Light lambs

[BAF]

Sold a dozen lambs this morning, I had them as 2 distinct groups but the drovers split them again. I've said about draytons scales before seeming a bit light in the summer but needs must. A group of older lambs they averaged 45kg on their scales, there was a smaller one in the group that bought the average down a little bit. 2 smaller beltex types they put in as 32.5, 2 they put in as 34 and 3 they put in as 35. Lighter than I would have said they were at home by at least 1.5kg but whatever they'd just argue my scales are wrong. Anyway the group of heavier lambs which were good meaty charollais types made 322ppk but the little beltexy things made 342ppk and the 35kg lambs made 346ppk. Who's buying those small lambs?! I understand you're going to get a bit more bone/skin waste but you're going to get more meat as well from the big ones. I'm not unhappy with the price and I've actually made quite a bit of money off sheep this year so generally I'm quite happy with them!

 

[DanM]

ABP are buyers of light lambs. They want a 10-15kg carcass and minimum fat score of 2

 

[neilo]

Sold a dozen lambs this morning, I had them as 2 distinct groups but the drovers split them again. I've said about draytons scales before seeming a bit light in the summer but needs must. A group of older lambs they averaged 45kg on their scales, there was a smaller one in the group that bought the average down a little bit. 2 smaller beltex types they put in as 32.5, 2 they put in as 34 and 3 they put in as 35. Lighter than I would have said they were at home by at least 1.5kg but whatever they'd just argue my scales are wrong. Anyway the group of heavier lambs which were good meaty charollais types made 322ppk but the little beltexy things made 342ppk and the 35kg lambs made 346ppk. Who's buying those small lambs?! I understand you're going to get a bit more bone/skin waste but you're going to get more meat as well from the big ones. I'm not unhappy with the price and I've actually made quite a bit of money off sheep this year so generally I'm quite happy with them!

The Beltexy ones will likely have killed out slightly better, hence the (usually) higher price per kilo.
You’ll still have been paid considerably more for the larger lambs though presumably?

 

[BAF]

The Beltexy ones will likely have killed out slightly better, hence the (usually) higher price per kilo.
You’ll still have been paid considerably more for the larger lambs though presumably?

Works out at and extra £33 per lamb for and extra 12.5 kg if I did my adding up right. Took my wellies off and everything to do the counting.
Just interesting really. I've got a little 31kg beltexy lamb that's not great on his back legs so I'm going to kill him today so I'll report back on what the carcass looks like and if I remember I'll weigh him before during and after and work out the K.O % just because I really am that boring!

 

[neilo]

Works out at and extra £33 per lamb for and extra 12.5 kg if I did my adding up right. Took my wellies off and everything to do the counting.
Just interesting really. I've got a little 31kg beltexy lamb that's not great on his back legs so I'm going to kill him today so I'll report back on what the carcass looks like and if I remember I'll weigh him before during and after and work out the K.O % just because I really am that boring!

When I was dabbling with pure Beltex (scratching an itch), I put 5 ram lambs a year through a CT scanner at the same time that I was putting Charollais lambs through. They were all born at the same time and reared in the same way (no hard feed), and the Charollais lambs would have been amongst the best carcass yield types.
The pure Beltexes averaged 7% higher KO% than the Charollais, which is certainly significant.

It doesn't come close to making up for the difference in weight for age, but definitely a significant difference.

 

[unlacedgecko]

Works out at and extra £33 per lamb for and extra 12.5 kg if I did my adding up right. Took my wellies off and everything to do the counting.
Just interesting really. I've got a little 31kg beltexy lamb that's not great on his back legs so I'm going to kill him today so I'll report back on what the carcass looks like and if I remember I'll weigh him before during and after and work out the K.O % just because I really am that boring!

How did it go?

 

[livestock 1]

Light lambs used to go into Europe. They started looking for them around August it has been in the past a very good way to shift swale lambs for us that don’t feed well. In latter years that job hasn’t been appearing until November which isn’t much use for us, by then they are either on feed or have lost cover. Spain Portugal Greece Italy have been mentioned in the past.

 

[BAF]

How did it go?

Hes still alive at the minute. I've got this afternoon off work so I'll do it today.

 

[BAF]

Finally killed that lamb this afternoon. Forgot to weigh him but weighed the bag of guts, head, feet and skin and and that weighed in at 15kg. He had a gut full of grass so you could probably discount 2kg off his genuine empty weight.

 

[BAF]

Right just chopped him up. I found the piece if paper with the weights on from last week and he was 27kg liveweight on the 22nd.
15kg of head/feet/skin/guts
10kg of meat including heart/kidneys/liver
3kg of bone/fat/inedible rubbish.
So he'd gained +- 1kg in a week but I'd say getting on for 2kg of his liveweight would be gut content. Everything except the legs was boned out rolled, cubed or minced because my wife and kids are too lazy to eat chops and I'm too lazy to carve shoulders.
So a KO of roughly 35% if my maths is right. Which isn't great but then he was a casualty that wasn't anywhere near killing.
If I'd left bones in and discounted the 2kg for a belly full of grass then that would skew the figures again. It'd have been more like 46.5% ko which would have looked really good on paper.
But it's a nice meaty little carcass and the legs are bigger than you'd see in the supermarkets and I didn't end up having to take a dead lamb to the kennels so it's a win for me!