Some of the biggest changes to a farming system come about when the farmer is faced with adversity. Around five years ago, Isaac Crilly faced a big problem on his 70-acre farm at Castlederg, Co Tyrone. Isaac ran out of silage to feed his breeding ewe flock over the winter housing period.

The obvious option would be to go and out buy more silage. The cost of buying silage, storing bought-in silage combined with the variable feed value and quality of purchased forage were off-putting. But with a large flock of sheep to feed every day, something had to be done quickly.

There were no other farmers feeding their ewes like this, so I had no one to use as a reference point

Working closely with his local farm adviser, Isaac came up with a unique and innovative way to feed ewes when housed. Ewes would be offered a high-concentrate diet instead of silage, buffered by straw to ensure there were no rumen problems. Forage was completely excluded from the diet.

It was a massive leap of faith for Isaac to change to such a radical winter feeding regime. ?At the start, I was unsure of how things would go. There were no other farmers feeding their ewes like this, so I had no one to use as a reference point. But we followed the feeding guideline to the letter of the law and things worked out better than I could have imagined. There is no way I would go back to feeding silage on the farm now.?

Farm background

Isaac runs a closed flock of 500 breeding ewes in partnership with wife Elizabeth. Ewe type is a mix of New Zealand Suffolk and Belclare genetics. Ewes start lambing from 20 March onwards and are usually finished by the end of April. For the past 15 years, Isaac has been working closely with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) in a number of on-farm research projects.

Such projects have looked at improving maternal genetics, mothering ability and ewe type. The projects have delivered real benefits on farm. Lambing percentage has increased from 130% to 200%, with lambing interventions dropping from 40% to less than 5% annually.

Ewes are crossed with New Zealand Suffolk and Belcare rams to produce replacements. The rest of the flock is crossed with the Meatlinc ram. All flock sires are purchased based on performance recorded data and the flock uses faecal egg counts for dosing.

Male lambs and ewe lambs surplus to breeding requirement are taken through to finish, with the vast majority of lambs killed off grass. Lamb carcase is targeted to 19kg to 20kg. All lambs are sold through the local lamb group. Lamb numbers are more important to Isaac than conformation. But with the Meatlinc rams, he is still producing fast-growing lambs, with 80% grading R and 20% grading U.

Winter feeding regime

Breeding ewes are moved to winter grazing for an eight-week period from mid-October until Christmas. Ewes are mated while they are on winter grazing.

During this time, grass covers on the home farm start to build up. From January until lambing time, no stock are allowed to graze on the home farm to ensure there is adequate grass for grazing post-lambing.

When ewes return home from winter grazing, they are moved straight to the shed where they are housed on mesh slatted pens, rather than a straw bed. This greatly reduces labour demand compared with straw bedding, as well as the cost of buying straw annually.

Once housed, ewes are introduced to the concentrate diet of soya hulls and minerals. Ewes are always fed twice daily (morning and evening) and straw is offered to avoid rumen problems.

Ewes are scanned around 20 January and placed on to a specific feed programme depending on the number of lambs the ewe is carrying.

Feed programme

The feed programme for twin-bearing ewes is outlined (right). From nine weeks pre-lambing, ewes are offered 0.67kg/head/day of soya hulls along with 0.11kg/head/day of soya bean meal. Crude protein for the diet is around 17%.

From six weeks pre-lambing, the diet changes to 0.8kg/head/day of soya hulls ad 0.14kg/head/day of soya bean meal. By four weeks pre-lambing, the ration is increased to 0.92kg/head/day of soya hulls and 0.16kg/head/day of soya bean meal. At two weeks pre-lambing, the final meal levels are at 1.1kg/head/day of soya hulls and 0.23kg/head/day of soya bean meal.

Ewes are eating around 90kg of concentrate during the housed period. Taking soya hulls at a cost of ?190/t and soya bean at ?400/t, the diet would cost approximately ?20/ewe from housing until the point of lambing, excluding straw costs and minerals.

Over an 80-day housing period, this would equate to a daily feed cost of 25c/ewe/day. A ewe eating 5kg/day of silage at ?30/t would have a forage feed cost of 15c/day, before adding in any cost for concentrates. At the end of the feeding period, there is little difference in feed cost between the all-concentrate diet and traditional silage and concentrate diet.

Benefit of the system

For Isaac, the change in winter feeding has made a huge difference for his farming system. ?We are a small farm of 70 acres and, because we no longer make silage, I can carry more sheep. More ewes means more lambs produced. More lambs means more income.

?Stocking rate on farm is around 18 ewes/ha, so we are focused on maximising lamb output per hectare of land owned. We produce well over 550kg of lamb/ha of land farmed. If we were still making silage, there is no way we could carry as many ewes, so farm output would drop.

?In the past, we made 30 acres of silage each year. Closing up silage ground in spring would mean a smaller grazing area, so fewer ewes unless we rented land. Or else we would need to feed meal to ewes post-lambing and creep feed lambs to replace the lost grazing area.

?In the system now, we can turn ewes out to grass post-lambing and rarely have to feed meal as there is adequate grazing available,? says Isaac.

Other benefits from removing silage from the winter feed programme is the farm requires a very low level of mechanisation. There is no specialised machinery needed for feeding out silage. Instead, the sheep housing is well-designed with a central feed passage.

Isaac can feed the ewes using a wheelbarrow and offer straw every day as required. The end result is a lower cost system that returns maximum output and income.

  • This article first appeared in the Irish Farmers Journal Feed Guide magazine.

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