Sheep farmers were challenged by Welsh grassland consultant Gareth Davies at a conference in Antrim last week to think of their farms as manufacturing businesses that produce lamb. Davies said that adopting a stronger business mindset means more emphasis will be put on making a farm commercially viable.

“No other manufacturing business I know can operate without knowing their cost of production. The only difference with farming is that we have little or no idea what we are selling our product for,” he told delegates at the efficient lamb production conference at CAFRE Greenmount.

Davies said that central to maximising output while minimising the cost of production was being able to grow and utilise more grass.

Grazing grass when it is the height of a coke can until it is the height of a golf ball is a simple but effective analogy used by Davies for producing more, better quality grass.

“Getting farmers to move sheep out of a field can be difficult. It is counter-productive to graze fields into the dirt. You have got to move animals on a regular basis and allow the grass plant time to recover,” he said.

Davies said that in a set stocking grazing system, sheep graze off the first leaf from a grass plant when the plant has grown around 20% of its dry matter potential. More grass can be grown and utilised by letting the plant grow to the third or fourth leaf, which then allows stocking rates to increase or purchased feed to reduce.

Example systems

A rotational grazing system for lowland farms recommended by Davies was a 24-day round made up by grazing six paddocks for four days each. He said that most sheep farmers in uplands have some ground that is cut for silage which could also be pushed harder to grow more grass.

“I have worked with hill farmers where silage fields were grazed early, then closed up and ewes and lambs were put on the hills.

‘‘After silage was cut we sub-divided silage fields in two-day paddocks and finished lambs off the paddocks. It is phenomenal what is possible from a small area of land,” he said.

On improving soil fertility, Davies said that the first step is to carry out a soil analysis and correct pH levels. “Not enough people can drive up your lane and make money by telling you to spread lime at £20/t (€23/t) before you think about expensive fertilisers,” he said.

Economics

Another area on sheep farms where there can be room to increase profitability is with lamb numbers. Dr Eileen McCloskey from CAFRE stated that increasing the ratio of lambs sold per ewe by 0.2 (two extra lambs for every 10 ewes) at a lamb price of £80 (€91) means output increases by £16 (€18) per ewe.

This was compared to improving the conformation grade of 50% of lambs from R to U, with this calculated to be worth £1.68 (€1.91) per ewe. “We are obsessed by things like carcase weight and grade in this country. We have to be realistic about what is driving profit on our farms,” she said.

McCloskey said that decision-making on most sheep farms could be improved by keeping better records of individual ewe and lamb performance. An example is culling ewes based on production if information about the number or weight of lambs weaned from individual ewes is known.

Methods of improving recording range from automated EID systems to greater use of a pen and notebook. “A lot of people think that they cannot afford these technologies or haven’t the time to record. I think we cannot afford not to be doing it,” she said.

Labour

McCloskey also encouraged farmers to think about their sheep-handling facilities and the benefit that could be delivered by investing in improvements. She quoted results of a Teagasc study which showed that inadequate facilities can add one to 1.5 extra hours’ work per ewe annually.

She also pointed out that poor handling facilities can lead to extra labour costs, delays in administering treatments and injuries and stress to both the farmer and sheep. “What is the real cost of poor handling facilities?” McCloskey asked.

A slight increase in global sheepmeat consumption is forecast from 11m tonnes in 2017 to 12m tonnes in 2021, according to Richard Brown, director of food consultancy company Gira.

Speaking at Greenmount last week, Brown said that sheepmeat will remain a relatively small or niche market in global terms.

He pointed out that poultry consumption is expected to increase from 117m tonnes to 129m tonnes by 2021, with this four-year increase alone equal to the forecast global sheepmeat consumption in 2021. He said that China remains an important market with its domestic production sitting at 4.5m tonnes and the country responsible for buying around 21% of all sheepmeat traded globally.

“It is completely dominated by Australian and New Zealand exports,” he said.

In the EU market over the next four years, Brown forecasts a marginal drop in consumption from around 1.06m tonnes and for production to remain relatively steady at around 0.94m tonnes.

Optimistic

He was optimistic for global meat demand in general, particularly with pork and chicken. Brown said that “drivers” include population growth, income growth, urbanisation and better marketing.

However, “brakes” to demand include alternative meat products, such as the development of laboratory-grown meats. “There are more drivers than brakes,” Brown added.

Cases of the respiratory disease Jaagsiekte that have been diagnosed in sheep by vets and pathologists were described at last week’s event as “the tip of the iceberg” by Dr Jason Barley from the Agri Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI).

Jaagsiekte is also known as ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma (OPA) and is a fatal disease that causes abnormal or cancerous growths in the lungs. Sheep initially display symptoms of coughing with severe body condition loss and discharge from the nose seen in the latter stages of the disease.

The disease is caused by a retrovirus and is easily passed between sheep through the nasal discharge from heavily infected ewes.

“Jaagsiekte can combine with pneumonia and so sheep that have died with pneumonia can often have these infectious growths in the lungs,” Barley said.

Barley said that the disease is more prevalent than commonly thought because it is hard to diagnose as there is no blood test and deaths are often put down to pneumonia when there is also an underlying Jaagsiekte problem.

Ultrasound scanning

However, an ultrasound scanning of ewes’ chests is available from some vets to diagnose growths in lungs. Barley advised farmers to submit dead ewes for post-mortem examination to identify if there is a Jaagsiekte problem in their flock. “It is a growing problem – 3.8% of all submissions brought into AFBI laboratories in 2016 had Jaagsiekte, up from 2.2% in 2012,” he said.