Saving Time/Money - The journey to a low input flock

Kevhog1988

Hi All,

Following on from a post in the General Sheep thread about looking at Easycares, I thought I’d start a thread on some of the changes I’m making to ease the workload a bit or that i could maybe run more sheep or reduce days to slaughter etc.

I’m looking at improving boundary fencing and getting proper water into paddocks. The plan is to run a line of electric around them so I can strip graze more efficiently. I’ve started doing more rotational grazing and I’m finding it brilliant for grass growth. Even on my own ground here, moving sheep regularly and letting paddocks rest has made a big difference. Covers are coming back stronger and I feel like I’m getting more out of every acre.

I’ve culled hard for a good few years now and have a solid bunch of PB Dorset, Dorset x and Mule ewes. After doing completely the wrong thing and trying to keep too many for a few years i cleared out all the bad sheep over the past few years. My approach has been to keep females from ewes that are sound on their feet and lamb themselves. If I need to give major assistance at lambing when I think the ewe should have managed she’s gone . It’s worked well as this year I only handled two ewes at lambing. One had a massive lamb and the other was because I was heading to a match and wouldn’t be back for hours. Any ewe with bad feet is also culled.

My next one on the hit list will be the ewes that wont stay behind electric fence

The plan now is to split the flock in two and run an Easycare ram with half of them as a trial. That way I won’t lose the Dorset genetics and can see how Easycares suit me. The Easycare ram I picked up this week also qualifies me for the SIS scheme which is a bonus. I rate the Dorset as a great sheep but from talking to others with Easycares, they seem to suit ground like mine at the homeplace where sheep might not be checked daily and flystrike can creep in if I don’t Clik.

I’m also looking for suggestions from anyone with tips or tricks to make sheep that bit more low input. Always open to hearing what’s working well for others.

wrangler

I'd always prefer the electric netting for internal paddocks. If the lambs are a few days weaned you can graze the paddocks with ewes after the lambs and not worry about lambs breaking back to ewes like they would if there was only electric wire between them.

Everyone should be buying five star rams, they improve the efficiency of the flock no end,

We record for sheep ireland here and our ewes now are all 4 and 5 star, mostly 5 star, and their peformance mostly reflects this.

I also think that feeding .5kg meal to lambs from 10 weeks is less costly than trying to improve the grassland to get a similar performance .

Kevhog1988

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123775855#Comment_123775855

I find that netting very cumbersome for setting up paddocks tbh. Reels and wire definitely easier.

Re: the feeding meal rather than imroving ground id disagree there. I think meal will get one set of lambs away early but improving the grassland will have a benefit for subsequent years.

manno

It sounds like you are a good way along the road to a pretty efficient system already Kev. My thoughts would be:

1. By all means trial the easycare and see if they work for you but to me they are just a good marketing job. The breeds you have already are easy managed, like how often do you have to assist a mule ewe at lambing?
2. Agree that 5* Rams are the way to go
3. I would have done a good bit of performance recording at the start, but I found it was taking more time than anything else, now I keep things as simple as possible, e.g. tail all ewe lambs at birth, not the rams, makes it easy to seperate them after weaning. You would have a fair idea at that stage which ones were singles and which were couples. What I found when I was recording was that the ewes that had tripplets one year often had singles the year after. IMO, the BCS of the ewes at mating is the biggest single driver of scanning rate
4. I clik the ewes in early May and don't shear until lambs are weaned, makes shearing a doddle, it's one of the most boring 5 hours of the year on the farm as i shun them up the shute and fire the fleeces into the sacks!

Just my tupence!

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123778601#Comment_123778601

We only sheared yesterday, definitely easier to shear after weaning and the ewes are cleaner at shearing, the dung seems to fall off them in August. Less wool on them for the housed period. easier to get a shearer in august.

Very inportant to condition score and feed the ewes under CS 3.5 to avoid singles.

I'm very used to the electrified netting so I don't ffind it awkward, I used to strip graze ewes in the winter before i had housing and would have to move six rolls of electric nettin every morning

foxirl

I tag all lambs at a day old. Tag ram lambs with shearwell tags and ewe lambs with Cormac tags. Makes it very easy to spot a ram lamb from a ewe lamb when in sheep race. It's only a small thing but it all helps

Birdnuts

Avoiding heavy covers and adopting diverse swards that reduce worm burdens are 2 simple ways to help achieve this