Farmer Roy's Random Thoughts - I never said it was easy.

unlacedgecko said:

I think the biggest challenge in the UK would be having large enough numbers under control to cull them properly.

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Sheep farmers, or sheep?

I certainly don't struggle to come up with culls, with under 30 ewes, even some of the hoggets are on their first strike.
It's more my job to get rid of anything below the average than to feed it, isn't that simply management plans in action?

Would you give your breeding stock some "eXtra" to get them to flush to produce a lamb that they otherwise wouldn't conceive/rear to weaning?
Seems plenty will.... the same ones who reckon a lamb should be worth much much more.

Then you have the starving millions in the world who don't have a digital rostrum to weep from.... there are not as many million sheep farmers on the globe as there are, malnourished and starved people

Farmer Roy said:

nah, im conscious of holding back & not going full throttle, in case I offend anyone . . .

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I suppose that's the good thing about being an newbie outsider - because I don't understand things from bygone times anyway, so cannot therefore take "A Fence" at things anyone will say on here.

Getting far too old for worrying about trivial things like that

Kiwi Pete said:

Sheep farmers, or sheep?

I certainly don't struggle to come up with culls, with under 30 ewes, even some of the hoggets are on their first strike.
It's more my job to get rid of anything below the average than to feed it, isn't that simply management plans in action?

Would you give your breeding stock some "eXtra" to get them to flush to produce a lamb that they otherwise wouldn't conceive/rear to weaning?
Seems plenty will.... the same ones who reckon a lamb should be worth much much more.

Then you have the starving millions in the world who don't have a digital rostrum to weep from.... there are not as many million sheep farmers on the globe as there are, malnourished and starved people

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Sheep.

I was reading about Mount Linton Station. In 2007 they had an elite maternal breeding flock of 400 2 tooth ewes. They started with 10,000 ewe lambs.

That sort of thing excites me. As does their no drenching policy for adult ewes. But could it be replicated at 1/10th the scale? And still remain economically viable?

Ukjay said:

From a learning point of view - are there enough good genetics around to start a small flock of not your run of the mill breeds?

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Definitely, no shortage of extremely functional and prolific sheep, everywhere.

Your choice really depends on how well you can feed them over the year, in that respect you certainly have the diversity to be able to source the right genetics.

I have hill type sheep here, try to feed them consistently and they look after me - it really isn't rocket science despite the claims - it is what issues you see and how you address them, that is the problematic part, in my experience.... bandaids become recurring, often habitual expenditure

So your 'non run of the mill' breed of choice is not really limited, just buy from the right people for the right reasons, is my advice.

Steer clear of animals from a "better" (i.e. worse?) farm system than your own, as per my above posts re. selection pressure, as your taxpayer is still "flushing the ewes" if you catch my drift?

unlacedgecko said:

Sheep.

I was reading about Mount Linton Station. In 2007 they had an elite maternal breeding flock of 400 2 tooth ewes. They started with 10,000 ewe lambs.

That sort of thing excites me. As does their no drenching policy for adult ewes. But could it be replicated at 1/10th the scale? And still remain economically viable?

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@Tim W is close to if not already there on the worming front.

Kiwi Pete said:

Definitely, no shortage of extremely functional and prolific sheep, everywhere.

Your choice really depends on how well you can feed them over the year, in that respect you certainly have the diversity to be able to source the right genetics.

I have hill type sheep here, try to feed them consistently and they look after me - it really isn't rocket science despite the claims - it is what issues you see and how you address them, that is the problematic part, in my experience.... bandaids become recurring, often habitual expenditure

So your 'non run of the mill' breed of choice is not really limited, just buy from the right people for the right reasons, is my advice.

Steer clear of animals from a "better" (i.e. worse?) farm system than your own, as per my above posts re. selection pressure, as your taxpayer is still "flushing the ewes" if you catch my drift?

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Strangely, I actually understood a lot of that

For me though, I will have to find a good honest farmer to help me understand the finer detail of selection of my stock conformation etc (will not be many), as I am only currently looking for non mechanical lawn care and some food for our freezer until I have experience - but as I have never been involved with stock before, it is an easy fall for a novice like myself if nit careful - especially when some full time old hands make mistakes.

unlacedgecko said:

Sheep.

I was reading about Mount Linton Station. In 2007 they had an elite maternal breeding flock of 400 2 tooth ewes. They started with 10,000 ewe lambs.

That sort of thing excites me. As does their no drenching policy for adult ewes. But could it be replicated at 1/10th the scale? And still remain economically viable?

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You can still select your best 4 from 100 or 1000, it depends on your criteria.
And likewise, although scale has the dilution advantage, as long as the rejects have a good value (which Mount Linton's flock certainly will) then there is no disadvantage to heavy culling/selling as long as it is timed well.
Eg my cull ewes will be worth as much as 1.5 lambs so there is no financial reason to keep them, other than to cycle carbon.

There's no reason large scale management paradigms cannot be scaled down and down, we are proof of that; that is the whole point of doing what we do on our smallholding - it is an adaptive ranch type system, not a farm type system.

We are about a tenth of the average area around here, and the farm is certainly no worse off. My stock are cheaper, if anything!

(I have drenched ewes since we moved here, but certainly not our own ones, old mate keeps me employed on the sheepwork front as his grazing management is pretty sh!t)

I’ve been lucky enough to have spent a bit of time on various cattle stations - NT and QLD.
I don’t recognise the intentional cruelty that @Blaithin has described at all.
Sure, cull the cow and calf (non maternal unit) but there were always ‘poddy’ groups on the places I’ve been due to such circumstances when they have cropped up, like this case of calf abandonment, and something was able to be done. They wouldn’t be intended to join the breeding herd. The Cow should be picked up as ‘dry’ and either speyed or simply sold with culls post weaning/marking.
Managing 30k or more head is all about the mob not the individual. You have to manage time and resources always in light of the bigger picture. In the ‘Wet’, you may not see them for months. It’s a more ‘natural’ system enabling more natural selection pressure simply because human are less able to feck it up due to scale.

unlacedgecko said:

Sheep.

I was reading about Mount Linton Station. In 2007 they had an elite maternal breeding flock of 400 2 tooth ewes. They started with 10,000 ewe lambs.

That sort of thing excites me. As does their no drenching policy for adult ewes. But could it be replicated at 1/10th the scale? And still remain economically viable?

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It might be easier and viable to be that hard on ram lambs for a flock thst small. I can't see how that would be viable even on that scale unless the ewe lambs that are kept are breeding high value ram lambs? and were do they get more replacement ewe lambs from? If they are all being culled and sent to kill then the flock they chose the 10,000 from will be drastically reduced very quickly. What will they replace them with? The farm needs to be stocked with something after all. Doesn't mean they can't breed the cull ewe lambs to terminal sires if the stocking rate looks to be going too low for the farm. I think the quote i found from the other thread is basically the same argument I think. It's easy to say cull everything but you still need stock to farm from somewhere. 5 minutes trimming and a jab of terramycin looks cheap when you need £50(?) on top of cull value to replace the ewe you just culled. As long as replacements aren't kept from them I don't see a problem keeping them. As long as you look at it as a long game and keep improving what you have.
Pete is in a bit of a different position to me. He could cull most of his ewes and can just replace them with store lambs or cattle. He could probably find better ewes than he culled to buy too. It's not so easy over here (but not impossible) I don't buy stores so i need the borderline keeper ewes to produce lambs or I wouldn't have anything to stock my farm with after the ewes have been culled but I keep seeing less and less ewes I don't like and less problems every year so what I'm doing is working. Eventually I will be able to cull everything I don't like too
I don't think there is a one size fits all. You will have to find what works for you and the stock you have available.
@Ukjay there's plenty of stock to choose from. Keep it simple buy some older draft hill ewes they haven't been fiddled with as much as most other breeds have and can get in with life by themselves

unlacedgecko said:

But those type of genetics aren’t solely found south of the equator.

There is such a huge pool of genetic potential in the UK. They just need to be managed in a way to select the right ones for the task.

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Breeding stock needs to be selected under pressure to ensure it's worth a damn
That's why although we may have 2500 ram lambs every year we only consider keeping the very best ---we sold about 100 this year and have orders for more , it's tempting to lower the standards to fulfill these orders but would do nobody any good in the long run

It's also why after 7 years breeding Charollais I have yet to produce anything that can make it through alongside the Exlanas
Almost without exception any Charollais i have bought in has failed to be productive ---why? Because even the ''grass fed'' boys don't push the potential ram lambs as they should , they need to;
1) Forget about mineral supplements---we need sheep that can do without them
2) Push the worm burdens up to 800EPG and then sample and select to see who can cope
3) Feed them on sparse old pasture and see who copes

Rearing a grass fed ram lamb on a constant 4 inches of grass is easy---try it when you have blips in the system that produce hungry times ---then see who survives
These animals will then go on to thrive in any environment

I spent the afternoon culling ewes and had to kill one ewe to prevent her suffering.
I was mouthing my older ewes to sell broken mouthed sheep tomorrow. A couple that did not look as good went as well. I also culled out one of my rams that had not grown big enough. Got 130 to sell.
One good big fat ewe jumped out of the race a broke her leg. I spent a bit of time getting it strait in a piece of Polly pipe and taping it up. This usually works fine and the leg heals perfectly. As soon as I let her go she walked on it and as she weighs more than I can lift she wreaked it strait away. I then had to go home and get a gun to kill her. I had to get my 11 and 14 year old daughters to help me get her into the ute. The kids helped me gut her and I now have the job of cutting her up in the morning before the flies get going. Not a job I planned, but can’t waste good meat. Interesting to see what a 5 yo Merino ewe tastes like.

Steel said:

I spent the afternoon culling ewes and had to kill one ewe to prevent her suffering.
I was mouthing my older ewes to sell broken mouthed sheep tomorrow. A couple that did not look as good went as well. I also culled out one of my rams that had not grown big enough. Got 130 to sell.
One good big fat ewe jumped out of the race a broke her leg. I spent a bit of time getting it strait in a piece of Polly pipe and taping it up. This usually works fine and the leg heals perfectly. As soon as I let her go she walked on it and as she weighs more than I can lift she wreaked it strait away. I then had to go home and get a gun to kill her. I had to get my 11 and 14 year old daughters to help me get her into the ute. The kids helped me gut her and I now have the job of cutting her up in the morning before the flies get going. Not a job I planned, but can’t waste good meat. Interesting to see what a 5 yo Merino ewe tastes like.

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How heavy is a mature merino ewe?

unlacedgecko said:

How heavy is a mature merino ewe?

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60 to 70 kg, but this one seemed much heavier.

CornishTone said:

I do agree with some of that. I’ve been shooting with work colleagues and, I think I’ve told the tale before, they came across a family of Emus (1 adult and 8-10 chicks) and wiped the lot of them out... slowly with poorly aimed shots. I’ve seen them gut shoot roo’s and just leave them to die. I wouldn’t even do that to a rabbit and did take the rifle off one of them and finish the job off with a the appropriate amount of name calling!

I think with livestock there is a level of pragmatism that means they would rather let nature take its course than intervene, thus leaving more hardy genes. I Kiwi friend of mine back home is pretty bloody ruthless with his sheep. Any problems with feet, lambing etc and they go as soon as it practical. I’m not as livestock savvy so tend not to get involved in your livestock related discussions but that’s the impression I get. Margins are tight here so everything is to stand on its own 4 feet to some extent.

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My neighbour is a professional hunting guide. He spends his summers in the North leading hunting parties for bear and carriboo and around here he hunts moose and deer. He says he won’t allow people to shoot unless they will kill. Some ‘hunters’ are yahoos who know nothing and if given a chance some of these morons will shoot an animal numerous times, starting with the legs to cripple them. This is being a ‘real man’. Even the abbatoir has told me about this. Luckily it is a small minority .there is something very skewered in the way some people view nature and animals, makes me glad we no longer use horses unless we want to. The level of abuse must have been terrible in the past.

Crofter64 said:

My neighbour is a professional hunting guide. He spends his summers in the North leading hunting parties for bear and carriboo and around here he hunts moose and deer. He says he won’t allow people to shoot unless they will kill. Some ‘hunters’ are yahoos who know nothing and if given a chance some of these morons will shoot an animal numerous times, starting with the legs to cripple them. This is being a ‘real man’. Even the abbatoir has told me about this. Luckily it is a small minority .there is something very skewered in the way some people view nature and animals, makes me glad we no longer use horses unless we want to. The level of abuse must have been terrible in the past.

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That’s bad.

But my understanding with larger bears is that it is good practice to shoot a hip out first, to anchor the animal in place?

unlacedgecko said:

That’s bad.

But my understanding with larger bears is that it is good practice to shoot a hip out first, to anchor the animal in place?

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The multiple shootings are motly on cariboo, so far as I’ve heard. You don’t want to monkey about with bears. My neighbour likes to get them down quick.

I recently went camping and hunting with a mate and his sons. With our licencing system you can only own A class firearms (rimfires) on an A lisence and that is all he had. They were happy to shoot at animals they were unlikely to kill. I have an A B license so mostly use centrefires and don’t shoot unless I am sure I can kill the animal.
I tried to tell him I thought his use of a 22 was not ethical and he needed to upgrade his license.

Ukjay said:

Strangely, I actually understood a lot of that

For me though, I will have to find a good honest farmer to help me understand the finer detail of selection of my stock conformation etc (will not be many), as I am only currently looking for non mechanical lawn care and some food for our freezer until I have experience - but as I have never been involved with stock before, it is an easy fall for a novice like myself if nit careful - especially when some full time old hands make mistakes.

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Having a blank canvas and an open mind are worth more than a head full of ways things "should" be done, IMHO.

f**k me I have spent years trying to unlearn things and stop doing things the "right" way.

Long old job, but we're winning...

Crofter64 said:

My neighbour is a professional hunting guide. He spends his summers in the North leading hunting parties for bear and carriboo and around here he hunts moose and deer. He says he won’t allow people to shoot unless they will kill. Some ‘hunters’ are yahoos who know nothing and if given a chance some of these morons will shoot an animal numerous times, starting with the legs to cripple them. This is being a ‘real man’. Even the abbatoir has told me about this. Luckily it is a small minority .there is something very skewered in the way some people view nature and animals, makes me glad we no longer use horses unless we want to. The level of abuse must have been terrible in the past.

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I once heard a tale about a game keeper that had a big paying client who had had a bad day pheasant shooting. Clearly he had plenty of money but hadn’t been taught how to behave with it. At the end of the day, when he hadn’t managed to hit anything, he demanded to shoot the pheasants out of the trees once they’d roosted so he could get his money’s worth. He was told to get f**ked!

Alas there will always be “that type” of people. There just needs to be the right people around them to tell them to get f**ked!

I’m sure there was terrible abuse in the past, just as there is today. Standards were different back then of course, imagine pit ponies being used today?!?!?!

I’m always in awe of the soldiers of the Australian Light Horse who, having ridden their horses through the war, only to be told they couldn’t be taken back home. Very few could afford to buy “their” horse and have it shipped home, so many chose to take them for one last ride and shoot them themselves rather than leave them to be sold to the highest bidder for meat or a life of drudgery.

Yes, there was no doubt terrible cruelty but also enormous respect I think.

texas pete said:

Having a blank canvas and an open mind are worth more than a head full of ways things "should" be done, IMHO.

fudge me I have spent years trying to unlearn things and stop doing things the "right" way.

Long old job, but we're winning...

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That made me chuckle

I suppose the iminant hurdle for us, after all the previous hurdles were crashing through at the minute in preparation, is getting our heads around what constitutes a good from a bad conformation of a sheep breed.

A lot I suppose can be hidden under a fleece for the untrained eye, and what I, as a newby could be duped into thinking is a good un - could potentially turn out to be a disease riddled scrounging bundle of wooly shite, that you wouldn't want to feed to the hunt dogs, let alone breed from to build a small flock...

Having said that, the challenge is there and that is what we wish to do (against a lot of odds), but hopefully it will turn out good once we find someone to give us some pointers..