Over 300 farmers attended last week’s farm walk on the farm of Brian Nicholson, Johnstown, Co Kilkenny. Brian is a member of the Teagasc BETTER Farm Sheep programme and since joining the programme in 2012, has grown his flock from 450 ewes to over 1,000 ewes and ewe lambs lambing in spring 2015.

Farm plan

Teagasc BETTER Farm Sheep Programme adviser Ciaran Lynch said the plan for the 100ha (94.6ha grass and 5.4ha barley) farm is to continue on a growth pattern with a target flock size of 1,050 ewes and 275 ewe lambs. This would leave the Kilkenny farm operating at a stocking rate of 13 ewes/ha.

The sharp rise in numbers is being completed on a gradual basis. Ciaran explained that such an increase also adds significant pressure to the farm’s infrastructure (fencing and paddocks), facilities (housing and handling) and demand for grass, while greatly increasing the labour requirement.

Managing cashflow is also another consideration that needs to be taken into account in a period of considerable expansion.

Increased output

Kilkenny B&T adviser Terry Carroll said that the increase in stocking rate and output has also greatly improved the farm’s gross margin.

“The farm has gone from a gross margin of €295/ha at the start of the programme to €885/ha in 2014. Brian has made wholesale changes but still maintains that the farm is a work in progress with further improvements possible.”

The farm’s financial performance is summarised in Table 1. As is expected with the expansion in flock numbers, the gross output has increased from €522/ha in 2011 to €1,321/ha in 2014. Variable costs have close to doubled, but from a low starting base and at €436/ha are on target.

The rise in variable costs has occurred mainly from increased fertiliser, feed and veterinary costs. Spending on fertiliser rose from €68/ha to €95/ha through a combination of driving grass growth, addressing soil fertility deficits and implementing a reseeding programme.

Feed costs increased from €44/ha to €111/ha, due partly to increased winter feed costs and greater concentrate usage in breeding ewe lambs, while veterinary costs increased from €36/ha to €100/ha due to higher flock numbers and addressing a number of health issues (primarily Toxoplasmosis).

Terry Carroll said the plan is not to stop at a target of €1,000/ha gross margin. “Fixed costs on this farm could be €600/ha given the investment in facilities. There are greater gains to be got from stocking rate and prolificacy and we want to continue to grow the gross margin. We need to be aiming to have a net margin of €500 to €600/ha.”

Brian explains this is due to high weather-related mortality in the ewe lamb flock in spring 2015, with mortality rising to 31.3%. This, he says, stemmed from delays in erecting a new shed, forcing yearling hoggets and their lambs to be turned out quicker than he would have liked, which also coincided with a sharp change in weather.

Adding to the tough situation, he said Belclare genetics are also starting to have a greater influence, with a higher litter size of 1.55 lambs in the ewe lamb flock, leading to the birth of a greater percentage of lighter twin lambs, which suffered most.

Breeding policy

A decision was taken as part of the farm plan to move to a closed flock in 2012. The move was three-fold with biosecurity, cost of replacements and a focus on selecting replacements on proven performance all contributing to the decision. Prior to this, Mule ewe lambs were purchased with a small percentage of Mule ewes still remaining in the flock. Texel rams were mated with Mule ewes before then progressing down a criss-cross breeding policy with Belclare and Texel rams.

Maximum use is made of performance records in selecting ewe lamb replacements. All ewes were EID-tagged at the start of the programme, with all progeny now tagged at birth. Records are collected at lambing and throughout the season with weight recordings also collected and stored electronically.

Brian says: “The benefits of recording are enormous. I wouldn’t turn back. I can identify problem ewes at lambing and avoid retaining replacements from these (poor mothering, poor prolificacy, poor milk yield, lameness issues, etc). I can monitor performance at weighing and select the best performing ewe lambs to keep.”

Brian is also a member of the Sheep Ireland Central Progeny Test or CPT flock. Some 250 ewes in the flock are artificially inseminated, with rams selected by Sheep Ireland, with a conception rate of 72% in autumn 2014.

Performance of progeny is monitored closely and data collected is used to increase reliability and accuracy of genetic evaluations for the rams selected. Monitoring performance of female progeny retained within the flock will also generate parentage data for the flock and contribute to a better maternal profile for these breed lines.

Brian says the number of ewes artificially inseminated in 2015 may increase with a preference for getting a large group of ewes lambed in a short time frame to free up space for remaining ewes and ewe lambs.

Breeding ewe lambs

Breeding ewe lambs is a major focal point on the farm and the practice allows Brian to increase output faster and dilute the cost of increasing ewe numbers. Since 2012, anywhere from 200 to 300 ewe lambs have been mated, as shown in Table 2. The percentage of ewes lambed was affected by outbreaks of Toxoplasmosis in 2012 and 2014, following difficulties in sourcing the vaccine. This also increased mortality, with only 0.45 to 0.47 lambs weaned per ewe joined in both years.

Breeding performance was much improved in 2015, with 79.1% of the ewe lambs mated lambing. It should also be pointed out that the mating period is confined to four weeks with the aim of maintaining a tight lambing spread of six to seven weeks for the ewe and ewe lamb flocks.

Ewe lambs are mated after the first cycle in the mature ewe flock. Last year’s breeding began on 20 October. As discussed earlier in the article, lamb mortality increased sharply in 2015 with the aim in subsequent years to maintain mortality under 15%.

There are a number of key performance targets that will greatly influence the success of lambing ewe lambs. The first of these is weight at mating, with a general recommendation of lambs being at least 60% of their mature weight at mating.

Michael Diskin of Teagasc explained that having ewe lambs heavier at mating increases the chances of ewe lambs rearing a lamb. The production target in the system is to wean one lamb for every ewe lamb joined.

Achieving weight targets will also reduce the risk of ewes failing to perform during lactation and falling out of the system before they reach hogget stage. Even where all targets are met, Michael says that there is likely to be a 2% to 3% higher replacement rate in flocks operating a yearling lambing system.

Management of the flock from weaning to bedding as two-tooth hoggets is critical. As is the case on Brian’s farm, ewe lambs should always be managed as a separate flock receiving preferential treatment.

“The aim is to bring ewe lambs through the system without problems and without compromising on lifetime performance,” said Michael.

The average weight of Brian’s ewe lambs at breeding in 2014 was 47.9kg (weight range 42kg to 56kg) with a condition score of 3.6. Michael explained that while ewe lambs were in good body condition, he would generally like to see a higher weight at the lower end of the weight range, commenting that it is these animals that will typically be under the most pressure to reach two-tooth weight targets.

“Typically, you would like to see ewe hoggets that have reared lambs being over 55kg at this point in time and 68kg at breeding. You can expect a lower weight (as hoggets) in Belclare cross hoggets than terminal breeds, that you would like to see over 70kg. Hoggets under the average weight of 56.6kg will have a lot of work to do at this stage to gain 15kg or maybe even more before breeding in October.

“These animals should be seen as a very high priority group and given access to good-quality grass from now until breeding. If farmers leave ewe lambs in this condition and they don’t improve before breeding, you would expect to see a significant decrease in lamb numbers at the next breeding.”

Sire comparison

Brian’s ewe lambs were split into three groups at mating and joined with Charollais, Ile de France and Vendéen rams to investigate if there was any difference between lambing and performance from birth to weaning. Post-scanning, singles received flat-rate supplementary concentrate feeding of 0.4kg per head, while twin-bearing ewes were fed 0.6kg per head per day.

Performance is summarised in Table 3. As can be seen, there was very little difference in performance, with Vendéen-sired lambs recording the highest birth weight and maintaining this advantage through to weaning. All lambs had access to creep feeding from birth to weaning, with Brian commenting that it helps to take the pressure off lactating hoggets. Lambs were weaned at an average of 12 weeks post the mean lambing date.

Assistance required at lambing was also recorded, with 24-hour supervision provided in three eight-hour shifts. There was no significant difference between any of the three breeds used. 78.9% of lambs were born unassisted, 13.6% were classified as needing a little assistance, while 5.3% were classified as a manual delivery and 2.4% difficult lambings were recorded. Brian explains that the greatest problem he faces with such a high number of ewes lambing in a tight time frame is mis-mothering.

Grassland management

Grassland management has undergone impressive changes in the last three to four years. A programme is in place to improve grazing layout with 34 permanent divisions currently in place.

The layout of paddocks also allows for temporary divisions during the main grazing season. The target is to graze paddocks in a rotational manner during the main grazing season, with animals spending two to three days in each paddock.

Currently there are five grazing groups – three lamb groups split into heavy and light lambs and a replacement group, a group of dry ewes being used to graze out paddocks and the ewe hogget flock. A group of 40 Friesian heifers is also being rotationally grazed between groups.

A planned reseeding programme is being implemented, in which paddocks identified for reseeding are selected on the basis of volume of grass grown.

Philip Creighton of Teagasc told farmers in attendance that grass measuring and budgeting provides huge potential but cautioned farmers that in order to get the most out of the reseeded swards they must be managed carefully, receiving adequate N, P, K and lime.