General sheep thread

I’ve had lambs consume 1.5 to 2kg per day in Adlib system without any stomach upsets but they sure as hell need to be thriving when they are on it

this comes with a health warning. if theres a high barley content in feed. if you let adlib feeders empty, when you fill them again and lambs gorge then this can kill them. if there tipping away eating all the time then its grand so u have to keep the feeder full

Dickie10 wrote: »

this comes with a health warning. if theres a high barley content in feed. if you let adlib feeders empty, when you fill them again and lambs gorge then this can kill them. if there tipping away eating all the time then its grand so u have to keep the feeder full

I know farmers that let the feeders empty regular, can't understand it,I let a feeder empty once and a lamb got killed in the rush

Would there be money to be made from buying ewes inlamb and then selling them 9ff with lambs at foot around a month old?

kk.man wrote: »

There might be. However you chance bringing in all sorts to the lambing shed and or your own flock. You could be lucky.

I was planning on buying ewes lambmg in January and have them gone before my own start, would this reduce e the risk?

Have a hogget here that's stumbling to walk. It's like her two legs are buckling under her ,down near the hooves. Any ideas ?

DJ98 wrote: »

Anyone any experience with the 9 bar sheep gates from buffalo Steel. Would the quality be as good as the Gibney version, would there be a major price difference?

I only bought the half mesh gates and they were very good quality. All their stuff seems to be well made.

DJ98 wrote: »

Anyone any experience with the 9 bar sheep gates from buffalo Steel. Would the quality be as good as the Gibney version, would there be a major price difference?

Have bought hurdles, hay racks, gates and find them good stuff and lads are very easy to deal with and good delivery.

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

If people had the choice when buying brand new gates from likes of Buffalo would they go for pin to slip down to join gates type of gate or go for the fixed points on ends that interlink gates?

Lot of gates here going on 20 years old,are long pin you slip down type....were great gates,bottom part had mesh on them to block lambs.

Time to invest in around 15 new ones so want to buy well.
If these gates are not going to be permanently fixed in a yard can they still qualify for TAMS grant?

I would 100% choose the drop pin ones, far and away a better gate for lambing pens etc. Can’t help with the TAMS question !!

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Thanks....suppose I could buy a combination of both if needs be....have moved to nearly all outside lambing here so and have proper lambing pens in shed so don’t ever really need to make up pens as such.

Have cattle crushes in yards on farm and at mo I tie up present old sheep gates to inside of crushes whenever dosing sheep iykwim,
Main handling yard was designed for cattle so a bit big when working with bunches of less than 40 sheep so that’s why I am wondering to avail of TAMs grant do gates have to be fitted ‘permanently’?
Or could you have them fitted into newly concreted in wall fixings to make work pens smaller iykwim .....and take them down for use elsewhere occasionally if needs be?

Thanks for any replies....

Ps-my setup wouldn’t really suit putting in a sheep race etc for TAMs as have cattle as well and like the fluidity of being able to work at sheep one day and cattle the next if needs be.

You seem to place a lot of value on tams grant. I wonder how much these grants are worth at the end of the day?. If you buy without grant you can reclaim the full amount through your tax. If you get grant you can only claim the remaining portion

Young95 wrote: »

What are people’s ideal paddock sizes for grazing sheep ? Ino depends on flock size etc . Have good few fields here all around the 15 acre mark and don’t know what to do with them .

This is something I've been thinking about here. I'm saying around 2ha/5ac. We have around the 90 mark lambing and they will be split into 2 main lots with a 3rd lot of trips/pets.
Like you said it depends on flock size, but also how easy it is to split the fields. We have a 7ac and a 9ac that I would just split along the drain that runs through them. The 9 would be roughly in half but the 7 would be more like 2ac/5ac. That suits us as the 2ac part would be middle of the farm so it has access to other fields off it. Its no harm if the sheep spend less time in it.
We also have a 17ac field. Totally underutilised! The sheep only really graze 50% properly so that would be divided 3ways.
The only thing I'm not 100% on is how long 5ac would last say 40 ewes and there 70 odd lambs. Don't want to be moving them every other day. Would hope to get a week out of it and not return to it for 3 weeks. Someone with better knowledge might know?

MeTheMan wrote: »

One acre kept them a week? Or a day.

3 - 5 days depending on the time of year, also on fertility and amount of nitrogen.
In May you'd have good grass 14 days after taking the ewes off........ totally depends on management, The Ideal is to only give them enough for 3 or 4 days as grass starts to grow after that and they're grazing off the new shoots in preference to the 2 week old grass

MIKEKC wrote: »

You seem to place a lot of value on tams grant. I wonder how much these grants are worth at the end of the day?. If you buy without grant you can reclaim the full amount through your tax. If you get grant you can only claim the remaining portion

Tbh I haven’t properly researched the whole TAMS grant at all,just have an inkling that qualifying equipment needs to be ‘permanent’....so wondering how my idea of buying gates you could fix into place when working in yard and then occasionally during year unlock them and use them elsewhere on farm....eg helping to load stock from a field etc would tally with grant specifications?

Would really appreciate people’s thoughts on which type of gates to buy,thoughts on my idea of tightening up sheep in yard using fixed gates to sidewall etc.