New to hill farming- Whats involved??

DJ98

As above, so I have a few questions that I would answered if at all possible:- 1) How do you keep your flock together?
2) What age ewe is best suited to begin with?
3) Is it too much work for too little reward?
4) If its a commonage how do you know where you can and cant graze?
5)How often/when do you take ewes off the hill?
6) Is a good dog essential?

Thank you.

Inchilad

DJ98 wrote:

As above, so I have a few questions that I would answered if at all possible:- 1) How do you keep your flock together? 2) What age ewe is best suited to begin with? 3) Is it too much work for too little reward? 4) If its a commonage how do you know where you can and cant graze? 5)How often/when do you take ewes off the hill? 6) Is a good dog essential?

Recently started hill flock myself.some good advice i got.
Buy ewe lambs as less likely to wander(somewhat true.)still wander a bit.their lambs will be born on the hill and will know it.
Stay away from in lamb older ewes(good advice.theyre either mad hoors or have put out the bag or some other thing wrong.)
Put a few lick buckets in the area you want them to stay.if its feasible)
Get a dog.essential.mine come to a bucket but try get them into a pen and its a different story.
They are down to lamb.shear.tup.depends on the setup i suppose.thats my 2 cents worth!

arctictree

I assume you'd need to pen them in a local field for a few weeks after buying? Otherwise wouldn't they just head off wherever suits?

cuff92

arctictree wrote: »

I assume you'd need to pen them in a local field for a few weeks after buying? Otherwise wouldn't they just head off wherever suits?

We stocked a new commonage a few years ago. We were friendly with a shareholder and with his consent we bought broken mouth ewes off him to breed to stock the hill.

They knew the mountain. They stayed local. They were good mothers .

Now it is a bit more expensive for the piece of mind that they wont wander off and never be found again.

We mostly only took one crop off them. Some better ewes we got 2 crops. They need more tlc. U need to have them in good shape going to the hills with there lambs.

We started off 6 years ago with 13 bm ewes now weve 110 ewes up there.