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The lamb drafting pattern is coming back on track on Tullamore Farm.
Early weaning, followed by a sustained drought period, significantly hit performance earlier in the year, which in turn pushed out finishing dates and hampered the normal drafting pattern.
Lamb performance has improved markedly in recent weeks and farm manager Shaun Diver has seen a noticeable improvement in the flesh cover on lambs and daily liveweight gain.
Lambs drafted this week
There were 51 lambs drafted for slaughter on Thursday, including 33 ram lambs and 18 ewe lambs.
The lambs which were marketed through the Offaly Quality Lamb Producer Group and slaughtered in Irish Country Meats Camolin achieved an average carcase weight of 20.63kg and sale price of €109.21.
Shaun continues to excel in terms of selecting lambs for slaughter, with all lambs recording a fat class of 3.
As can be seen in Table 1 below, there was also very little free meat handed over to factories, with lambs drafted on a combination of weight and fat cover.
The aim is to maximise carcase weight while preventing lambs going into fat class 4 and also drafting lambs which have reached their optimum liveweight and are recording lower performance.
Retaining these lambs for longer than is required is a poor use of feed and resources.
Average weight
The average drafting weight of ram lambs was 47.29kg, with an average kill-out percentage of 45%.
This is positive average weight performance, but it should also be highlighted that there is a significant variation in the slaughter performance of ram lambs in particular.
Some strong ram lambs expressing a lot of Mule characteristics killed as low as 40% to 42%, while better-quality Texel-cross-Mule lambs and younger Charollais-cross-Texel lambs born to yearling hoggets achieved a kill-out of up to 48% to 50%.
Farmers should be mindful of this when making their own drafting decisions.
Breeding preparations
It is now less than three weeks before breeding and Shaun is focused on ensuring ewes are in prime condition for joining with rams.
Ewes are being offered better-quality grass in the runup to breeding, while ewes received routine footbathing while in for a mineral drench.
The latter will also satisfy the requirements of the Sheep Welfare Scheme.
It is also planned to plunge dip all ewes over the next week to 10 days using a mobile plunge dipping service.
Ewe lambs are also well on track for breeding, having received their vaccination for enzootic abortion and toxoplasmosis.
Heifer sale
Don't forget Tullamore Farm's sale of top-quality in-calf heifers takes place on 21 October in Roscrea Mart.
Heifers are eligible for the BDGP scheme replacement index targets fast approaching on 31 October.
All are in-calf to AI sires or the Salers stock bull and possess a high health status.
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