Marketing lambs

Lamb quotes have improved in recent weeks, but not at the same rate as prices paid to producers. In many cases over the last week, there has been scope to negotiate higher, particularly for farmers with significant numbers on hand. There is also variance in paid carcase-weight limits secured by different producers.

Demand is currently strong with purchasing taking place to fill orders for the Christmas market. Therefore, it is worth assessing the sales avenues available and deciding if the factory, mart or direct trade with butchers /wholesalers is the best option. In some cases, it could be a combination of these for lambs that best fit different market requirements. The starting point is weighing lambs to establish the likely carcase-weight. Where presenting lambs in mart sales it is important to present lambs in uniform batches to attract maximum competition.

Nitrates warnings

The majority of sheep farmers are not at risk of exceeding the organic nitrogen limit of 170kg organic nitrogen/ha. There are some systems, particularly those run alongside intensive beef systems, where there is a higher risk of exceeding the limits. Such farmers who have their mobile number registered on the Department system will have received warnings. Where you are in doubt of exceeding the level, it is important to take action now.

This will include establishing the monthly output for sheep as the Department’s main records for sheep numbers are the annual census, which incidentally will be released 31 December 2018. The last day for submitting records of slurry exported is 31 December 2018. Credit for reduced organic nitrogen output via sheep moved to temporary grazing can only be gained by submitting Record 4 to the Department’s nitrates division on or before 31 December.

Housing hill lambs

The experience from hill-lamb finishing trials in Teagasc, Athenry, highlights the importance of closely supervising lambs when housed for finishing. Training lambs to eat meals at grass will help greatly in smoothing the transition from an outdoor to indoor environment and limit any set-back in performance. However, there will still be lambs that are slow to eat with the research in Athenry showing that there could be a small number of lambs that will take a long time to be trained to eat concentrates, while there are some that will never really become accustomed to consuming high levels of concentrates. It is important to identify these lambs at the outset so that they can be segregated and trained to eat at a different level to those being built quickly onto an intensive ad lib diet.

Silage analysis

There is huge variability in the analysis of silage, with high dry matter a feature of some first cut crops, while much of the silage saved late in the year has a low dry matter reading. There are also some reports of this late-cut silage preserving poorly. The only way of achieving an accurate reading of silage quality is by getting a sample analysed.