- Location
- West Wales
After spending so much time on them I do to.. I just know a lot about them
Any reports from Builth ?
- Thread starter andybk
- Start date
CharcoalWally
Member
- Location
- West of Scotland
This may be true when a breeder becomes established, but when starting off on a forage breeding programme, if the sheep aren't offered as an alternative to the "traditional " route, ie, they're not " highly fed sales rams, " then I think a lot of commercial customers would be a little nonplussed , as I'm pretty sure that's what they first buy into.
When rams are offered as forage reared, I'm fairly sure that in itself is an attempt to differentiate the product?
After spending so much time on them I do to.. I just know a lot about them
The high point was watching a Tractor Pull at Llandeilo Show. Two Joskins we’re discussing the event I found totally boring afterwards. “It’s a hell of a weight see” and I couldn’t resist “yes! They needed f**king tractors to move it!”
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
So are you guys that are saying that you should only buy ‘proper rams’ sugggesting that the shearlings you see at the big ram sales, that have been on 8, 10, 12lbs of coarse a day (highest i’ve Heard claimed from a breeder was 14lb/day!), are going to breed fat lambs that will necessarily grow and finish better on a cheap forage diet?
), are going to breed fat lambs that will necessarily grow and finish better on a cheap forage diet?Guess your gonna have to creep the lambs as well.So are you guys that are saying that you should only buy ‘proper rams’ sugggesting that the shearlings you see at the big ram sales, that have been on 8, 10, 12lbs of coarse a day (highest i’ve Heard claimed from a breeder was 14lb/day!
So are you guys that are saying that you should only buy ‘proper rams’ sugggesting that the shearlings you see at the big ram sales, that have been on 8, 10, 12lbs of coarse a day (highest i’ve Heard claimed from a breeder was 14lb/day!
What difference does feeding coarse mix make per se? What if they were strip grazing cabbage? Protein is protein is protein.
I’d be more concerned with type than what they ate tbh. Some of the really big fat shearlings just grow frame in their first year. If you want 55-60kg lambs you can’t finish put that type on Mules...
Plenty of evangelical grass types feeding lambs to finish them this year. I’d rather give them a good start and get them away when their conversion rate is high, but each to their own.
It’s funny, I was at a stabiliser breed open day, and amongst the things Mr Leachman said was the fact that the bulls that perform best on the intensive diet still produce the top performing cows - which would not be ran intensively.So are you guys that are saying that you should only buy ‘proper rams’ sugggesting that the shearlings you see at the big ram sales, that have been on 8, 10, 12lbs of coarse a day (highest i’ve Heard claimed from a breeder was 14lb/day!
I would think that that is really common sense,the fastest growing calve or lamb would be the fastest growing no matter what system they are on and as growth is very heritable it would usually follow that their offspring would be fast growing as well.
This is TFF heresy. There’s no correlation between performance on grass and performance on any other feed or performance on a mixture of grass and any other feed. Don’t you know anything
I just like to add a touch of realityThis is TFF heresy. There’s no correlation between performance on grass and performance on any other feed or performance on a mixture of grass and any other feed. Don’t you know anything
So are you guys that are saying that you should only buy ‘proper rams’ sugggesting that the shearlings you see at the big ram sales, that have been on 8, 10, 12lbs of coarse a day (highest i’ve Heard claimed from a breeder was 14lb/day!
I’m not but then again I’m not obsessed with your “cheap forage diet”. You actualy remind me of someone who has given up smoking. They hiss me off when I hear them preaching to someone who still chooses to smoke.
It’s no wonder the market reports keep banging on about finishing lambs properly when twits can’t see concentrates have their place.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I wholeheartedly agree, concentrates have their place. When there is a shortage of (much cheaper) grazed forage, or the animal’s genetics mean that finishing off that grazed stuff is impossible, then concentrates are absolutely a useful tool.
To select animals that thrive on high concentrate diets, which breed animals that only thrive on high concentrate diets, is a recipe for keeping your mate Tim (whoever he might be) in work though, IME. Taken to extremes, that’s where the Suffolks went, and why they have dropped from the (vastly) most popular terminal sire in the UK. Selective breeding and a connection with the real world of fat lamb production (from green stuff) could have prevented that fall from grace.
Grass is cheap...
What’s Land per acre to buy
What is it to rent
How much BPS do you get
How much could you get for letting somebody else graze your grass
How much capital are you sitting on that could be put into stocks and shares or rented houses
Does anybody who says grass is cheap factor this income or capital foregone into their figures
(These are all rhetorical questions by the way, I don’t want to know your business)
What about diesel for manuring, rolling, harrowing, hedge cutting, liming, fertilising, topping, harvesting, reseeding, spraying
Fertiliser, lime, sprays, seeds
And the daddy of them all, labour for moving electric fences daily...
Well said.
- Location
- Devon
And labour feeding concentrates doesn't count?
So if I send you some sheep to keep for me, you'd charge me the same per head per week if they were on grass as if they were on ad lib concentrates?
- Location
- Devon
I do get your point however. But I still think grass is generally the cheapest feed.
Example of an exception to this - paying £1 / week for keep for lambs as some of the Welsh contingent tell us is normal. Personally I'd rather keep them home and feed them when it gets to those sort of levels.
Example of an exception to this - paying £1 / week for keep for lambs as some of the Welsh contingent tell us is normal. Personally I'd rather keep them home and feed them when it gets to those sort of levels.
Have I had to buy the land or have I inherited it?
Concentrates are a good management tool for optimising stocking rates in our climate. They’re not the work of the devil. Grass isn’t as cheap as people think.
- Location
- Devon
But it doesn’t grow all year, so you have to:
- Keep less sheep
- Pay to winter them elsewhere
- Put up a shed and feed concentrates
Expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for farmers published
Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer from July will give the sector a clear path forward and boost farm business resilience.
From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024
Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...
From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024
Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...