Two big targets on many sheep farms are reducing labour input and cutting the volume of concentrates fed to ewes. Brothers Stuart and Eddie Hammond have transformed their sheep enterprise over the last decade and excelled on these two objectives.

Flock numbers have increased by 150 head but a switch to outdoor lambing means the labour input at lambing is now lower while concentrates have not been fed to ewes for the last 10 years. This change did not happen overnight. Stuart explains it resulted from a reappraisal of the entire farming system over 10 years ago.

Farm make-up

The visit to the farm was part of a study trip for participants in the Northern Ireland Sheep Programme under the CAFRE Farm Innovation Scheme. The 364ha (900-acre) farm is operated under a partnership between Stuart, Eddie, their mother and uncle. It comprises a 1,700 head ewe flock, 600 ewe lambs, a 120-head suckler-to-beef enterprise, a 400-head dairy calf-to-beef system, a tillage enterprise and a poultry business finishing about 850,000 broilers annually in conjunction with Avara foods. The first of three chicken houses was built nine years ago and this business has also given rise to the construction of three biogas boilers in recent years.

Along with the family input, there are two full-time employees. Some casual labour is used also.

Land type is described as a mixture of some relatively dry ground and heavier-type soils. The farm is in a high-rainfall area.

Sheep are run over three sites, each of which has permanent handling facilities.

Stuart Hammond explaining the system operated for outdoor lambing.

Wake-up call

Stuart says the wake-up call to transform the sheep enterprise came when Eddie was in New Zealand during his placement year in college. “Eddie was managing 2,000 ewes on his own while five of us were lambing the flock indoors, working around the clock and still struggling to cope. We thought something desperately had to change.”

The first task was to gradually change the ewe breed to one that better suited outdoors lambing. Stuart says: “We were running a traditional system of Beulah Speckled ewes crossed with Texel. The Beulah was a good hardy hill ewe breed and was the main breed in the area, with massive Mule breeding sales each year. They were victims to their own success though and breeders went chasing markets such as sharp-headed sheep and over time the sheep lost some of their hardiness. We purchased Romneys and used these as a foundation flock to breed up numbers. The last of the Romneys purchased eight years ago were culled last year.”

Flock output

Stuart says the Romney breed is not for everyone but it suits their system, with hardiness and ease of lambing being key desirable traits. The flock has scanned in the region of 145% to 150% (barren rate less than 4%) in recent years. With a typical mortality of 11% from scanning to weaning, they are selling or retaining as replacements in the region of 1.35 lambs per ewe joined.

Stuart says the lower litter size is one slight downside of the Romney ewes. He believes this could be down to an English strain with lower prolificacy or the fact that high numbers of ewe lambs are joining the flock each year to build numbers faster. The target is to get to a weaning percentage of about 150%. Stuart says ewes hold condition well while lambs finish well and rams have good longevity and vigour with the normal ration of one ram to 100 ewes.

Lambs have been marketed through the link between Dunbia and the UK supermarket chain Waitrose for the last two seasons. Lambs averaged 19.2kg carcase weight in 2019, with 85% in-spec. The main reason for falling out of spec was a fat score of 3H early in the season.

Lambing outdoors

As mentioned above, concentrates have not been fed to Romney ewes for the last 10 years. Ewes are generally grazed on grass up until Christmas and then transferred on to root or forage crops until 10 days to two weeks pre-lambing. The weather was so wet this season that one batch was turned on to fodder beet earlier.

The lambing date was traditionally 20 March but this has moved back to 1 April in recent years. Stuart says this has allowed them to increase the stocking rate. When ewes are switched on to grass pre-lambing, they are stocked according to litter size. Triplet-bearing ewes which also lamb outdoors are the only ewes to receive any supplementation and are offered Rumenco feed buckets.

“Twin [bearing] ewes are typically stocked at three to four ewes per acre. This allows ewes and lambs to be left for three weeks without touching and we find this works well. You can put singles as tight as they like. All you want really is that they have just enough feed and are not overfed as difficult single lambings are the only real areas where handling is required.”

During peak lambing, supervision starts around 6am and finishes before nightfall. A strict culling protocol is in place.

Any ewe that requires intervention at lambing is marked for culling along with their progeny if a ewe lamb(s). The same applies for any twin-bearing ewe unable to rear her lambs.

Ewes are also culled for footrot, with no vaccination taking place. Footbathing is used to treat scald. The incidence of lameness has reduced to about 1% to 2%.

Future plans

With 98% of the flock now Romney-bred, the focus is on performance recording and culling poor-performing ewes. An Aberfield ram has also been mated with 400 ewes to give an option of selling ewe lambs for breeding, with Romneys harder to sell live.

The Hammonds also want to focus on grassland management. A key focus is incorporating more clover into swards along with selecting grass varieties such as Cotswolds seed mixtures. They say these may be more suitable to promoting better persistency on heavier soils.