Weather challenges

Continued torrential rainfall and waterlogged soils create a very challenging position for managing outwintered ewes and lambs. Grass utilisation has dropped to 50-60%, with dry matter also reducing.

This means ewes in mid-pregnancy will require upwards of 2kg grass dry matter to meet maintenance demands. On most farms this is only really possible where there is access to temporary grazing, or there is a very low stocking rate and deferred grazing is still available.

With current weather hard on sheep, it is therefore critical to assess feed supplies and not delay introducing supplementary feed outdoors or housing ewes.

In terms of forage volumes required, a lowland ewe will require 1kg to 1.2kg medium-quality silage on a dry matter basis in mid-pregnancy to meet maintenance demands.

This equates to 5kg to 6kg freshweight at 20% dry matter, or 3kg to 4kg haylage at 30% dry matter.

With many farms housing ewes earlier it is also wise to keep track of feed supplies. As a rule of thumb, 10 ewes will consume 1t of pit silage at 25% dry matter every 25 days or 1.2t each month.

For 4 x 4 round bales, 10 ewes will consume one round bale of silage weighing 650kg at 30% dry matter every 20 days (50 ewes will eat a bale every four days). Ewes will consume higher quality and precision chop silage faster.

Finishing lambs

There have been numerous reports in recent weeks of farmers who purchase store lambs to clean off grazing ground, or farmers who avail of temporary grazing being seriously disappointed at how lambs have performed.

Where lambs have not received concentrate supplementation they will have done well to have satisfied maintenance needs and held condition.

A finishing plan needs to be quickly implemented for such lambs as, similar to described above for ewes, the flesh cover will quickly fall off lambs where grass reserves are depleted.

A concentrate feeding level of 0.4kg to 0.6kg, or higher, will be required just to meet maintenance requirements depending on conditions / forage supplies. Where underfoot conditions are poor, there will be a significant benefit gained from housing lambs for finishing.

The increase in concentrate costs and sustained pressure on lamb prices is leaving the economics of finishing lambs in an even more precarious position. At a cost of €450/t a lamb consuming an average of 1.15kg concentrates daily is costing over 50c per day on feed costs alone.

Taking an average daily liveweight gain (DLW) of 250g per day, a kill-out of 45% and a lamb price of €6.40/kg, the value of carcase gain is in the region of 70c per day. This is taking good levels of performance.

If the DLW gain drops to 200g or 150g, then the value of carcase gain will fall to 57c and 43c, respectively. This stresses the importance of achieving high levels of performance, moving lambs once performance has plateaued and avoiding feeding lambs to carcase weights you are not getting paid for.

CAP information meeting

The Irish Farmers Journal, supported by AIB and the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine will hold our next CAP Information Meeting on Tuesday 17 January in the Great National Hotel in Ballina, Co. Mayo at 7.30pm.

The event will discuss changes to the Basic Payment Scheme under the CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027, including case studies. It will also explain a number of new schemes being introduced under the next CAP. Register at www.ifj.ie/register.