Coming Home For Lambing.

[bobajob]

Who cares what nz farmers think of his system, Gaitor can please himself.

Have you seen how much rain we have up here the past two months Frank?? Get off your high horse, its a bit different from east Sussex,

The ground is sodden. Gaitor has went through his reasons for housing- no point in me repeating them. River catchment grants could have paid for the sheds?!

On many upland farms some bought in straw is well worth the cost, it gets returned to the land to improve the ground.

 

[kneedeep]

"Until you walk a mile in the other man's shoes "
( really should be wellies )


I'm sure there are challenges to farming in the South and East of our small island, but oop here , I humbly suggest, raifall is summat a bit different than darn sarf the majority of the time.

 

[rhifsaith]

Who cares what nz farmers think of his system, Gaitor can please himself.

Have you seen how much rain we have up here the past two months Frank?? Get off your high horse, its a bit different from east Sussex,

The ground is sodden. Gaitor has went through his reasons for housing- no point in me repeating them. River catchment grants could have paid for the sheds?!

On many upland farms some bought in straw is well worth the cost, it gets returned to the land to improve the ground.

Maybe gator needs to get the job as wool board chairman for a few years Romney's can't pay that well.

 

[Girlfarmer]

Who cares what nz farmers think of his system, Gaitor can please himself.

Have you seen how much rain we have up here the past two months Frank?? Get off your high horse, its a bit different from east Sussex,

The ground is sodden. Gaitor has went through his reasons for housing- no point in me repeating them. River catchment grants could have paid for the sheds?!

On many upland farms some bought in straw is well worth the cost, it gets returned to the land to improve the ground.

There should be a 'love it!' button, never mind just a 'like'. Can't stand obvious criticism from the "I know much better than you despite never setting foot on your farm" brigade to then be followed by I'm not criticising you, honest! We all have to do what works for our own farms and what is best for one farm can be completely different to another.

I don't normally get involved in these kinds of posts. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am currently preparing my money wasting building which is depreciating before my very eyes for our ewes to come inside in the next few days.

I suppose I could just get some arm bands and wellies for the ewes and some floating jetties to put some feed on and leave them to it out there! Now how do you go about lambing in a muddy bog...

Don't worry, I'm not criticising anyone...

 

[bobajob]

We house some ewes here- will put a pic up when we get them in.

We don't house them all and I would love to keep them out, but to try and get a decent year round stocking rate, I feel it helps the ewes and the farm to get them off the ground for 4 / 6 weeks.

This is despite rotational mob stocking, overseeding and soil indicies being corrected.. (the NZ way )

Nice setup gaitor, hope you haven't turned them all back out this morning

 

[The Ruminant]

I see how everyone took Frank's post to be a criticism (even though he said it wasn't), especially in light of this god-awful weather and continuous rain.

I took it more literally (probably because I've not got sheep outside in all weathers - though do have a few cattle out!) We are competing on a global market and our competitors will be able to run sheep / cattle for much less cost per head. It's worth keeping in the back of your mind whenever you plan to spend money on livestock

 

[bluepower]

I see how everyone took Frank's post to be a criticism (even though he said it wasn't), especially in light of this god-awful weather and continuous rain.

I took it more literally (probably because I've not got sheep outside in all weathers - though do have a few cattle out!) We are competing on a global market and our competitors will be able to run sheep / cattle for much less cost per head. It's worth keeps be in the back of your mind whenever you plan to spend money on livestock

We farm in South Devon but still have buckets of rain@ kneedeep.(literally]If we didn't house our ewes or get them off our farm for a couple of months then we wouldn't be able to keep half the number of sheep we do. I cannot see how these low input and keep them out all winter systems stack up. At present nearly all our ewes are away on neighbours dairy farms tidying up excess grass which is far cheaper than housing for two months. They will come home in the middle of Feb and start lambing at the end of Feb so are housed for a matter of three or four weeks max. They couldn't come in at the moment as the shed is still full of grain which I am going to have to get on and sell asap.
I suppose everyone has different circumstances but I don't see how I could keep ewes out all winter and have any grass to turn them out on.

 

[andybk]

Over its lifetime a shed is the best investment you will ever make , lambing ewes in the dry is better than trudging around a wet field ,especially this time of year and everything is to hand , then they go out after lambing,good for the shepherd and good for the sheep , all the kit can then come inside saving all the expensive repair bills later in the year .
If the whole sheep job went tomorrow you still have something that could be rented out , or used to make a different living . Lets not forget the Nz boys have dedicated sheds for just shearing in , which we find strange .

 

[Bury the Trash]

Very good pictures and what a lovely shed.

I am sure that seeing this our NZ friends must be having a good laugh and thinking that they will be able to supply us with lamb at a competitive price for a long time to come!!

What do you do with that expensive building the rest of the year? The depreciation alone on all that lovely penning as well as the building just for putting a few sheep in must be considerable. Then all those other costs, electricity for lighting and water.
All that lovely straw I presume is not home grown and must require a lot of hand work to put in and eventually take out!

The amount of work involved in feeding your sheep and the equipment required must be considerable. Do you cost your own time at a realistic hourly rate? You must need a lot of additional labour to fill up and empty all those lambing pens.

Sheep are only profitable if you spend the best part of nothing on them!!

My post is not meant as a criticism of your system but a reminder that we have to compete economically in a world market.

party pooper.we will all give up then and leave to clever clogs like you.

 

[neilo]

We farm in South Devon but still have buckets of rain@ kneedeep.(literally]If we didn't house our ewes or get them off our farm for a couple of months then we wouldn't be able to keep half the number of sheep we do. I cannot see how these low input and keep them out all winter systems stack up. At present nearly all our ewes are away on neighbours dairy farms tidying up excess grass which is far cheaper than housing for two months. They will come home in the middle of Feb and start lambing at the end of Feb so are housed for a matter of three or four weeks max. They couldn't come in at the moment as the shed is still full of grain which I am going to have to get on and sell asap.
I suppose everyone has different circumstances but I don't see how I could keep ewes out all winter and have any grass to turn them out on.

I wouldn't contemplate keeping ewes outside all year on an all grass/all sheep farm either, or you would be compromising your summer stocking rate. If you have cattle that will be housed, reducing stocking rate on the remaining grass (as I believe @Frank-the-Wool does) then it's a different thing.

We only got into arable and root crops in the mid-eighties, when we bought some adjoining land. Prior to that, not having spare sheds at home as they were all full of B&W cattle, we used to keep everything on a sacrifice block, feeding them with small bale hay in Iron Duke hay racks, plenty of feed blocks and lots of ewe rolls. Getting into arable cropping allowed us to get them off the grass and onto another block, as well as feeding some very hungry ground, and we wouldn't have been able to keep the numbers otherwise without some new shed space.
Today, I keep almost everything out all winter, but on arable ground from about now, or the grassland would be well and truly fecked. If I decreased the arable here and increased sheep numbers and grass acreage, then I'd be housing the best part of 6-700 ewes from Christmas in the shed that currently holds grain, straw and fert. Given a simple feeding system and outdoor lambing, I probably wouldn't be any worse off for it and wouldn't need to spend all winter in waterproofs. Hmmm......

 

[Bury the Trash]

Also, early lambing ( which provides fresh suck lamb at the right time of year)requires indoors. Plus's to - easier to ear tag, and record,easier to ring,easier to spot bad udder the list goes on. ..outdoors has its place of course, and thats all we had in 1977.

 

[roscoe erf]

First gather, all trained to the horn
View attachment 259204

First lot penned
View attachment 259208

Now for the second lot
View attachment 259210

On top of an hill and still bloody wet
View attachment 259212

wheres @Landyman was he not helping or did he send them the wrong way

 

[Northeastfarmer]

Someone sounds jealous

 

[hillman]

First gather, all trained to the horn
View attachment 259204

First lot penned
View attachment 259208

Now for the second lot
View attachment 259210

On top of an hill and still bloody wet
View attachment 259212

What's the building in the last picture ?

 

[Landyman]

What's the building in the last picture ?

Its the pumping station for the reservoirs below

 

[Landyman]

wheres @Landyman was he not helping or did he send them the wrong way

Who do ya think took the pics

 

[hillman]

Its the pumping station for the reservoirs below

What towns does it supply ?

 

[Landyman]

What towns does it supply ?

Not sure what it supplies nowadays, maybe @Gator will know ?

 

[hillman]

Not sure what it supplies nowadays, maybe @Gator will know ?

No matter just curious

 

[Wooly]

Although I feel for you poor farmers 'up north' at this very wet time, it does rain in the South East......sometimes!

Being at sea level, we don't have the luxury of a hill to take our stock up out of the wet.