Lambing ease gestation length

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
I not convicned there will ever be demand for many quality dorpers rams in the UK at a true premium price as once the composites breeders have used a few there will be little reason for pure dorpers.
Apart from being aseasonal they don't do much a tried and tested shedding texel will do. I understand their appeal but can't really see how they are better 🤷
 

TGM

Member
Location
Co Down UK
Back to the discussion on weighing ewes. and efficiency. Select sheepware calculates ewe efficiency by counting back the from the lambing date. It counts back the gestation period days then looks for the closest weight to that date within a specific range. It then calculates both 56 day and 90 day ewe efficiencies. It averages over a period of up to 6 years for each ewe. The actual efficiency percentage is not so important. It's the ranking that matters so you know your most efficient ewes. This can go into the selection filter parameters along with breed, total 56 day and 90 day lamb weights, average lambs per lamb crop etc. It's not difficult to click to sort and filter and bingo you have your best performing ewes selected from which you can filter the female lambs from them as potential replacements. Fire an alert across from the software into a tag reader and then draft out these lambs. Quite straightforward.
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Data from cow scanning yesterday.

herd cows
8% empty
10% twins

scan 102%

heifers (home bred)
31% empty

heifers (bought in)
47% empty

Enterprise total scan 85%

Of the in calf cows, 88% are due first cycle. There calves will be red or black depending on bull. I’m pleased with these results and wouldn’t hesitate to mob mate at 1:32 again. Must be remembered that calving had moved back a month, so cows will have calving interval approx 395 days.

Of the in-calf heifers, 60% have taken to AI, and 40% to sweeper bulls, which makes me top heifer shagger 💪
1 cycle of AI to observed heats has had a 47% success rate. Reasonable happy with this, but plenty of room to improve.

Home bred heifers were a month+ older than the bought ins. And will be more adapted to the mineral shortages on the farm. From this year we will be mineral bolusing the cattle.
 
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TlymarT_028

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North West
Data from cow scanning yesterday.

herd cows
8% empty
10% twins

scan 102%

heifers (home bred)
31% empty

heifers (bought in)
47% empty

Enterprise total scan 85%

Of the in calf cows, 88% are due first cycle. There calves will be red or black depending on bull. I’m pleased with these results and would hesitate to mob mate at 1:32 again. Must be remembered that calving had moved back a month, so cows will have calving interval approx 395 days.

Of the in-calf heifers, 60% have taken to AI, and 40% to sweeper bulls, which makes me top heifer shagger 💪
1 cycle of AI to observed heats has had a 45% success rate. Reasonable happy with this, but plenty of room to improve.

Home bred heifers were a month+ older than the bought ins. And will be more adapted to the mineral shortages on the farm. From this year we will be mineral bolusing the cattle.

60% of heifers in to Ai is a cracking result imo 👌 sounds like you've got the system motoring on the way you would like fertility wise.

Is the 45% of heifers to hold in the 1st cycle a percentage inclusive of empties or is that just 45% of whats actually PD+?
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
60% of heifers in to Ai is a cracking result imo 👌 sounds like you've got the system motoring on the way you would like fertility wise.

Is the 45% of heifers to hold in the 1st cycle a percentage inclusive of empties or is that just 45% of whats actually PD+?

I’ve not explained that very well.

Heifers
33% empty
43% in calf to AI
24% in calf to sweeper bulls

So, of the heifers that are in calf, 60% of them are AI successes and 40% are natural service (3 bulls).

Further analysis of the data shows that 82 heifers were served with AI. 39 have taken to AI, giving a success rate of 47%. There’s still a lot of work to do fertility wise.
 
Last edited:

Rich_ard

Member
Are you happy with twins? Will you feed them differently or leave them with the reat? How many heifers have twins?
Sounds good anyway. Will the empty heifers be sold?
Edit reread it and I see no heifers are twins!
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Are you happy with twins? Will you feed them differently or leave them with the reat? How many heifers have twins?
Sounds good anyway. Will the empty heifers be sold?
Edit reread it and I see no heifers are twins!
We aim to finish everything, so empty heifers will join the fattening mob.
Undecided on twins at the moment. Debating early weaning, and preferential feeding over winter.
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
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114 ewe lambs retained to tup. Plenty of shedding going on. There will be some inverdale and myomax in here, but an opened gate at lambing meant they all got mixed.

I'll DNA test the possible after scanning. This year all empty ewe lambs will be sold.
 

MDL POWERUP

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