The Davidsons, owners of Brogan Farm, have been farming at Foveran in Aberdeenshire for near 100 years.

The partnership is currently made up of sisters, Gail and Tania, their mother and father, Shelly and Raymond and Dane who spoke to the Farmers Journal Scotland about their farm.

They farm 1,200 acres on two land blocks just miles from the North Sea coast.

They run 3000 ewes along with 1,000 ewe hogs with all progeny finished in Morrisons bar those kept as replacements. They also buy lamb and beef stores from August onwards.

“As a business,’ Dane explains, ‘we are trying to get genetics and feed right without spending too much on labour and other costs.”

While it sounds simple, it is not something that is easily achieved and there have been several key management decisions made in recent years to try and reach that goal in the future.

Genetics

One of them is the breeding of the sheep and the genetics used.

“Our ewes would be Texel Mule crosses that are then bred to either a Suffolk or a New Zealand Romney tup,” Danes says. This decision is based on whether a sheep is located in flock A or flock B.

Flock A is the main flock and is used to breed replacements (from the Romney tups). Flock B on the other hand is crossed with more terminal sires.

It is made up of sheep that have presented with issues throughout the previous year – these range from sheep presenting with their second case of lameness, prolapses or ewes that are barren after scanning.

The farm breeds all its own replacements. Currently, one third of the farm has Romney genetics and only replacements that have these genetics will be kept.

Dane elaborated more on the decision to use Romney tups.

“We got them from Wairere UK. In our system we find their genetics allow them to thrive."

We need something that can cope with a reasonable high worm burden, quite high stocking pressure and a reliance on grass rather than provided feed.

"I think Romney genetics are a good bit ahead of anything we have here to meet that criteria.”

The Davidsons are also marketing three hundred Romney shearlings with high index scores, due to having an excess in suitable replacement stock.

While Dane says that a Texel or Suffolk progeny might perform better ultimately it is the commercial pressures in their system that has influenced their decision.

“The Romney lambs are hardier and are far more likely to survive. They also require far less intervention at lambing time”

This year, for the first time, all ewe hogs were bred to a Shetland tup. Dane thinks that due to the smaller size of lambs from Shetland tups it has meant zero handling of ewe hogs at lambing time.

Lambing

In recent years the farm has moved gradually towards an outdoor lambing system.

In the past roughly 1,200 ewe hogs and 1,000 ewes we lambed inside before the rest of the flock was lambed outdoors in April/May. Ewe hogs lambed after the main flock.

This year all sheep were lambed outdoors in a six week period bar the singles (singles were retained indoors as it allows the Davidsons to mother on any triplets that are born).

Scottish sheep farmer Dane Davidson

Tups were run with the ewes for 26 days and with the ewe hogs for 40 days in order to achieve this tight lambing spread. Romney’s serviced an average of 80 ewes and Suffolk’s about 50.

Therefore, from a labour point of view it is important for the family that all stock outside lamb with minimum intervention and thrive off a grass only diet.

Overall Dane thinks the move has been a success. “This year it has worked well but we have been blessed with good weather.

Some years we may end up getting battered by hellish weather and have high losses but even at that I think the Shetland and Romney lambs are better equipped to survive.

Those loss rates can run at 25% in a bad year but are usually closer to 20%.

This coupled with a scanning rate of about 170% to 180% means the Davidsons generally wean about 1.5 lambs to the ewe.

“A lot of places would be doing a lot better than us,’ Dane acknowledges, "but for our system of outdoor lambing you mightn’t get much better.”

Grazing

The farm has also set aside 400 acres for rotational grazing with the aim of growing more grass on the same block of land.

This grazing platform has been fenced off to make smaller divisions roughly 2 hectares in in size.

Dane said he made the move to try the system, widely practised in New Zealand, following knowledge transfer events held by Quality Meats Scotland (QMS).

“I would give a lot of credit to QMS. They’ve hosted discussion groups where guest speakers from around the world have come to talk about the merits of paddock grazing.”

Once sheep enter a paddock they will be allowed to graze it for three to four days before moving on to fresh ground.

The paddock will then be closed for a set period, ranging from 20 days in peak summer time to 90 days in the winter, in order to give grass time to recover and regrow.

This ensures that the flock always benefit from leafy green grass that is in high energy when entering a paddock.

Set stocking rates

The farm also utilises set stocking rates so it has given the family a chance to compare and contrast the performance of both systems.

“The big difference," Dane says, "is the ability to control pasture quality in the rotated pastures when grass growth really takes off.

"After the paddock has been grazed three to four times before late July the quality is almost like silage aftermath.”

“Of course it’s not all roses either. We haven’t found a difference really in the weaning weights of the lambs but you can definitely carry more ewes to the acres which is a big plus.”

The Davidsons also purchase store cattle every year to help utilise any excess grass that grows in the summer months.

"We buy them about 12 to 18 months old and keep them for anything between four to seven months before finishing them or selling them on as forward stores.

"All off a grass-only diet,” Dane explains.

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