Brian nickleson farm walk

farawaygrass

Anyone going? I would love to see his setup and hear him speak so might tip along.

rangler1

farawaygrass wrote: »

Anyone going? I would love to see his setup and hear him speak so might tip along.

Yea, hoping to go, some of my rams were involved in a trial with ewe lambs on his farm, as far as I know the results will be revealed tomorrow.
I might have good reason to be getting out of vendeens when the truth is revealed

Username John

rangler1 wrote: »

Yea, hoping to go, some of my rams were involved in a trial with ewe lambs on his farm, as far as I know the results will be revealed tomorrow.
I might have good reason to be getting out of vendeens when the truth is revealed

Is it on today?

Edit : is see it's on tomorrow. Still a bit too close for taking a day off... Balls!...

Cran

Going weather dependent. Have the day off for it but if its a fine day I'm so far behind on farm work as guy works here is on 3 weeks off and tied up at sale next weekend, I might spend the day tipping away on the farm.... Really interested in seeing his set-up though as he carries numbers that would be possible here...

AnFeirmeoir

too far away for me, would love to go has he is doing most things that I'm trying to do on a smaller scale... increasing headcount, introducing some belclare genes, lambing the ewe lambs, splitting the paddocks etc.

Bullocks

Is he the lad that writes in the journal ?

Username John

Bullocks wrote: »

Is he the lad that writes in the journal ?

Yep.

farawaygrass

Bullocks wrote: »

Is he the lad that writes in the journal ?

Ya that's him. I always enjoy reading his articles.

Bullocks

farawaygrass wrote: »

Ya that's him. I always enjoy reading his articles.

Ya he seems a bit fresher than the other writers alright . Is he fulltime sheep farming ?

orm0nd

was hoping to go but see it's a 10.30am kick off,

will see that the morning brings

Green farmer

It's in Kilkenny is it ? Ye don't know how long it goes on for ?

TMC99

http://www.teagasc.ie/events/2015/BETTERFarmSheepAdweb.pdf

Green farmer

Will have to give it a miss. Pity as would have liked to go.

orm0nd

Green farmer wrote: »

Will have to give it a miss. Pity as would have liked to go.

sorry only saw your pm there a short while ago, don't check too often ,

farawaygrass

Bullocks wrote: »

Ya he seems a bit fresher than the other writers alright . Is he fulltime sheep farming ?

Id say so. He farms something like 108 ha if my memory is correct.

farawaygrass

Green farmer wrote: »

It's in Kilkenny is it ? Ye don't know how long it goes on for ?

Ya, Johnstown in kk. Don't know when it finishes sorry

Green farmer

orm0nd wrote: »

sorry only saw your pm there a short while ago, don't check too often ,

Your grand. I got it sorted.

Bullocks

orm0nd wrote: »

sorry only saw your pm there a short while ago, don't check too often ,

I PM'd you a few months ago aswell !

orm0nd

rangler1 wrote: »

Yea, hoping to go, some of my rams were involved in a trial with ewe lambs on his farm, as far as I know the results will be revealed tomorrow.
I might have good reason to be getting out of vendeens when the truth is revealed

reckon you were happy with the results < good performance from the vendeens topping the lw gain

you might'nt be as happy with the reply you got from the sheep Ireland guy to your query re the star rating,

Brian has a great set up there & seems a down to earth sort of fellow, .. short, straight & to the point answers to any queries

had to rush away b4 the finish but got the guist of the reseeding info from the boards

rangler1

orm0nd wrote: »

reckon you were happy with the results < good performance from the vendeens topping the lw gain

you might'nt be as happy with the reply you got from the sheep Ireland guy to your query re the star rating,

Brian has a great set up there & seems a down to earth sort of fellow, .. short, straight & to the point answers to any queries

had to rush away b4 the finish but got the guist of the reseeding info from the boards

Very good farm walk, Bad or good, brian always says it as it is.
I was on that farm two years ago and it's unreal the work that he's done since then
Yea, delighted with the weights in the ewe lamb trial, my vendeens were the only ones at the five star sale last year and Teagasc bought the three for that trial.
When I came home today I looked up the present stars of those rams and Sheep Ireland have floored them on us (again!!!!) and I'm not looking forward to looking up the star ratings of the sister hoggets of those rams that I kept for our own flock, pedigree sheep need to be 4 or 5 star
How can two rams that are five star terminal, four star maternal with 45% accuracy turn into 3 star Terminal and one star Maternal in 12 mths. :mad:
rant over
That English ram I was referring to, according to his English index three stars would have been generous,

farawaygrass

rangler1 wrote: »

Very good farm walk, Bad or good, brian always says it as it is.
I was on that farm two years ago and it's unreal the work that he's done since then
Yea, delighted with the weights in the ewe lamb trial, my vendeens were the only ones at the five star sale last year and Teagasc bought the three for that trial.
When I came home today I looked up the present stars of those rams and Sheep Ireland have floored them on us (again!!!!) and I'm not looking forward to looking up the star ratings of the sister hoggets of those rams that I kept for our own flock, pedigree sheep need to be 4 or 5 star
How can two rams that are five star terminal, four star maternal with 45% accuracy turn into 3 star Terminal and one star Maternal in 12 mths. :mad:
rant over
That English ram I was referring to, according to his English index three stars would have been generous,

You are the first boardsie I can put a face too!
In my opinion it's very early days with the stars and you have to take them with a pinch of salt.
I really enjoyed the walk and Brian seemed very down to earth. What I also liked was the yard wasn't all new poured concrete, it was a rather old yard, and not sparkling clean (no disrespect intended or anything). But what I mean is you would know it was a working yard.
He had serious grass on them fields we were in. It's one thing I need to start managing properly. I tried this year (although not measuring) and failed bad. There was a cold hard breeze for a long time and very bad growth, and I was very tight as a result. I also think I used to graze fields too tight.

orm0nd

rangler1 wrote: »

Very good farm walk, Bad or good, brian always says it as it is.
I was on that farm two years ago and it's unreal the work that he's done since then
Yea, delighted with the weights in the ewe lamb trial, my vendeens were the only ones at the five star sale last year and Teagasc bought the three for that trial.
When I came home today I looked up the present stars of those rams and Sheep Ireland have floored them on us (again!!!!) and I'm not looking forward to looking up the star ratings of the sister hoggets of those rams that I kept for our own flock, pedigree sheep need to be 4 or 5 star
How can two rams that are five star terminal, four star maternal with 45% accuracy turn into 3 star Terminal and one star Maternal in 12 mths. :mad:
rant over
That English ram I was referring to, according to his English index three stars would have been generous,

I presume that was the sale in Tullamore ? I had picked 1 of your 3 (would have been delighted with any of them) but knew that teagasc had them pencilled in as well, so decided not to wait.(my cheque book isn't as strong as T.)

not really into the stars , but I did buy a 5 star (I think the most expensive) belclare ram on the day have about 30 ewe lambs marked for replacements off him, will be interesting to see how they go

rangler1

orm0nd wrote: »

I presume that was the sale in Tullamore ? I had picked 1 of your 3 (would have been delighted with any of them) but knew that teagasc had them pencilled in as well, so decided not to wait.(my cheque book isn't as strong as T.)

not really into the stars , but I did buy a 5 star (I think the most expensive) belclare ram on the day have about 30 ewe lambs marked for replacements off him, will be interesting to see how they go

Pity I didn't realise they were there for Vendeens, I could've arranged a bit of opposition, they bought only Suffolk and Charolais the year before.
A few people told me after that they pulled back when they saw Teagasc bidding, any way I fixed them up with a ram sfter

Green farmer

Those stars are only as accurate as the breeder inputting the information. If your getting low stars from your highly accurate information(45%) accurate, I'd buy one of your rams before other breeders that have 5* from much lower accuracy rate. After being badly stung last year, tbh I couldn't give a toss about the stars. The first thing I'd look at it the breeders name. A straight breeder will more then likely only put their name to a straight ram.

hedgecutting eddie

Was there me self today , thought his handling facilities would have been better for 1200 sheep but think there's plans for up dating , was expecting heaps of concrete around but just a normal farm , he had savage grass every where and good size lambs and great condition in his ewes for the no.s he keeps , we could all learn a gud bit from him on de grass land management side

farawaygrass

hedgecutting eddie wrote: »

Was there me self today , thought his handling facilities would have been better for 1200 sheep but think there's plans for up dating , was expecting heaps of concrete around but just a normal farm , he had savage grass every where and good size lambs and great condition in his ewes for the no.s he keeps , we could all learn a gud bit from him on de grass land management side

I was the same, thinking he would have too notch handling facilities. The footbath at the end of the shed was clever I thought, along with the concrete built round forcing pen. Simple things that wouldn't cost a fortune to set up. Having the race under a roof seemed good too, it would keep things Abit easier to do.

4512

Didnt get to go meself, does anyone know what the key info was? Days to slaughter,breeds,meal feeding,etc?
Thanks