How/what to record?

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
Seeing a few folk asking about which recorder/software to use and I’m very interested in flock recording, but how much can you record on a flock that lambs outdoors, and all lambs are sold store?

Would you have to try and tag every lamb as it is born? Of perhaps only the problem ones?

What would be the most valuable information on flock performance to record?

Thanks
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Seeing a few folk asking about which recorder/software to use and I’m very interested in flock recording, but how much can you record on a flock that lambs outdoors, and all lambs are sold store?

Would you have to try and tag every lamb as it is born? Of perhaps only the problem ones?

What would be the most valuable information on flock performance to record?

Thanks

Depends what traits you want to focus on.

You may find this useful https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&s...eBTcQFgh4MBI&usg=AOvVaw284HdoV-U0zuqxAdysimx4
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
Main things would be to pull out poor performers, mainly those that don’t rear lambs to sale, with lambing/under issues, repeat bad feet, stuff that would be good to know when casting ewes in sep/Oct.

It would also be good to know which were performing the best! I don’t know really, it’s why I’m asking the question.

Knowledge is power, the more the better, but I’m sure it’s more profitable to focus on some traits over others.
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Might sound like a stupid question but do you really need to record? If you havent done any recording or much culling at all and starting from scratch you will make quite a bit of progress to start with by culling out problems at the bottom hard. You dont need anything more than an ear notcher for that and notch anything you dont like for culling or putting to a Bflock to go to a terminal sire. And anything that isnt being notched to the best maternal ram you can afford. Thats what im doing now having started with a pretty standard high maintenance mule type flock of lleyn ewes. Things are improving now when i think ive improved as much as i can that way then ill start recording to see how i get on that way. There wasnt much point me starting to record only to find out that i had a pretty average flock i already knew that. This isnt anything modern or clever just what shepards have been doing for a very long time but you can make a lot of progress that way if you havent done anything at all yet.
 

jellybean

Member
Location
N.Devon
I think recording info on a livestock unit is commendable. You may not know at the time that the information gathered is important but in a few years you may be really glad to have that info to hand.I have a friend who is anal about recording everything, he is now in the position of being at the top of the tree in his chosen field.

You do of course need to know how to make best use of such information!
 

Johngee

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Llandysul
The basic thing you need to do is to work out which are the least profitable ewes. This could either be because they're costing you money or giving hassle through assisted lambings, prolapses, foot problems etc. These are readily identifiable if you mark the ewes, or record their tag number, when you catch them for treatment.
Other ewes are unprofitable because they don't rear their lambs very well. To identify these you would ideally need to tag lambs at birth and weigh them at weaning and/or sale.
I record our outdoor lambers, tagging lambs at birth and recording their details on a Psion recorder. Ewes are identified by spray marks on their side corresponding with the tag number. Lambs are then weighed twice during the summer and a computer program works out the growth rates, which I use to identify the poor performing ewes. As it's a self replacing flock it's also useful when retaining ewe lambs.
 

Spartacus

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Lancaster
This is something I often think of doing, I am closer to butting the bullet and spending the money on an expensive reader to record in the field. I would think it would make sense to do things a stage at a time, starting with the obvious things like feet, milk, lamb survival and body condition of the ewes then work up to the other things in time that I would probably assess as time goes on which trait was important to me.
 

Johngee

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Llandysul
I like the sound of that @Johngee, how many rounds do you do in the field a day? What breed are you working with?

We've got Easy Care ewes, going round them twice a day (more often if the weather's rough). Do most of the recording on the evening round, as my lad's home from school then! Do some in the morning if it's really busy.
Usually catch a pair of lambs, put one in the trailer of the quad while we tag and record the other. As I said we spray numbers on the ewes but some to come near enough to zap with the reader. I've started scoring ewes for docility at lambing so hope to see an improvement on that.
We started recording a small number of ewes in the first year and increased numbers recorded over the years. Using the psion meant we could do more than with pen and paper. I suppose you've got to do what you're comfortable with.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
What ewes are you working with @Macsky ? My Highlanders all (except about 2 last year) come close enough to read with the Psion, so I don't spray anything on. When I did try, everything was blurred after a week, being woolly sheep. Maybe hair sheep are better for that?

Do you run a closed flock, or buy in replacements? Not a lot in going to all the effort of identifying your best performing ewes IMO, if you are just buying in sheep from the sales, based on looking right.
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
Seeing a few folk asking about which recorder/software to use and I’m very interested in flock recording, but how much can you record on a flock that lambs outdoors, and all lambs are sold store?

Would you have to try and tag every lamb as it is born? Of perhaps only the problem ones?

What would be the most valuable information on flock performance to record?

Thanks



If nothing else I'd say record weights/DLWG,

If I was only allowed to record one thing that would be it.

It's obviously a brilliant way of assessing how animals are growing.

Buts it's also such a good way assessing how different fields are preforming, how well different rations are working.
Even let's you do things like worm drenching lambs on a individual basis solely on performance.
 

Pan mixer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Near Colchester
One of the things that should be recorded is the amount of time you spend doing something - just a broad brush, no need to be anal.

Some jobs aren't worth doing to be frank - examples could be having wool on the sheep, breeding any ewe again who needed assistance and many other things.

In NZ I believe that shepherds look after rather more sheep than they do here to keep down costs, we will be competing with them soon.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
From what I’ve heard, shepherds in New Zealand don’t look after sheep at all! They shoot anything that might even look at them the wrong way! [emoji23] Where I am we will struggle to compete with the kiwis who have rolling green hills and grass that grows all year, and if the sheep had no wool, they wouldn’t be around for long!
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
There are different sides to recording
and you can pick and choose to record what works for you.

The most important and easiest thing to record is weight. DLWG. Unfortunately this is also the most expensive as to make it easy and quick (so that you do actually do it) you need a good weigh crate with an eid reader and weigh head all linked so you can just run sheep through quickly without having to manually record.
Recording weight tells you how your stock are performing and highlight problems before you can actually see problems e.g. nutrition, parasites or trace element deficiency causing under performance compared to the predicted growth curve. Also sick or lame sheep will show reduced growth or weight loss compared to the rest.

But that is just one area and is linked to the others, as once your recording weight you want to know who the poor doer's are from so recording at lambing identifies the mother.
Recording at lambing also allows you to select difficult lambings or problems e.g prolapse, for culling, although an ear notch will do this.
Recording reasons for culling is interesting as you can look back and see why your ewes are going and pick up any trends.
Lastly you can record things like lameness, dagginess, fly strike and other traits, but you can go over the top recording and lose interest. You don't always need to record why it's not doing just relegate them to the b flock and cull or sell when the time comes or put to a terminal sire, as I've said weight loss will pick some of these problems up.

These are things over and above your required recording for movements and vet & med which your required to do by legislation.

If you record too much to start you will be overwhelmed and will lose interest quickly which is where recording weight is effective as it can be done simply but also highlights other problems e.g. lameness. If you keep your own replacements recording at lambing will benefit after a few years if your prepared to cull the problem ewes (and daughters).

Good times to weigh would be to record tupping weight. Then lambs at around 6-8 weeks as this will tell you how well the ewes performed rearing the lambs. Then through the growing season every 3-4 weeks to check growth rates are on target.

I suppose you need to be prepared to cull or sell problem ewes or why bother recording that they were difficult to lamb for 3 years in a row.
 

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