Mob Breeding sheep !

ringi said:

How many ewes per hectare can be run on your region 3 land without buying in feed? How large do the farms tend to be?

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I run 1400 ewes and 90 cows, don't buy any feed but I have 400acres of region 1 as well. If I only had the region 3 I don't think I could run very much at all without buying feed. Maybe around 300 pure Shetlands and expect lambing percentage to be be under 100%

ringi said:

If keeping many more replacements then normal, why not cull ewes based on size at 2nd topping?

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I go the other way, keeping as few replacements as necessary to limit bought in replacement feed like hay and concentrates. It's part of how I intend to maximise forage production.

ritchiekirkland said:

I kinda get that . Best are often singles . I don’t keep any singles . Most of my ”best” ewe lambs are killed first draw , rightly or wrongly . Rightly in my book.

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Yeah, continuously keeping the big ewe lambs results in bigger ewes than necessary. Essentially it's selection based on weaning weight by eye.

Kullands Björn said:

This is hardly a problem with sheep. Most suckler cows are too big considering what the best paid slaughter animal needs to weigh, but the most common case with lambs is that it is challenging to get them to the best paid weight.

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I think it is a problem, @ringi post below sets out why. Quality and quantity of forage is an issue on this farm at the present time. If performance were the only issue then I would simply fill them to the gunnels with concentrates. So as a store lamb seller currently I need to focus on making something out of very little. I'd like to be where James Rebanks is, feeding no hay or concentrates and having ewes that can manage twins on forage.

I agree with the cows. To relate the point to sheep, it's the frame size of the adult ewe, who must survive and thrive on this place all year, that I am thinking of.

ringi said:

Because oversized ewes need more feed over winter and winter feed is the limiting factor on many of these farms. So select replacement and rams on growth rate while culling to stop ewes increasing in size.

Clearly if DNA parentage was cheep enough then EBV would be better.

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On starting out mob breeding.

I have an older flock for a number of reasons. Last year I selected 2/3rd of the females for breeding based on no obvious faults in the ewes condition, mouths, or feet on that day. The rest of the females are either replacements that are too young yet to breed for this environment or "also ran's" I won't breed due to faults and I'm just keeping for flock numbers.

They have not been recorded! But, they have lived here for a long time in terms of the lifespan of a sheep. The rams I used have been bought in, from a different area of the country in terms of soil type.

Given the information above, will 2024's crop of ram lambs be a "good enough" starting point to select from as breeding stock for November 2024, or should I continue on with buying in rams - the issue I have with that is many of the ewes that are now in lamb won't be here in 2 and 3 years time, imo. So getting to a ewe with 3 years recording of births as a minimum could take 5-6 years.

JohnGalway said:

I go the other way, keeping as few replacements as necessary to limit bought in replacement feed like hay and concentrates. It's part of how I intend to maximise forage production

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What if:

• the flock is split into a "A flock" and a "B flock".
• (I expect about 1/3 in A flock)
• All replacements and rams lambs come from the A flock.
• "Culling" an ewe in the A flock results in it being moved to B flock.
• Best 80% of ewe lambs from A flock are kept as replacements
• (Terminal rams could be used on B flock)

JohnGalway said:

will 2024's crop of ram lambs be a "good enough" starting point to select from as breeding stock for November 2024, or should I continue on with buying in rams

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What evidence do you have on the quality of the genetics of the rams you are buying in?

ringi said:

What if:

• the flock is split into a "A flock" and a "B flock".
• (I expect about 1/3 in A flock)
• All replacements and rams lambs come from the A flock.
• "Culling" an ewe in the A flock results in it being moved to B flock.
• Best 80% of ewe lambs from A flock are kept as replacements
• (Terminal rams could be used on B flock)

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Flock A will be too small for the age profile of the existing flock. For want of a better description one of my goals, or rather a system I see as better for my own context, is having as few groups of animals as possible. Therefore it's one breeding group I aim for. However, with recording, which I used to do (nothing official) I can still have an A and B flock in one group once I stay recording.

ringi said:

What evidence do you have on the quality of the genetics of the rams you are buying in?

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None, but I never have had so it doesn't overly bother me. What does bother me is a lot of breeders I have had dealings with have not been honest about their animals. Another issue is the transition a bought in animal must make in terms of adjusting to the challenges of their new environment. This includes maternal and terminal rams bought locally and further afield. If I can mob breed, that solves all kinds of problems, cost being a distant relative to other issues experienced.

JohnGalway said:

None, but I never have had so it doesn't overly bother me. What does bother me is a lot of breeders I have had dealings with have not been honest about their animals.

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Then I expect choosing between your ram lambs that come from problem free ewes and have all been kept in same system and born within a few weeks of each other would be no worce then buying these rams in, while giving you lower biosecurity risks.

Using all but the worce ram lambs seems a good risk reduction if having limited data.

here looking at records a few things show up
hoggets here have a higher mating above 43 kg used to be 40 kg but higher amount of drys in the 40-43 kg group
we just use scanning data for ewes as lamb on hills cant match back to ewes numbers born etc etc

hogget lambing data ummm not realy seeing a major trend I know one place all there drys as hoggets go in the B flock there B flock mostly out scans there A flock

2 and 4 tooth data if taking the avg (dont scan triplets yet ) a 1.5 or 2 avg ewe will tend to stay up in the higher group
6 tooth realy confirms if going to breed well

we should be selling 4 tooth ewes if had 2 singles cheeper to keep a twinning ewe over a single if having to feed her with brought in feed also lower costs with shearing etc with lower wintering numbers

a A and B flock system good if things get tough the B flock can be picked over to cull out of
we have a sell mob with lites and repeat singles in it all off spring sold out of them mated to poorer rams

2 tooth twins ewe lambs kept out of them but it's risky as not eneff data on them , 4 tooth and above can only have 1 single in there life time to say in the group the bulk of ewe lambs kept from lite ewes removed out of them as well
in a nut sell main ewes have to be
over 60 kg with good fat cover so avg of ewes at mating around 70-72 kg only had 1 single in life time 2 tooth and older no faults feet teeth jaws wool blind etc etc

all single lambs sold along with any ewe lambs under 30 kg at weaning but I feel thats a bit light but some have good geans and grow once off mum if not culled in next weigh up

rams here run at around 1-40 should be 1-100/1-150 going by the book but would make the gean pool a bit small and as it is some times rams brought in same fathers used for years and used for years here so the risk of fathers over daughters is quite high now I think on it

far as recording goes the data is realy what suits your system and what key dates or time frame is inportant to your system and what gains want to be made
ie if weaning weight ave of flock at 100 days was 29 kg then every thing over that weight should be lifting the odds of higher weaning weight avg ram lambs I would say 3-4 kg higher over time that weight should be lifted to hopefully lift gains

JD-Kid said:

we should be selling 4 tooth ewes if had 2 singles cheeper to keep a twinning ewe over a single if having to feed her with brought in feed also lower costs with shearing etc with lower wintering numbers

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I think that is a very important message. Will also result in more of the replacements comming from ewes that scan twins.

Do you record live births or scanning agaist the ewe?

What is the relative cost of keeping an ewe for a year compared to cost of overwintering an additional ewe lamb?

ringi said:

I think that is a very important message. Will also result in more of the replacements comming from ewes that scan twins.

Do you record live births or scanning agaist the ewe?

What is the relative cost of keeping an ewe for a year compared to cost of overwintering an additional ewe lamb?

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yea try to keep replacements out of twin ewes with a longer record time and also longer time to pick up some faults as well I guess

record only scanning data and keep it as life data for each year with ewe info type of sire and type of dam
weight at mating as a hogget and also did keep over all daily gain to mating but to be fair that did not show up much as far as lambing as a hogget or rest of there life

use a XR 5000 head unit and spread sheet to do most of the the stuff
data on ewes
year born
sire /dam types
hogget mating weight
OADG to mating
hogget scan
scan per year
2 and 4 tooth scan combined
6 tooth scan
breed type based on wool as to what mating group
mate group be it high ,low or sells with in breed group
lamb group what mob to lamb in that year
avg of scans over life time not counting hogget scan

a lot of data on them to be fair some just to make it easy with auto drafter as to what mobs for set stocking along with number to work out what paddocks for them etc
alot of people here say about the cost of a eid tag to me it's the best returning investment in our flock not only in higher lambing % but also higher gains at weaning by harder culling based on knowing numbers

we graze off any light ewe lambs that can't be mated due to being under 43 kg cost about 2 dollars a week on grass or 3 dollars a week on crops just have to do the stock health grazer moves them etc I know some guys that send ewe lambs away at weaning getting them back a year later ball park cost over 100 dollars add in cost of ewe lamb say 90 dollars thats a 190 dollar 2 tooth with no income unless mated (wool might cover shearing cost )
BUT meaning all ewes on place can be lambed and not needing good feed to fill out ewe lambs so can be used on fat lambs also keep ewes in better order so lambing % stays high

scary thing is looked at twin ewes vs singles best twining ewes pre wean were 69 kg lamb per ewe some of the lower singles were 30 kg per ewe at $2.50 per kg live weight as a store and low price for wool all the single ewes would be running at a loss
only 1 year in past 23 years here finished all lambs so most years alot sold as stores for the first 6 weeks of this year had 8 mm rain on lower areas and 27 mm up higher so summer dry

all ewes on same kinda health plan for pre lamb drench vax etc etc shearing dipping etc so cost per ewe all the same