Lambs

20borekid1

How many lambs is everybody expecting to rear this year

stantheman1979

All going well about 1600/1700

charolais0153

Two hundred would be great but will be closer to one ninety I feel

Lambman

stantheman1979 wrote: »

All going well about 1600/1700

How many ewes have you 1000

stantheman1979

Lambman wrote: »

How many ewes have you 1000

850 ewes 150 ewe hoggs. We only let the ewe hoggs out with one lamb. Well sell the twins off them as pets on dung deal. A man from wexford took over 50 of them off us last year. So im hoping well have 16/1700 lambs by the end of it all.

arctictree

There some numbers floating around here! Hoping to have 50 here. 17 so far from 8 ewes. (7 twins and 1 trip).

Green farmer

[quote="stantheman1979

So im hoping well have 16/1700 lambs by the end of it all.[/quote]

Flippin heck, fair play to you, some amount of sheep.

Green farmer

..

mcgiggles

In year 2.. around 46, 5 down this weekend, 41 to go  then hopefully another 18 or so in June (had 10 empties  at scanning time put them back out with the ram). A second ram will be purchased next year for sure, this lad doesn't seem to have enough vigour in him

davidk1394

Aiming for 1,000. First 2 lambed this morning.

sheepfarmer92

Scanned just over 2200 lambs from 1300 but hopefully wean near 2000, started the other day but things would want to improve

Lambman

Serious numbers lads.... I'd say you boys must be 3 stone lighter and like zombies after the lambing.... or suppose 100 or 1000 ur still up checking them 1st thing in morning and last thing ay night. Yous lambing them all inside? Must be some sheds? Or they broken into different lambing times?

davidk1394

There's someone up here 24/7 for march. Lamb everything in doors but the ewe lambs are lambing in april. 3 of us keep the show on the road

sheepfarmer92

Meself and the father here and a lad does nights for 3 busy weeks starting next week, all indoors, have 500 april lambers still out but theyl come in when theres space , the woman never understands how i eat so much but stay skinny i do tell her its better than slimming world!

rangler1

sheepfarmer92 wrote: »

Meself and the father here and a lad does nights for 3 busy weeks starting next week, all indoors, have 500 april lambers still out but theyl come in when theres space , the woman never understands how i eat so much but stay skinny i do tell her its better than slimming world!

Major difference to have someone to do nights, I start about 4 am here and supposed to go to bed at 10pm, Oh covers till 2 am and starts at about 8am, but both our quitting times certainly aren't set in stone, I often met her in the yard at 4 am.
Nights would seem to be the busiest time here

stantheman1979

We have them all in one slatted shed. At lambing we used to have a student but don't bother now. A neighbour comes in from 8am-1pm to help with feeding and taking out sheep. Then it's just the old man till 6 and I'll take over till 8. We've 140 sucklers calving as well so we're kept going.
There's as much work with 100 sheep as there is with 1000. Were all doing the same things just trying to do the best for our sheep just we do it on a slightly bigger scale.

sheepfarmer92

rangler1 wrote: »

Major difference to have someone to do nights, I start about 4 am here and supposed to go to bed at 10pm, Oh covers till 2 am and starts at about 8am, but both our quitting times certainly aren't set in stone, I often met her in the yard at 4 am.
Nights would seem to be the busiest time here

Yea hes just a neighbour keeps an eye from ten to 4, as u say nothing does be set in stone they get busy from 4 til near dinner time here always, the afternoons are mostly just about playing catch up, need me and dad here during the day one turning out ewes and lambs an other lambing feeding etc have to train herself in yet!

sheepfarmer92

stantheman1979 wrote: »

We have them all in one slatted shed. At lambing we used to have a student but don't bother now. A neighbour comes in from 8am-1pm to help with feeding and taking out sheep. Then it's just the old man till 6 and I'll take over till 8. We've 140 sucklers calving as well so we're kept going.
There's as much work with 100 sheep as there is with 1000. Were all doing the same things just trying to do the best for our sheep just we do it on a slightly bigger scale.

What slats do you use stan?

stantheman1979

We use the wire mesh slats

DJ98

What sort of ewes and rams do you keep stan?

stantheman1979

We keep mainly belclare and belclare x lleyn ewes with some mules, suff x and some NZ Romneys.
Terminal rams mainly Charolais, couple of Hampshires, texal, a Suffolk and a beltex. For replacements we use belclare, lleyn and NZ Romney

razor8

stantheman1979 wrote: »

We keep mainly belclare and belclare x lleyn ewes with some mules, suff x and some NZ Romneys.
Terminal rams mainly Charolais, couple of Hampshires, texal, a Suffolk and a beltex. For replacements we use belclare, lleyn and NZ Romney

Any pictures of the Romneys?

mcgiggles

sheepfarmer92 wrote: »

Yea hes just a neighbour keeps an eye from ten to 4, as u say nothing does be set in stone they get busy from 4 til near dinner time here always, the afternoons are mostly just about playing catch up, need me and dad here during the day one turning out ewes and lambs an other lambing feeding etc have to train herself in yet!

90% of ours lambed at lunchtime last year, which would have been handy if we had taken time off work, the brother in law has a garage next door so he helped the mother in law out thankfully. This year for the busiest 2 weeks I've taken the first week off work, and himself is taking the 2nd week off. Hopefully they'll all go smoothly as our first few. I'll still need the mother in law or brother in law to help me but at least there'll be someone there to watch them. Twice as many lambing as last year. 
I said something to my fella about being a farmers wife, and he said no. You won't be a farmers wife, you'll be a farmer.:P I'm getting there..I enjoy most of it, especially lambing...
But I still don't hop fences quick enough for him.. :D

davidk1394

Did any of ye try out wintering the ewes ?

stantheman1979

razor8 wrote: »

stantheman1979 wrote: »

We keep mainly belclare and belclare x lleyn ewes with some mules, suff x and some NZ Romneys.
Terminal rams mainly Charolais, couple of Hampshires, texal, a Suffolk and a beltex. For replacements we use belclare, lleyn and NZ Romney

Any pictures of the Romneys?

They are all shorn and in the shed mixed with the others. I'll take a few pics during the summer.

ganmo

davidk1394 wrote: »

Did any of ye try out wintering the ewes ?

yup, brought in the first lot last week

White Clover

ganmo wrote: »

yup, brought in the first lot last week

Did you bring them straight in on silage/meal diet ganmo or were they getting silage outside beforehand?

sheepfarmer92

davidk1394 wrote: »

Did any of ye try out wintering the ewes ?

Used to out winter them all on grass taken for 3 months and stubbles but the price of it went through the roof last year, so built a simple enough shed to house a lot of them, along with the existing shed can house about 1000 if we have to, if you could get winterage for them at humble money, sheep are better off out in my opinion but you need a lot of acres under them, the aul lad had near 2000 ewes one time all away on grazing took an awful amount of land though, dont know if it would pay now, have you yours out til lambing?

davidk1394

We put in swedes and give them silage. Find it a good job here. Excellent break crop and the ewes are in perfect condition going in. Have heifers up there now cleaning off the field

mrbrendank

Hey, how often do ye check the sheep at night for lambs, i work on the farm all day with cows and calves and cattle, just the normal stuff but the staying up all night with the ewes is killing me. i sleep from about 11pm to 2am then up checking the ewes every hour, my father said im mad and that every 4 hours is enough?? our lambing normally lasts about 5 weeks

razor8

Here there checked til about 2am and up again at 6am

Luckily father helps out with the late shift

ganmo

White Clover wrote: »

Did you bring them straight in on silage/meal diet ganmo or were they getting silage outside beforehand?

Sorry only spotting this now

They were on silage outside

White Clover

ganmo wrote: »

Sorry only spotting this now

They were on silage outside

No hassle, reason I asked was mine were outside and I was offering silage to them so they'd be used to it when they went in but they weren't inclined to eat it. They started eating it shortly after and they came in yesterday.

ganmo

If there's much grass around they wouldn't be inclined to go too hard at the silage. The first bale they got was New Year's Day. They had plenty on the hill to be eating up till then.