Earliest lambing outside

[Al R]

Another very important point for lambing ---I lamb in 60+ acre flat fields with no shelter (often no hedges anywhere) and this usually means less lambs than when lambed in small 10 acre fields with lots of places for the ewes to hide away

10acre plus are outwintered on with us and fed on. (Only a few of them)
Average 4-5acre and stone/earth hedges. Most 4ft high with wire middle of hedge so excellent shelter especially in winds and side wards rain. No trees near us but plenty of gorse (40acre. A few gorse in every field too!) you can see our hedges in the background in the picture below

 

[Bill dog]

10acre plus are outwintered on with us and fed on. (Only a few of them)
Average 4-5acre and stone/earth hedges. Most 4ft high with wire middle of hedge so excellent shelter especially in winds and side wards rain. No trees near us but plenty of gorse (40acre. A few gorse in every field too!) you can see our hedges in the background in the picture below

Plenty of grass growing there ,plenty of moles too I see in your neck of the woods!

 

[Tim W]

@Al R here's where I lambed one mob last year --900ft, 60 acres 200 ewes and 140 ewe lambs in one block . Not much shelter so it's good to get timing right --- also good as a breeder to test the ewes maternal traits and the lambs vigour

 

[Al R]

@Al R here's where I lambed one mob last year --900ft, 60 acres 200 ewes and 140 ewe lambs in one block . Not much shelter so it's good to get timing right --- also good as a breeder to test the ewes maternal traits and the lambs vigour View attachment 476640

What breed? Well done you mind, any idea on scanned and reared percentages? On a low enough input system you can accept losses easier than someone all in for 3-4 months!

 

[Al R]

Blimey! Good on you, it must take a bit of time keeping tabs on all the x breeds. If it works in your set up then I say bloody well done

Ear notches keeps tabs on it all.. EID is the future of it but we'll see how much time we have, we're sceptical whether we might lose lambs or not pay lambs enough attention when they need it if we're inputting data and tagging etc..

 

[ford4000]

Due to start tomorrow, bought the last 200 home today,mostly mules. lleyns and halfbreds due from 10th March. Weather is complete pot luck,seen some terrible weather in April!
Hopefully this will be the last year of lambing outside and they will have a roof over their heads next year!

 

[Man_in_black]

Have a look at this, read all of page 2.
https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/the-happy-lambing-thread.159128/page-2#post-3529852

About 15-18 years ago we bought a good beltex, a texel, Suffolk, Charolais and BFL Rams and mated them with females that looked similar to them but weren't full pedigree as they'd be expensive so they'd be 13/15th of their breed.

We were finding the suffolks were bad mothers, bad feet, bad milk, good diers, low vigour, you name it it was bad for. Except they grow like mushrooms after 2 weeks and can be ready in 8-9 weeks when crossed with mules - which is 2 weeks earlier than the texel and the Charolais.

Texel's were good, sometimes not enough milk, problems lambing from big shoulders etc.. vigour was ok. Main problem with them apart from the eyes have to be watched in the first 24hrs, they are very big on the ground to for commercials just to get 2 lambs off, they are 2 weeks later at kill than Suffolk at a time of year which 2 weeks can lose 40p/kg/week.

The beltex was good, I can't remember now if they actually got near the commercials as they were the most recent (10 years ago) and the 2 of them were only used on the already crossed sufftexchar ewes. They arnt nice to look at walking sometimes and were sometimes born huge with 2 people pulls on singles and twins if crossed with pure texel's. But they did put tremendous shape on all the other breeds!

The Charolais were bought from a nearby breeder who's got the woolly faced type. Very good breed and we haven't found many faults, they have lovely narrow shoulders so are superb to lamb from texX commercials as hardly pull any of them! some can be a bit thin coated when crossed with mules and texelX. The ewes are a bit clean off when crossed with TexX in the commercials, kept 10 and they were sold after their lambs we're weaned when they were only 17month old - they head butted everything - the limo of the sheep breed. They are also 2 weeks later fattening when crossed with texX.

BFL are bred by themselves and arnt crossed out in the terminals. They go on the welsh and glamorgans and give us the welsh mule (50% of commercial flock) this is then crossed with texel's and texbelt to give us the 50% commercial of the texX.

I know it's taken a long time to write this, yes I know it may be long winded but gives you an idea into the breeding we're trying to achieve to find a good animal for our farm which even though quite flat has a lot of coast land so we're effectively a hill farm, an upland farm and a lowland farm. We're also organic!

@Man_in_black @neilo @Nithsdale Farmer

Do you not find too much variation amongst lambs from similar ewes? Do you sell them all dead?

 

[Al R]

Do you not find too much variation amongst lambs from similar ewes? Do you sell them all dead?

Which ones?

 

[Man_in_black]

Which ones?

Sorry I mean from those sired by the sufftex belchar, lambs that are vastly different? Or worst of all world's? i.e. dopey lamb who you had to pull cos of big head & shoulders, freezes it's arse off in a draught & take forever to finish???

 

[Tim W]

What breed? Well done you mind, any idea on scanned and reared percentages? On a low enough input system you can accept losses easier than someone all in for 3-4 months!

Exlana .scanned /reared %age---ewes 180%=160% hogs 80%=70% would be a rolling average . I could no doubt improve it if I fostered etc but it's not really feasible in my situation
In smaller fields/mobs or fields with more shelter /hideaway places the %age improves quite noticeably

 

[jemski]

Turns out I am lambing outside this morning [emoji23] not enough space for all the singles in the shed, these were all due next week...

 

[jemski]

Singles don't get anything but hay until they come in, then about 3 nuts each just to shut them up at feeding time.

 

[Man_in_black]

then about 3 nuts each just to shut them up at feeding time.

you're spoiling them!!

 

[Al R]

Sorry I mean from those sired by the sufftex belchar, lambs that are vastly different? Or worst of all world's? i.e. dopey lamb who you had to pull cos of big head & shoulders, freezes it's arse off in a draught & take forever to finish???

Out of 1250 lambs for the kill we had 200 left 1st september, we know that 25 of these were not from ewe lambs and the rest were. In January after scanning we got rid of the "leftovers" with only 14 of them left then all 14 graded in the local mart.
None of the above was fed any creep.

We only choose Rams for the suitable ewe type, texel's and anything else with big shoulders will only got on mules, ( some kept for breeding from these) we get the conformation and predominately all of the good traits of a breed through the flock or lamb.
Suffolk and Charolais are only crossed with texel X ewes. Their narrow shoulders aid better/easier lambing.

The last pure Suffolk ram died a few years ago but we still have 3 ewes so the breeding isn't as prominent from the Suffolk. The only thing we liked about them was they were 2 weeks earlier than texel to kill.

 

[ford4000]

And here is the first born of 2017 right on time

 

[It was already broken.]

I started this week. No sheds but sheltered small field which is sacrificed and ewes fed silage/hay and some cake. Mostly mules with a few home bred mule crosses. 12' above sea level. Must be nearly the most easterly sheep flock in Britain. Going to try lambing on turnips next year with a few straw bales put out as shelter. Biggest problem I have is that once the grass has been cut in July if it is a dry year then fodder can be hard to find to feed lambs so looking to get all away before then.