Any reports from Builth ?

[Joe]

I know nobody will want to admit it, but do we have consensus here?

That’s it isn’t it totally farm dependent. If you have a dry all year round farm and can get root crops in cheaply and part of a reseeding programmer no brainer really, if wet or otherwise unfavorable land less workable and affordable meal comes into the equation.

In tillage country here and sheep out wintered on roots, redstart sown for finishing but I do feed where necessary and no issue if money in it. I run small flock of pedigrees split in two, Jan born meal feed until end of May and April born grass feed. While my Jan lambs bar few for premier don’t get any concentrates after May, they still don’t last like the April grass reared lambs.

 

[MRT]

I’m always one for a bit of consensus, as long as it’s people consensing with me

Talk sense

 

[Ysgythan]

Talk sense

Why should I have to start now?

 

[Al R]

+1 Grass and grazed forage is far cheaper per kg of DM, but that relies on being able to grow and utilise it well of course.

I know a guy whose farm is based around an old WW2 airfield. Everything possible is in arable, but he runs 750 ewes on the stony/rubbishy/tarmaccy bits. The (old) grass grows there in the Spring but just stops in June/July, so he lambs in February and creeps hard to get everything gone by then. It's a system that has evolved to make best use of what he has, and it works very well. Reseeding the airfield bits isn't an option, and the rest is far more profitable under arable cropping. A low input, grazed grass system wouldn't be as easily introduced there as it would on a lot of farms.

Exactly.. I have a very mixed farm as @Poorbuthappy saw a few weeks ago, from cliff land which could be classed as mountain land to other parts of the farm where you can keep 10 ewes/acre all year organically.

@Ysgythan
Farms/land varies. Years vary too.
This year we had a freak snow/frost so lost all of our grass in March when lambing meaning we fed ewes after lambing for the first time ever.
We were then hit by a drought. Meaning we had to wean 3 weeks early, feed silage to ewes for 5 weeks in the summer.
This year we had to cobble together 6 creep feeders to fatten lambs over 35kg at weaning. With creep at over £420/t it wasn’t cheap but we’re down to the last 20 entire ram lambs left from over 350.
I never want to HAVE to buy creep again although this year it has saved us and the cost has added £2.50/lamb when dividing throughout the whole lamb crop and not just the ones on it in feed alone without time of having to feed them daily.

Last year I put singles in a shed on straw and fed them silage only. Straw and silage cost was 85p/week or I could’ve had them outside on good grass at 45p/week. A live lamb at the end meant more to me than a monster dead lamb from if it’d been on grass.

If you have to creep all of your lambs every year then your overstocked.

 

[Ysgythan]

Lambs fed ad-lib indoors have a definite taint on the meat, it’s a poor product. However Easter lambs at grass, milk and creep are a superior product, firmer, better finished, less waste. Creep is another tool in the box. I can’t see the point of early lambers extending days to slaughter, or, missing the boat on the best early trade either by not creeping, or by creeping too much.

If you lamb late you can save costs as you know you’re selling in a glut whatever happens. So why expend time, costs and effort reducing days to slaughter when grass is at its best, and prices can lift later in the year?

 

[Al R]

Lambs fed ad-lib indoors have a definite taint on the meat, it’s a poor product. However Easter lambs at grass, milk and creep are a superior product, firmer, better finished, less waste. Creep is another tool in the box. I can’t see the point of early lambers extending days to slaughter, or, missing the boat on the best early trade either by not creeping, or by creeping too much.

If you lamb late you can save costs as you know you’re selling in a glut whatever happens. So why expend time, costs and effort reducing days to slaughter when grass is at its best, and prices can lift later in the year?

I know exactly what you mean, on a normal year we’re 85% sold by weaning, grass only.

Next year I am going to try barley/oats on some lambs while their on their mothers too as a trial now I’ve found my creep feeders

 

[Iwanpei]

View attachment 720236
We've been using Easyrams for 11 years now. The photo shows grading for some of our lambs a couple of weeks ago. Typically we get mainly R's with a good proportion of U's out of Easycare ewes. The E was by a pure NZ Suffolk ram (rubbish apparently) out of a pure Easycare ewe (goat x).
It shows that there are more than one way to breed a decent fat lamb and people should be wary about criticising without foundation those who go about things in a different way.

Do you mate the ewes at 150/1? Just bought a nz texel to put on easycare ewes and am a but wary of purting him in with 150 ewes. Thanks

 

[Johngee]

Do you mate the ewes at 150/1? Just bought a nz texel to put on easycare ewes and am a but wary of purting him in with 150 ewes. Thanks

We haven't got that many to put to a terminal ram. I think I'd be wary of that number in the first year, but a mature ram should be capable. I used to put a ram with 70-80 ewes that had been with a teaser so they were going to to the ram in a shorter period, hence the lower number of ewes per ram.

 

[texas pete]

Do you mate the ewes at 150/1? Just bought a nz texel to put on easycare ewes and am a but wary of purting him in with 150 ewes. Thanks

It's an average too, isn't it. I would be more comfortable putting 3 rams with 450 ewes than i would putting 1 with 150.

If it was me, I'd put him in for a limited time. 17 days, three weeks.... and then take him out and bang in some other team members to clear up any stragglers. The ewes that take in the first cycle are the ones you want to keep anyway, so it's a good way to weed out some crap.

 

[Top Tip.]

Do you mate the ewes at 150/1? Just bought a nz texel to put on easycare ewes and am a but wary of purting him in with 150 ewes. Thanks

The theory is great but if that tup is sub fertile in any way your lambing is up the spout big style.

 

[andybk]

any news from today , did many buyers turn up ? weather would have helped

 

[neilo]

any news from today , did many buyers turn up ? weather would have helped

The car park was as full as I've seen it for a while. Fancied sheep made a good price, but lots unsold/sold very cheaply (in breeds with no upset). In the Charollais rings, yearlings made to 3400gns and lambs to 3000gns iirc, but they'd certainly have been the exception to the rule. It was noticeable, to me anyway, that the 'pretty' massive ram lambs were struggling big time, and certainly not recovering the costs put into them. In the yearlings, god commercial types were selling well enough.

Sorry, I didn't see much of the other breeds' rings, other than from a casual wander past. I was told by several people that there were some massive Suffolk yearlings there though, which 'must have been 170kg'. WTF? How would you ever expect to finish a lamb off grass from such a beast?

 

[ed g]

Seemed to be plenty of buyers about. Definitely less sheep in the barns as there was a lot more space. Texels seemed busy - happy with my trade selling 15 out of 16 tup lambs and 6 ewes. Suffolk’s seemed to be selling well. Didn’t see the other breeds selling so can’t comment on them

 

[liammogs]

Went with a full trailer, came home empty so can't complain really! Better trade than last year topped at 550gns for my ram lambs AVG 275 with 8, happy with that plenty of yearlings trading 250+ so I thought my lambs were sold well compared!

 

[Whitepeak]

The car park was as full as I've seen it for a while. Fancied sheep made a good price, but lots unsold/sold very cheaply (in breeds with no upset). In the Charollais rings, yearlings made to 3400gns and lambs to 3000gns iirc, but they'd certainly have been the exception to the rule. It was noticeable, to me anyway, that the 'pretty' massive ram lambs were struggling big time, and certainly not recovering the costs put into them. In the yearlings, god commercial types were selling well enough.

Sorry, I didn't see much of the other breeds' rings, other than from a casual wander past. I was told by several people that there were some massive Suffolk yearlings there though, which 'must have been 170kg'. WTF? How would you ever expect to finish a lamb off grass from such a beast?

How did the Middleton house pen do? I hear he was quite happy after the judging

 

[andybk]

The car park was as full as I've seen it for a while. Fancied sheep made a good price, but lots unsold/sold very cheaply (in breeds with no upset). In the Charollais rings, yearlings made to 3400gns and lambs to 3000gns iirc, but they'd certainly have been the exception to the rule. It was noticeable, to me anyway, that the 'pretty' massive ram lambs were struggling big time, and certainly not recovering the costs put into them. In the yearlings, god commercial types were selling well enough.

Sorry, I didn't see much of the other breeds' rings, other than from a casual wander past. I was told by several people that there were some massive Suffolk yearlings there though, which 'must have been 170kg'. WTF? How would you ever expect to finish a lamb off grass from such a beast?

thanks did intend going till last week , but have plenty of ram power ATM , and just bought a hedge trimmer in a sale lol , quite liked the look (on paper) of the cymro one galtres had there .but been scorched a few times at builth . I expect proberts and marwoods had a good sale they turn out some good sheep for nsa sales

 

[neilo]

How did the Middleton house pen do? I hear he was quite happy after the judging

Sorry, I didn’t notice. The judging didn’t have a lot of bearing on the prices achieved from what I saw though, apart from the few that had red rosettes of course. A couple of pens of yearlings that seemingly hadn’t impressed the judge/s, sold better than most.

 

[neilo]

thanks did intend going till last week , but have plenty of ram power ATM , and just bought a hedge trimmer in a sale lol , quite liked the look (on paper) of the cymro one galtres had there .but been scorched a few times at builth . I expect proberts and marwoods had a good sale they turn out some good sheep for nsa sales

Yes, Probert’s sold well as usual, and rightly so. I didn’t see that other pen through. Top price shearling was a fair sheep, but too much breeding from one particular flock for me to get excited.

 

[Old Tip]

Anyone at the BFL ring