The favourable summer and autumn grass growth is leading to ideal breeding conditions for a second consecutive year. The combination of ewes in optimum body condition and adequate nutrition in the runup to breeding is witnessing many flockowners reporting a swift start to breeding in mid-season lambing flocks.

Gurteen College’s sheep and suckler/beef manager, Ger Carey, reports a similar situation.

“Breeding started on 3 October and ewes have rocketed in. The way it’s looking now, there will be 70% to 80% or even more ewes served inside the first 10 days to two weeks. If it stays like this, it will be a busy lambing.”

Lambing in the college’s sheep flock is split into an early lambing flock of approximately 180 ewes and 440 (390 ewes and 50 ewe lambs) mid-season lambing ewes. The two flocks are run in this manner to best utilise available housing, balance cashflow, spread grass demand and also provide first-year students with some exposure to lambing before they undertake their first period of work experience. Decisions taken are evaluated commercially but many new initiatives are considered to demonstrate new techniques/breeding or best practice principles to students.

The foundation breeding in the ewe flock is Suffolk Cheviot cross ewes, with approximately 50 replacements purchased annually. The remainder of the replacement requirement of about 100 hoggets is made up of first-cross Texel and Suffolk progeny.

Ger favours retaining Suffolk Cheviot breeding in the flock, highlighting maternal characteristics, consistent litter size and cull ewes with a good size, good feet and final sale value as contributing factors.

Ewes are divided on type in advance of breeding and this forms the basis of breeding decisions. White/speckled-faced Texel sired ewes are crossed with terminal Charollais rams with all progeny drafted for slaughter. Texel rams are run with the blacker-faced Suffolk Cheviot cross and Suffolk ewes while a change to the breeding policy in the last two years has included running a New Zealand Suffolk ram with a percentage of Suffolk cross ewes.

Ger explained that the switch to a New Zealand ram was made out of a desire to introduce more maternal traits. “This is our third year using the New Zealand Suffolk. You won’t have U grading lambs but we are making up for it by getting hardy lambs at birth and great mothers. The ram we have is very active and has about 35 out of 50 ewes tipped in less than a week.”

Flock disturbance during the breeding season is kept to a minimum. Ram infertility is guarded against by raddling rams and changing the colour every two weeks and also by running rams in groups.

At present there are five Texel rams running with 220 Suffolk and Suffolk cross ewes, three Charollais rams running with 120 Texel cross ewes and a New Zealand Suffolk ram running with 50 Suffolk cross ewes. A Beltex x Charollais cross ram is running with the early lambing flock and he will also be used for breeding in the ewe lamb flock.

Grass supplies are sufficient to offer ewes a high plane of nutrition for at least three to four weeks after breeding, a feature Ger finds helps the average litter size.

Lambing performance

The litter size in a normal year averages 1.7 lambs per ewe joined to rams. The litter size in 2013/2014 was boosted by the favourable weather and grass supplies, with 1.63 lambs sold/reared per ewe mated (738 lambs sold, 25 remaining and 50 retained as ewe lamb replacements). Twins were dominant, with 38 triplet-bearing ewes.

The strong start and persistent performance of early lamb markets along with earlier drafting dates has greatly helped the financial performance of the flock. The average sale price with 25 lambs left to sell is €105/head, or €6 to €7 above 2013 levels. Ger comments that in a normal year, there would usually be about 100 to 120 lambs left to slaughter at this stage of the year.

Creep is fed ad-lib to the early lambing flock and restricted to twin mid-season lambs with the aim of getting lambs drafted before closing for silage. On an average basis, lambs consumed about €6-7/head when averaged over the early and mid-season flocks.

Breeding in the early lambing flock started on 6 August and lasted for one month, with rams removed on 6 September. Ewes in the flock are generally the oldest ewes on their last year. This also provides an opportunity to finish ewes selected for culling early in the year and reduce grass demand for the mid-season lambing ewes, suckler herd and their followers.

While it is early to confirm, Ger reports a successful mating season with very few repeats to date in this group. A ram was reintroduced to the flock on 3 October to pick up any repeats which will subsequently be grouped with the mid-season lambing flocks.

The flock will be managed over the month of October to clean out paddocks before closing for early spring grass. Given the year, there may be a temptation to re-graze paddocks with a good cover of grass, but Ger says this will be resisted with a number of key areas identified for grazing next February. Following this, ewes will be grazed on beet tops for a few weeks before housing after scanning on 20 November to 1 December, weather dependent.

Ger explains that he likes to get ewes housed a month in advance of lambing to get them accustomed to a change in diet and settled well in advance of lambing. Ewes are supplemented in the runup to lambing on a rising plane of nutrition, with twin-bearing ewes built from 0.3kg to 0.8kg, along with ad-lib hay.

Triplet-bearing ewes receive up to 1kg supplementation, while single-bearing ewes do not receive any concentrates pre-lambing. Post-lambing, ewes and lambs are generally retained indoors for a couple of weeks before being released outdoors to fodder rape and a grass run back (crop can be accessed from three sides).

As well as lambs finishing earlier, Ger says ewe lamb replacements have performed exceptionally and are well ahead of previous years in size and liveweight, weighing over 55kg.

Ewe lambs are generally held over and run as dry hoggets, but given the higher weights, a decision has been taken to breed this autumn.

“I’m very happy with them. They have grown so well it would be a shame not to breed them. I’ll introduce the Beltex X Charollais ram on 20 October, but only give him three weeks and work with whatever is in lamb at that stage.

“There is no point in having a terribly drawn-out lambing period.”

Lambs are currently grazing high-quality after-grass swards and in recent weeks have received vaccination for Toxoplasmosis, Chlamydia (Enzootic) abortion and clostridial disease.

Mixed grazing

The ewe flock is grazed on an out-farm area of the college along with a 40-cow spring-calving herd and a 30-cow autumn-calving herd. Ger is a big advocate of mixed grazing, highlighting benefits in terms of animal performance and grassland management.

“Fields are between 15 and 28 acres. I like grouping ewes in big batches (125-150 ewes and lambs) and running with cows and calves or drystock as I can get in and out quick from fields and keep fresh grass in front of stock regularly. It can seem like extra hassle, but once animals get used to it, they can be moved in and out and handled with very little trouble.”

All progeny are brought to beef with the exception of a small number of top-end spring-born weanling bulls, which were sold in autumn 2013 and will be sold again in the coming weeks.

Autumn-born bulls are brought to beef at less than 16 months and are currently being finished on 9kg concentrates along with silage and straw. Bulls weighed 630kg liveweight on 1 September and will be slaughtered in October/November. Spring-born steers are brought through to beef as steers at an average of 22 to 24 months of age.

Breeding policy

The breeding policy in the herd is focused on achieving good weight for age. Limousin heifers from British Friesian cows or cows with some British Friesian breeding form the basis of replacements, with a small number of AI-bred progeny also maintained.

Cows are served to a highly conformed Charolais bull (compensates for any shortcomings in cow conformation), with the combination of milk and terminal breeding delivering in high-quality progeny with good weight for age.