The Teagasc BETTER Farm hill sheep flockowners weaned their lambs over the last few weeks and the performance of the lambs is summarised in Table 1.
Overall, the performance of the flocks was good, with the average daily gain from birth to weaning with single-born and reared lambs on par with 2019.
For the flocks in the programme, getting lambs weaned on time is vital to allow decisions to be made on selling or finishing lambs and also to give the ewes sufficient time to recover condition before mating time.
The decision on how best to sell male lambs and any female lambs not selected for replacement ewes usually circles around three key variables for the flocks:
What weight are the lambs?What grass is available on the farm outside of what will be needed for the ewe flock? What prices are lambs likely to realise if sold as stores?This year has seen a comparatively strong price for store lambs in almost all areas across the country making the decision to sell lambs as stores a relatively straightforward one for most of the flocks.
However, for a couple of the flocks in the programme where there is sufficient grass and facilities available to finish lambs and there are other benefits to the farm to keeping a proportion of lambs to finish, then consideration needs to be given to finishing some lambs on the farm also.
Assessing lamb weights
The question that needs to be asked if retaining lambs is what the most suitable lambs to retain and sell are.
As presented in Table 2, the breakdown of lamb weights will vary hugely depending on the average weaning weight of the flocks.
The scenarios presented here are based on two of the BETTER Farm sheep flocks that lambed outdoors in April, had lambs on the hill during the summer and weaned on 14 August.
For Flock A, most of the lambs are less than 30kg liveweight. This means that getting these lambs to a liveweight of 35kg (where finishing off concentrates will become a potentially viable option) is going to take a lot of grass. In this situation, most of the lambs will need to be sold as store lambs even if prices drop back to levels more typically seen at this time of year as retaining them will deplete grass supplies for ewes or require excessive volumes of concentrates.
Flock B had a higher average weight at weaning and as can be seen has a high proportion of the lambs above 30kg liveweight.
A decision to potentially finish lambs where grass is available is an option if the economics of it can be stacked up against the store lamb price achievable.
Achieving the level of performance from a hill flock demonstrated by Flock B in Table 2 is a result of having a consistent breeding policy, crossbreeding an appropriate proportion of the flock and managing the hill to ensure it is in good grazing condition for ewes.
Finishing budget
An example of a typical store lamb budget that will be used by flocks is presented in Table 3.
This is based around data generated from the Teagasc store lamb calculator which is available at www.teagasc.ie. It applies to a 30kg Scottish Blackface ram lamb that would be housed in early October for finishing and which would currently be worth in the region of €2/kg if sold as a store lamb.
This example assumes the lamb still needs to be dosed and vaccinated and that lambs will need to be housed quickly to conserve grass for ewes. Every farm is different and it is important that farmers look at their own circumstances when making these decisions.
Where store lamb purchasers are concerned, then the availability of grass in the autumn and the option to bring lambs into heavier carcase weights will make finishing a more attractive option.
Strong grass growth rates were recorded across the Teagasc lowland BETTER Farm sheep farms in July and August. However, a high level of rainfall in recent weeks is presenting challenges in utilising grass on some of the wetter farms.
The flocks are generally happy with how drafting is proceeding, with rates varying across the flocks from approximately 28% up to 60% as of the third week of August. Stocking rate and pre-weaning performance accounts for some of the variation but most flocks will see these rates increase rapidly over the next few weeks.
On one of the higher-stocked farms where lamb performance up to weaning was lower than anticipated some of the lighter lambs are also being fed
Concentrates have been introduced to ram lambs on most of the farms, with the general policy across the flocks being to select the heavier ram lambs over 35kg to 38kg and feed them while they are still grazing as opposed to feeding all lambs at this stage.
On one of the higher-stocked farms where lamb performance up to weaning was lower than anticipated some of the lighter lambs are also being fed.
The lowland flocks will aim to be mating ewes for lambing next March, meaning joining of ewes and rams is fast approaching. All of the flocks have gone through their ewe flock at this stage and marked any thin ewes.
An important part of marking these thin ewes is to cull any animals that fail to regain condition before mating
These ewes have either been pulled out and put with the ewe lambs or put in group where they are getting access to good-quality grass and not being forced to graze out paddocks to allow them to regain body condition.
An important part of marking these thin ewes is to cull any animals that fail to regain condition before mating as these ewes will most likely fail to perform and it can also indicate an underlying health condition. This is especially the case if there is a significant number of ewes falling within this category.
The Teagasc BETTER Farm hill sheep flockowners weaned their lambs over the last few weeks and the performance of the lambs is summarised in Table 1.
Overall, the performance of the flocks was good, with the average daily gain from birth to weaning with single-born and reared lambs on par with 2019.
For the flocks in the programme, getting lambs weaned on time is vital to allow decisions to be made on selling or finishing lambs and also to give the ewes sufficient time to recover condition before mating time.
The decision on how best to sell male lambs and any female lambs not selected for replacement ewes usually circles around three key variables for the flocks:
What weight are the lambs?What grass is available on the farm outside of what will be needed for the ewe flock? What prices are lambs likely to realise if sold as stores?This year has seen a comparatively strong price for store lambs in almost all areas across the country making the decision to sell lambs as stores a relatively straightforward one for most of the flocks.
However, for a couple of the flocks in the programme where there is sufficient grass and facilities available to finish lambs and there are other benefits to the farm to keeping a proportion of lambs to finish, then consideration needs to be given to finishing some lambs on the farm also.
Assessing lamb weights
The question that needs to be asked if retaining lambs is what the most suitable lambs to retain and sell are.
As presented in Table 2, the breakdown of lamb weights will vary hugely depending on the average weaning weight of the flocks.
The scenarios presented here are based on two of the BETTER Farm sheep flocks that lambed outdoors in April, had lambs on the hill during the summer and weaned on 14 August.
For Flock A, most of the lambs are less than 30kg liveweight. This means that getting these lambs to a liveweight of 35kg (where finishing off concentrates will become a potentially viable option) is going to take a lot of grass. In this situation, most of the lambs will need to be sold as store lambs even if prices drop back to levels more typically seen at this time of year as retaining them will deplete grass supplies for ewes or require excessive volumes of concentrates.
Flock B had a higher average weight at weaning and as can be seen has a high proportion of the lambs above 30kg liveweight.
A decision to potentially finish lambs where grass is available is an option if the economics of it can be stacked up against the store lamb price achievable.
Achieving the level of performance from a hill flock demonstrated by Flock B in Table 2 is a result of having a consistent breeding policy, crossbreeding an appropriate proportion of the flock and managing the hill to ensure it is in good grazing condition for ewes.
Finishing budget
An example of a typical store lamb budget that will be used by flocks is presented in Table 3.
This is based around data generated from the Teagasc store lamb calculator which is available at www.teagasc.ie. It applies to a 30kg Scottish Blackface ram lamb that would be housed in early October for finishing and which would currently be worth in the region of €2/kg if sold as a store lamb.
This example assumes the lamb still needs to be dosed and vaccinated and that lambs will need to be housed quickly to conserve grass for ewes. Every farm is different and it is important that farmers look at their own circumstances when making these decisions.
Where store lamb purchasers are concerned, then the availability of grass in the autumn and the option to bring lambs into heavier carcase weights will make finishing a more attractive option.
Strong grass growth rates were recorded across the Teagasc lowland BETTER Farm sheep farms in July and August. However, a high level of rainfall in recent weeks is presenting challenges in utilising grass on some of the wetter farms.
The flocks are generally happy with how drafting is proceeding, with rates varying across the flocks from approximately 28% up to 60% as of the third week of August. Stocking rate and pre-weaning performance accounts for some of the variation but most flocks will see these rates increase rapidly over the next few weeks.
On one of the higher-stocked farms where lamb performance up to weaning was lower than anticipated some of the lighter lambs are also being fed
Concentrates have been introduced to ram lambs on most of the farms, with the general policy across the flocks being to select the heavier ram lambs over 35kg to 38kg and feed them while they are still grazing as opposed to feeding all lambs at this stage.
On one of the higher-stocked farms where lamb performance up to weaning was lower than anticipated some of the lighter lambs are also being fed.
The lowland flocks will aim to be mating ewes for lambing next March, meaning joining of ewes and rams is fast approaching. All of the flocks have gone through their ewe flock at this stage and marked any thin ewes.
An important part of marking these thin ewes is to cull any animals that fail to regain condition before mating
These ewes have either been pulled out and put with the ewe lambs or put in group where they are getting access to good-quality grass and not being forced to graze out paddocks to allow them to regain body condition.
An important part of marking these thin ewes is to cull any animals that fail to regain condition before mating as these ewes will most likely fail to perform and it can also indicate an underlying health condition. This is especially the case if there is a significant number of ewes falling within this category.
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