Comfortable ewe numbers

farawaygrass

How many ewes could one man handle on his own, without being driven over the edge? If well set up would 350 be manageable? Lambing compacted in 3 weeks. Or would you want a bit of help for nights

davidk1394

Once the handling facilities are good and you have plenty of pens for lambing, 350/400 would be manageable. You probably would need someone in every second night so you get a break. The biggest factor though is the weather.

Lambman

All depends on your facilities and whether land is all together or not and how good your dog is. Biggest pain here is lands scattered so a full days trailer work would be a common thing.

farawaygrass

Ya I’m currently at 150. Land is all together. I just find I’m checking them for lambing and half the time nothing happening. When your out it’s nearly handy to do something. Amnt bad for shed space, and sucklers are at the bare minimum for bdgp and more than likely gone next year so that’ll free up more space too. Will be up near 200 next year hopefully so just wondering how far I could realistically push it.

Green farmer

Reducing numbers here, but biggest issue I found at 150-200 was rounding up and handling facilities for a mob that size. Especially with lambs ar foot. In hindsight, would have been better to 2 batches of 100 each. Takes soo long putting them in a yard, that the first ones in try to come out before the tail enders are in, with bigger mobs.

farawaygrass

Green farmer wrote: »

Reducing numbers here, but biggest issue I found at 150-200 was rounding up and handling facilities for a mob that size. Especially with lambs ar foot. In hindsight, would have been better to 2 batches of 100 each. Takes soo long putting them in a yard, that the first ones in try to come out before the tail enders are in, with bigger mobs.

Ya handling ewes with lambs at foot can be time consuming alright. I would have a decent enough yard to hold them numbers but still have to get handling facilities In order( im a long time saying so). Fields would suit 150ish size wise so could do like you and run two mobs

davidk1394

I know of a fella getting out of sheep. There'll be an entire handling specially for sheep to come out at some stage

farawaygrass

davidk1394 wrote: »

I know of a fella getting out of sheep. There'll be an entire handling specially for sheep to come out at some stage

He must have seen the light!! What kinda set up you got? Pm if you like

davidk1394

I'll post a photo, there might be a few ideas people could use.

Thats the main area of the handling until. Theres 5 entry points for sheep. One main loading area there in the bottom left. Then you have a small triangular pen leading into a race and then semi circular pen beside. The triangular pen is the most used, especially when two of us are working with ewes or lambs.

Under neath the scales is a dipping tank and the two pens above this are used to hold lambs after weighing or sheep after dipping. The slope on the two pens allows for the dip off the ewes to drain back down and into the dipping tank through the man hole. The run off if we're not dipping can be easily diverted.

Then you have a footbath. It holds 15 ewes easily and you have a hose beside it. I'd have the whole place cleaned down in about 45 minutes. The entire pen would hold 350 ewes and you could work away. Using the yards around it you could hold 1,000 easily if you had to.

wrangler

farawaygrass wrote: »

Ya I’m currently at 150. Land is all together. I just find I’m checking them for lambing and half the time nothing happening. When your out it’s nearly handy to do something. Amnt bad for shed space, and sucklers are at the bare minimum for bdgp and more than likely gone next year so that’ll free up more space too. Will be up near 200 next year hopefully so just wondering how far I could realistically push it.

that's where the cameras help you, at peak there'd always be something to do when you go out, but at either end you'd be going out for nothing.
200 ewes +lambs is definitely enough in a group, it's a good days work,
One person would look after 4 -500 ewes

weatherbyfoxer

big thing people look at it the amount of ewes they can run but i reckon its more to the point of how many lambs you can produce...i know men scanning 1.3 and others scanning 2.2..another thing is picking the right breeds for easier management..

Green farmer

weatherbyfoxer wrote: »

big thing people look at it the amount of ewes they can run but i reckon its more to the point of how many lambs you can produce...i know men scanning 1.3 and others scanning 2.2..another thing is picking the right breeds for easier management..

Spot on. Was talking to a lad last summer who told me he got rid on half his ewes a year or two back. Could have been something like 100 ewes back to 50, but ended up with only 3 fewer lambs the following year. I'm guessing alot more profitable as well, with less input costs.

Lambman

100% true prolificacy is everything. I tried the early lambing high input hip for high output wasnt working out. Very tempted till keep 30 off my best ewe lambs this year and not lamb them till following may or June and hope I get away with very little feeding and hope till have lambs ready for following February when prices will peak again. Men lamb early and the ewe costs you lots a money and lambs are fed from day there born till day there go maybe lambing 3 months later when ewe and lamb feeding costs will be alot less and you'll still be aiming for same market.