the lambs were dirtying the pen a lot in mart?....if going to mart I put lambs in late on the night before for handiness loading,they keep pen v clean in mart then as they havnt much left to make when they get into mart.

AnFeirmeoir

factory propaganda means nothing at the mart... weight pays simple as that

Username John

Not sure if this belongs in here, but didn't want to create a new thread....

Weighed most of my lambs this mornings (maybe around 2/3 of em)

They're about 12 weeks now.

Daily weigh gain (for doubles and singles) = 287gram/day
Doubles = 272 gram/day
Singles = 320 gram/day

Last time I weighed a few of em, they were doing 315 gram/day, but that was about 6 weeks ago now.

orm0nd

Western Pomise wrote: »

Would you not find then though that the lambs were dirtying the pen a lot in mart?....if going to mart I put lambs in late on the night before for handiness loading,they keep pen v clean in mart then as they havnt much left to make when they get into mart.

they were weighted coming off the trailer & sold through the ring

excuse the pun but I didnt give a s%$t what they left in the pen ,

haven't sold in the mart for years, but the way things are going with the factories just now, might well resort to selling stores

katuri747

Thank you all for wonderful discussion which indeed helped me a lot.

orm0nd

katuri747 wrote: »

Thank you all for wonderful discussion which indeed helped me a lot.

welcome aboard

feel free to join in