General sheep thread

DJ98

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Cormac would be your best bet, I'd say. Sign up and order today and ring them first thing in the morning, anyone I've heard talking about them has said they are very good in cases like this.

Ordered tags Sunday night, delivered today, excellent service by Cormac

ganmo

roosky wrote: »

where was that figure quoted, never seen it that high from Teagasc always through it was in or around the €30 mark

https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/publications/2018/NFS2017_web.pdf
page 14, table 19.

took a bit of calculator work but gross margin - payments = about €30 per ewe

Willfarman

I have learned here the hard way that the stocking rate is what has a huge bearing on sheep profitability. And unlike what is pushed by the bastardized processors and teagasc the stocking rate needs to be at the optimum rather than than maximum with minimum fixed and variable costs.

Every sheep farm would benefit from a few cattle and every cattle farm would benefit from a few sheep.

wrangler

ganmo wrote: »

https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/publications/2018/NFS2017_web.pdf
page 14, table 19.

took a bit of calculator work but gross margin - payments = about €30 per ewe

Our Gross output was double that example as was our stocking rate.
Averages mean nothing, if everyone was average they'd be walking around on less than two legs....:D
The only thing average about our farm was the 51 hectares
Understocking destroys sheep performance

Young95

I’m pretty sure they were getting 500 net profit per hectare I seen it while back on the journal

MeTheMan

wrangler wrote: »

Our Gross output was double that example as was our stocking rate.
Averages mean nothing, if everyone was average they'd be walking around on less than two legs....:D
The only thing average about our farm was the 51 hectares
Understocking destroys sheep performance

Do you mean land quality or size? I'd say 51 hectares is a good bit over the avg farm size.

Young95

roosky wrote: »

where was that figure quoted, never seen it that high from Teagasc always through it was in or around the €30 mark

Athenry demo farm

wrangler

roosky wrote: »

If i was up at your flock size wrangler and had your economies of scale im sure id push them into the €40 a ewe :D

Yea I'd agree, I've often regretted not having someone to take it over the potential here was massive, sheep really suited the farm,
I think I've often said here that there was loads of opportunity to cut costs here and increase production, I only really discovered sheep here since 2005, first time I ever had money out of farming,
Most of the fences here are pulled up now and dairy farmers are in, so another farm out of sheep production, I don't think processors are aware that things are so serious.....even in our lamb group a huge number of big producers are dropping QA, huge number members sick, getting old, getting out etc.
We got through last year at 8ewes/acre so in a normal year the potential is huge,

Young95

wrangler wrote: »

Yea, €40-50/ewe is about what ours hovered around for the last ten years before we destocked

What stocking rate were you running back then ?

wrangler

MeTheMan wrote: »

Do you mean land quality or size? I'd say 51 hectares is a good bit over the avg farm size.

The average on the example was 51ha which is the size of our farm but we always lambed between 5 -600 ewe

wrangler

Young95 wrote: »

What stocking rate were you running back then ?

10 - 12 ewes/ha

FarmerDougal

First lamb is the profit, the rest cover the costs. Wouldn’t bother with sheep here at 50€ a ewe.

razor8

wrangler wrote: »

Yea I'd agree, I've often regretted not having someone to take it over the potential here was massive, sheep really suited the farm,
I think I've often said here that there was loads of opportunity to cut costs here and increase production, I only really discovered sheep here since 2005, first time I ever had money out of farming,
Most of the fences here are pulled up now and dairy farmers are in, so another farm out of sheep production, I don't think processors are aware that things are so serious.....even in our lamb group a huge number of big producers are dropping QA, huge number members sick, getting old, getting out etc.
We got through last year at 8ewes/acre so in a normal year the potential is huge,

Fair play. Are you stocking at 8/ac again this year?

wrangler

razor8 wrote: »

Fair play. Are you stocking at 8/ac again this year?

Not really, 65 ewes with 125 lambs and 16 dry ewes on 10 acres, dry ewes are cleaning off the paddocks and paddocks are 2-3 days

wrangler

FarmerDougal wrote: »

First lamb is the profit, the rest cover the costs. Wouldn’t bother with sheep here at 50€ a ewe.

Have you any sheep, sheep with cattle will make a lot more money but cattle will drag down the profit/acre

razor8

That’s fair going. How may paddocks? You must be horsing on the fertilizer?

Lambman

Serious stocking rate there Wrangler but dont you just feed meal and straw all winter? So no silage ground tied up? That would make a whole lot off difference and takes away from the 10-12 ewes a hectare. The cost off the extra meal and straw has till be cutting into the ewes profit per ewe aswell.

FarmerDougal

wrangler wrote: »

Have you any sheep, sheep with cattle will make a lot more money but cattle will drag down the profit/acre

I do keep some. wouldn’t worry about profit per acre. See journal quoting high profit per hectare and same time farmers earning less than minimum wage?!

wrangler

Lambman wrote: »

Serious stocking rate there Wrangler but dont you just feed meal and straw all winter? So no silage ground tied up? That would make a whole lot off difference and takes away from the 10-12 ewes a hectare. The cost off the extra meal and straw has till be cutting into the ewes profit per ewe aswell.

Fertiliser would be minimal at 10 - 12/ha, nitrogen in march, and something like 100 kg/acre of 18 6 12 in September, straw and meal is expensive but so is silage making,
Land is heavy here so sheep have to be housed especially at high stocking rates.
The 80 ewes on 10 acres that's here now is just an experiment, at the moment there's 17 days grass ahead of them and it's exceeding demand, 20kg urea/acre early march and we spread 25 kg/acre 18 6 12 in the last two weeks to maintain quality, unlike the rest of the farm this 10 acres is light land

roosky

FarmerDougal wrote: »

First lamb is the profit, the rest cover the costs. Wouldn’t bother with sheep here at 50€ a ewe.

Id disagree for me its the first lamb pays the bills and the 0.4 lamb per ewe sold is the profit !!

roosky

Willfarman wrote: »

I have learned here the hard way that the stocking rate is what has a huge bearing on sheep profitability. And unlike what is pushed by the bastardized processors and teagasc the stocking rate needs to be at the optimum rather than than maximum with minimum fixed and variable costs.

Every sheep farm would benefit from a few cattle and every cattle farm would benefit from a few sheep.

The optimum stocking rate is very very different from the maximum.....look at the graph in the link, more profit per ha having high prolifically ewes (1.8 lambs weaned) lowly stocked (10 ewes/ha) than having high stocking rates (12 or 14 ewes/ha) of low productivity ewes (1.5 lambs weaned).

going to 14 ewes/ha is very high risk system on most farm !

https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/publications/2018/TResearch_Summer_2018-web-16.pdf

Siamsa Sessions

Anyone on here make haylage and feed it to sheep? Does it go off after 2-3 days when opened?

Alternatively, is it too early to make hay in the next week or two? Have a paddock here that’s ready to cut and am not a fan of silage for sheep

Hard Knocks

wrangler wrote: »

Yea I'd agree, I've often regretted not having someone to take it over the potential here was massive, sheep really suited the farm,
I think I've often said here that there was loads of opportunity to cut costs here and increase production, I only really discovered sheep here since 2005, first time I ever had money out of farming,
Most of the fences here are pulled up now and dairy farmers are in, so another farm out of sheep production, I don't think processors are aware that things are so serious.....even in our lamb group a huge number of big producers are dropping QA, huge number members sick, getting old, getting out etc.
We got through last year at 8ewes/acre so in a normal year the potential is huge,

Can you sell to the factories without QA?
Thought it’s a must for sheep

wrangler

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Can you sell to the factories without QA?
Thought it’s a must for sheep

No, it even used to be a condition for supplying our group but not now.
I hear that factories are concerned now and some are increasing the bonus, or maybe that should read that they're increasing the penalty for non QA. :rolleyes:

Birdnuts

On holidays atm in the wonderfull Turlough country on the Galway/Mayo border and a pattern struck me in terms of the lambs/sheep I saw around the place. The heavier the covers they were on,the more animals with scuttery dirty rear ends(and not just Suffolks but all breeds;) were present. It made me recall work done on Lyons a couple of years ago that Sheep on more open herbal leys had less issues with poor thrive, worm burdens etc. Something for folk to reflect in on in terms of grassland management going forward, especcially in an era of growing resistance problems with standard worm etc. medications

DJ98

Anyone any tips on keeping ewes out of the feeder pictured belows, ewes here manage to get into them and take meal from lambs, 2yr old ewes in particular.

ganmo

DJ98 wrote: »

Anyone any tips on keeping ewes out of the feeder pictured belows, ewes here manage to get into them and take meal from lambs, 2yr old ewes in particular.

A bit of wavin on the bars helps narrow the gap

kk.man

DJ98 wrote: »

Anyone any tips on keeping ewes out of the feeder pictured belows, ewes here manage to get into them and take meal from lambs, 2yr old ewes in particular.

How do you find the feeder was thinking of buying one?

DJ98

What are lamb creep or nuts costing this year?

_blaaz

DJ98 wrote: »

What are lamb creep or nuts costing this year?

300 a ton...what im paying for bags anyway