How to get £6,000 more from a 200-ewe hill flock

Improving sheep performance on the hills was the theme for a couple of farm walks hosted by the McHenry family at Ballintoy on the exposed north coast of Antrim recently.

Advisers from the College of Agriculture Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) joined researchers from the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) on the farm where the owners are “co-researchers” in programmes jointly funded by AgriSearch. They have a strong focus on recording facts and figures to guide their business decisions.

CAFRE adviser Ciaran Hamill spoke about the benefits of recording animal performance in order to make better business decisions. He put values per ewe on specific levels of improvement in five particular aspects of sheep farm business:

The figures (Table 1) indicate how the value of output from a flock of 200 ewes could be improved by almost Stg£6,600 (€8,250) by the combination of small improvements in these five areas.

According to the figures, an improvement of 0.2 lambs sold per ewe would provide almost half of that increase of £33 (€41.25) per ewe. This could be achieved by selecting ewe lambs from the most prolific mothers – surely something easy to record.

Hamill pointed out that this increase in lamb numbers is worth almost ten times as much as improving the carcases of 50% of the lambs by one grade (eg from R to U). By the same token, a drop in the percentage of lambs hitting the top grades makes relatively little impact on the income gained from greater prolificacy in the flock.

An improvement in grassland management to be able to stock an extra one ewe per hectare is worth £6.50 (€8.13) per ewe in the flock, while another £4 (€5) per ewe can be gained on the bottom line as a result of a 5% reduction in replacement rate through improving longevity of ewes. This is a significant payback for recording which ewes have greatest longevity and taking this into account when selecting ewe lambs for breeding.

Weighing and recording lamb growth rates as part of the identification of the best sheep for future breeding could be worth £4 (€5) per ewe in the flock if an improvement of 10% in average growth rate is achieved.

In order to gather the information, the sheep farmer needs good handling facilities. Every sheep farm should have these, said Hamill. Current costs for weighing/drafting systems could be anything from £400 (€500) to £10,000 (€12,500).

After that, the options for recording range from a notebook to high-tech computer systems and the choice depends on flock size and personal preference and aptitude for working with technology.

For example, the cost of a simple handheld reader for collecting data is £600 (€750) to £800 (€1,000), while higher-spec readers cost £1,000 (€1,250) to £1,500 (€1,875). Then there is computer software costing from £200 (€250) to £800 (€1,000).

On the McHenry farm, the “Shearwell System” is used. Maurice McHenry quoted a price of £6,000 (€7,500) plus a service fee of £90 (€112.50) per year. He recently had to use the helpline and found that the remote back-up service was good.

The McHenrys put great faith in recording and the decisions that can be made in the light of the information obtained, but Maurice acknowledged that it is his wife Marie and son Robert who look after the computer side of it.

Robert said: “It is no reduction in work – you have to put the work in.” He does not select any “singles” as ewe lambs for breeding. All replacements are homebred.

Selection is based on figures and not looks. They look for something that lambs easily and have found Swaledale crosses to be outstanding mothers, prolific and easy to work with – even if they “aren’t great to look at for most of the year”.

Rams used have included Scottish Blackface, Swaledale, Lleyn, Highlander, Texel and Suffolk.

Where possible, performance recorded rams are used, with Estimated Breeding Value (EBV) figures. The main criteria used in ram selection are prolificacy/maternal ability, carcase quality and worm resistance.

Body condition

Eileen McCloskey of CAFRE spoke about the importance of having ewes in the optimum condition for mating.

“If you don’t do a good job now, then you’ll have less lambs next year,” she said. Body condition at mating is critical and the target for hill ewes is 2.5 to 3.5 (see diagrams) – otherwise there is a higher risk that the ewes will be infertile and barren. Over feeding is also to be avoided. “If you get ewes into the right condition, you’ll have a more compact lambing season.”

“You need to get in there and get hands on,” urged McCloskey. She advised that hill ewes should be weaned no later than early September (and lowland ewes early August at the latest).

“Earlier weaning means less work to do to get the ewe back in condition. If your ewe needs to gain 8kg to 10kg body weight, she will need a good six to eight weeks to do it – it doesn’t happen overnight,” she said.

McCloskey recommended that good pasture at a sward height of 5cm to 7cm is needed for ewes that need to gain body condition. And if ewes are already at body condition score of 3.5, you still need to monitor them as individual ewes vary.

It’s important to assess the mineral status of ewes to know what is lacking, if anything. On this farm, the vet takes blood samples from 10 to 15% of ewes for testing a good six to eight weeks before mating (checking Selenium, Cobalt, Iodine).

Selenium (Se) and Vitamin B are the main concerns in relation to fertility. The McHenry flock is supplemented with Se via boluses. This has been done since research by the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) found 50% of hill ewes sampled had inadequate Se status.

Supplementation with Se for four to six weeks before mating has been found to improve ewe fertility. Maurice McHenry warned that a bolus type product needs around six weeks to have the necessary effect, so it may be necessary to use a drench if the supplementation is being started close to mating time.

Further beneficial effects of Se supplementation are higher growth rates leading to heavier lambs at weaning, resulting in higher overall lamb output. Ewe body weight and condition are also maintained more efficiently.

Early pregnancy

The first six weeks are critical for embryo survival. McCloskey advised that it is important to avoid stress and sudden changes in diet during the three weeks immediately after mating and to maintain body condition score in early pregnancy.

Where grass is scarce, her advice was to offer additional feed.