Night lambers wage 2021

[Englishscott]

Night lambers will be non existent in a few years, very few will want to do it .

I quite enjoy it to be honest but only for a few weeks and then I love going on to outdoor lambing too, bloody fit at the end of outdoor lambing

 

[Englishscott]

At home yes but not at this other place

 

[AftonShepherd]

I bet you don’t, Tis always morning when they lamb early morning imo .

Definitely about half 5ish here. I check cowshed first and if nothing's happening there then the lambing shed's easy. If I'm held up for even half an hour with the cows it makes a big difference to how many ewes are for penning up.

 

[Anymulewilldo]

In terms of night lambing you’ll probably agree that a dead sheep is better than a dead shepherd - when people are trying to do both day and night shifts

I couldn’t agree more! Bang on the money!

 

[tepapa]

Sounds like a hard farm to lamb on with the difficult lambs and lazy staff. Wouldn't be my first choice to work at but I would for the right money. If it was an easy lambing place I'd be happy to work for less £'s

 

[tepapa]

Thanks for that, like I say I know nothing about sheep but I've never heard of a calving nightshift on large spring calving dairy herds (perhaps they do), so wondered why sheep needed them.
I suppose the night shift could get other work done as well on the other hand, does having someone around all night disturb the sheep and encourage them to lamb or have problems at night?

Two ways at looking at night lambing and lambers.

Firstly you have lazy night lambers whose only jobs are getting lambs out alive and penned up till morning and go to bed. Then you have hard working night lambers who will use the free time when quiet to do other jobs ready for the morning, like marking and tagging and feeding/watering little pens ready for the morning shift.
Some shepherds will use this type of labour to get more lambing shed work done during the night as they may have other farm work to do, with cows for example along with looking/feeding all the ewes and lambs that have been turned out. So rather than do a full morning shift in the lambing shed they can pop in and out to check on Lambing rather then tagging and feeding. Bigger jobs that require tractors/loadalls don't usually happen till day time hours like feeding and bedding down.
All depends on numbers, breed and type of system etc as well.

The out of hours unsocial bit of night Lambing commands a premium.

 

[Mc115reed]

Our ewes at home lambing indoors are left 11pm- 5am.
We don't have many lambing between those times either.

Iv always been taught and always practiced lights off at 11 and you’ll have no trouble until 5 .. but for some reason this year I bet 60% lambed between 11 and 5am .. the only thing that’s changed is I was feeding at 4pm ish rather than 7am which I think must of thrown there body clocks out...but I like night shifting because I can get more done less folk ringing every 5 minutes, less people popping round, less distractions in general and means can get jobs that need doing in the day light done in the morning

 

[Englishscott]

Iv always been taught and always practiced lights off at 11 and you’ll have no trouble until 5 .. but for some reason this year I bet 60% lambed between 11 and 5am .. the only thing that’s changed is I was feeding at 4pm ish rather than 7am which I think must of thrown there body clocks out...but I like night shifting because I can get more done less folk ringing every 5 minutes, less people popping round, less distractions in general and means can get jobs that need doing in the day light done in the morning

Thats interesting, do you feed just the once per day?

 

[Mc115reed]

Thats interesting, do you feed just the once per day?

Yeah just once per day normally I’d feed first thing but this year how it worked was always about 4 o’clock and I Definatly will of had over half lamb in the night

 

[Jasper]

What’s so bad about ten pounds an hour I can work sixty hours comfortably and still have time for a family life and go home with two thousand four hundred pounds a month l know there will be some tax and national insurance to pay but if your self employed that isn’t much to me this is a good wage

 

[unlacedgecko]

What’s so bad about ten pounds an hour I can work sixty hours comfortably and still have time for a family life and go home with two thousand four hundred pounds a month l know there will be some tax and national insurance to pay but if your self employed that isn’t much to me this is a good wage

When can you start? Being self employed you'll obviously provide all your own equipment and have the necessary insurance in place.

 

[puppet]

What’s so bad about ten pounds an hour I can work sixty hours comfortably and still have time for a family life and go home with two thousand four hundred pounds a month l know there will be some tax and national insurance to pay but if your self employed that isn’t much to me this is a good wage

If you are asking £10 per hour self-employed then the farmer is getting you for £7. They will be happy too but you should be on more. At some point you will be ill or need a holiday and shouldn't need to work 60 hours to make a living

 

[kiwi pom]

What’s so bad about ten pounds an hour I can work sixty hours comfortably and still have time for a family life and go home with two thousand four hundred pounds a month l know there will be some tax and national insurance to pay but if your self employed that isn’t much to me this is a good wage

That only works out around minimum wage doesn't it? I suppose if you value yourself at that and can do the hours it's fine.
Can you raise a family and buy a house on it? I don't think I could when I still lived there.
No holidays, sick pay etc?

 

[Jasper]

Some times i get more than ten pounds an hour it depends on what I’m doing and who it’s for but I can live well on a tenner an hour I can buy a good car which I would happily drive from one end of the country to the other for less than a thousand pounds foods cheap .l know plenty of people worse of than me because they won’t work for the wages l will but I’ve always thought half a loaf is better than none

 

[tepapa]

Some times i get more than ten pounds an hour it depends on what I’m doing and who it’s for but I can live well on a tenner an hour I can buy a good car which I would happily drive from one end of the country to the other for less than a thousand pounds foods cheap .l know plenty of people worse of than me because they won’t work for the wages l will but I’ve always thought half a loaf is better than none

I'll find you two hours work. £20 should cover it.

 

[kiwi pom]

Some times i get more than ten pounds an hour it depends on what I’m doing and who it’s for but I can live well on a tenner an hour I can buy a good car which I would happily drive from one end of the country to the other for less than a thousand pounds foods cheap .l know plenty of people worse of than me because they won’t work for the wages l will but I’ve always thought half a loaf is better than none

Fair enough and I agree plenty of cheap cars about. I was thinking more about rent/mortgage and all the other things involved with running a house and having a family? You're doing well if you can do it on close to minimum wage.

 

[kfpben]

Thanks for that, like I say I know nothing about sheep but I've never heard of a calving nightshift on large spring calving dairy herds (perhaps they do), so wondered why sheep needed them.
I suppose the night shift could get other work done as well on the other hand, does having someone around all night disturb the sheep and encourage them to lamb or have problems at night?

I think the key difference is that the ewes and lambs need to stay together and ‘mother up’. With dairy cattle it doesn’t hugely matter who has what as the calves are taken off the cows within 24 hours.
Sheep tend to have more than one lamb and need to bond before turnout. If no night checks were done you could feasibly end up with 10 ewes and 20+ lambs all in a heap in the shed all mismothering and needing sorting out.

 

[Jasper]

Rent a nice house £ 500 a month .Wife works part time plus she’s a very good cook most meals done from scratch so £150 a week on shopping good clothes for the kids are cheap lots of free firewood buy a ton of coal a year plenty of hot water from back boiler we have what we want and have a nice life there was a thread on here a while back about waterproof jackets some were £ 2/300 that’s fine and I don’t begrudge anybody but I’m fine with my ex army £40 goretex water proofs we just cut our cloth accordingly

 

[Mc115reed]

I think the key difference is that the ewes and lambs need to stay together and ‘mother up’. With dairy cattle it doesn’t hugely matter who has what as the calves are taken off the cows within 24 hours.
Sheep tend to have more than one lamb and need to bond before turnout. If no night checks were done you could feasibly end up with 10 ewes and 20+ lambs all in a heap in the shed all mismothering and needing sorting out.

To be fair.... sounds like the place this guy is lambing has that anyways even with a night lamber... 100 cade lambs out of 400 ewes is a serious management problem if you ask me... Iv got 1 out of 300 ewes and that’s only because it’s thick as f**k and can’t figure out how a tit works

 

[ollie989898]

What’s so bad about ten pounds an hour I can work sixty hours comfortably and still have time for a family life and go home with two thousand four hundred pounds a month l know there will be some tax and national insurance to pay but if your self employed that isn’t much to me this is a good wage

I'm a complete moron yet I can earn £10 employed all day doing practical farm work. I think you are greatly undervaluing yourself.