Romney

[Nithsdale]

what are they doing now in 2021 must be some huge gains since 1977

44 years of efforts in growing ear length

 

[Agrivator]

44 years of efforts in growing ear length

In what way have the popular breeds and crosses used in lowground and upland sheep systems improved in the last 44 years? The Mule as a cross for Sheperdlessers has replaced the Scotch Halfbred in many areas, and Texel crosses are more predominant, but surely no one can claim that their lambs nowadays grow faster than Suffolk x Halfbreds of latter years.. Lleyns and Shedders of various descriptions come to mind.

In fact, we don't normally want them to grow faster - they either exceed the required liveweight, or they are ready when prices are at a seasonal low. And any competent shepherd would agree that there are far more important traits in sheep than how fast their lambs grow.

 

[Nithsdale]

. And any competent shepherd would agree that there are far more important traits in sheep than how fast their lambs grow.

Quite right.
It's all about face and leg markings, and having the right staple in the fleece so it looks when Purl dip is applied... and the right shade of colouring just to make her stand out

Much much more important than the lamb it'll raise

 

[Agrivator]

Quite right.
It's all about face and leg markings, and having the right staple in the fleece so it looks when Purl dip is applied... and the right shade of colouring just to make her stand out

Much much more important than the lamb it'll raise

So what traits in sheep, other than how fast their lambs grow, would you identify as being of importance.

None, by the sound of it.

 

[Hilly]

Would you look at that romenys catching texel s amd
Suffolk’s live ring as well and at st boswells gosh, I’d bet twenty pounds they have lot less cost attributed to them as well , no bought feed for them or their mothers , and their mothers wool coverd it’s costs .

 

[egbert]

They are just traditionalists, their profits are mainly subsidy based and depend on weather they are owned or rented will be the truth of the matter. Tradition is peer pressure from dead people , always been one to move with the times myself .

I still don't get it.
Why wouldn't such subsidised farmers cash in, and get double bubble?
I see little evidence.

I'm pretty greedy for money myself, and try to acquire as much as i can given my limited count of days on this wobbly spinning balls of molten rock.
I've nothing against change where it works, but am notoriously slow to be moved! (I count slowly to a thousand , backwards, in Latin first).

 

[Hilly]

So what traits in sheep, other than how fast their lambs grow, would you identify as being of importance.

None, by the sound of it.

Nice feet good
Legs good udders good mouths longevity easy lambing , wool worth taking off , do you want more ?

I still don't get it.
Why wouldn't such subsidised farmers cash in, and get double bubble?
I see little evidence.

I'm pretty greedy for money myself, and try to acquire as much as i can given my limited count of days on this wobbly spinning balls of molten rock.
I've nothing against change where it works, but am notoriously slow to be moved! (I count slowly to a thousand , backwards, in Latin first).

Because they like farming , I doubt many would make enough to buy farms off old Swales blackies without sub.

 

[egbert]

Nice feet good
Legs good udders good mouths longevity easy lambing , wool worth taking off , do you want more ?

Because they like farming , I doubt many would make enough to buy farms off old Swales blackies without sub.

I try to get my blackies (and whole farming operation) to lose as little as possible.
The ethos has allowed me to prosper in troubled times.

What i'm waiting for is the sweep of young bucks holistically mob grazing romneys (delete and replace with whatever the latest 'thing' is) who're outbidding us stoopid dinosaurs on tenancy tenders/buying up freehold.
They can get the same subs as the rest, so why isn't their competitive advantage showing through?

 

[Hilly]

I try to get my blackies (and whole farming operation) to lose as little as possible.
The ethos has allowed me to prosper in troubled times.

What i'm waiting for is the sweep of young bucks holistically mob grazing romneys (delete and replace with whatever the latest 'thing' is) who're outbidding us stoopid dinosaurs on tenancy tenders/buying up freehold.
They can get the same subs as the rest, so why isn't their competitive advantage showing through?

Because the get screwed with rent fbts are bad

 

[Jimdog1]

I try to get my blackies (and whole farming operation) to lose as little as possible.
The ethos has allowed me to prosper in troubled times.

What i'm waiting for is the sweep of young bucks holistically mob grazing romneys (delete and replace with whatever the latest 'thing' is) who're outbidding us stoopid dinosaurs on tenancy tenders/buying up freehold.
They can get the same subs as the rest, so why isn't their competitive advantage showing through?

Not much beats a mule does it?

 

[egbert]

Because the get screwed with rent fbts are bad

wouldn't rent be the same whatever you kept?
Or are wicked landlords favouring someone with the wrong type of sheep now?

 

[Hilly]

wouldn't rent be the same whatever you kept?
Or are wicked landlords favouring someone with the wrong type of sheep now?

Aha rents tend to be lot lower than fbts are they not ?

 

[Global ovine]

When you say more than 7cm of grass height are you talking about set stocking or rotational grazing?

I presume you mean rotational grazing, if so what were the target entry and exit sward heights? As most grazing guides state an exit sward height of 4-6 cm which would surely compromise intake? Particularly on the last day of each cell? Or is a leader follower system advised so lower priority stock are used to hit the target residual?

The 7cm of pasture height relates to when sheep enter the lambing paddocks, (or in the case of indoor lambing countries when let out soon after lambing). For outdoor lambing where the majority of ewes are having multiples, set stocking is the only option and adjusted to litter size. The minimum pasture height of 7cms was determined by researchers that had clever kit counting the number of bites ewes had to make to achieve the intake needed for lactation to be sufficient to grow twins at 300 g/day. On short pasture, ewes ran out of day trying to get enough to meet the demand of the lambs, hence the lamb's growth rates dropped off accordingly.
The outcomes of having spring grown pasture height over 7cm (3 inches) are;

• ewes reach milk demand peak earlier
• lactation peaks last longer (about bigger lambs putting proportionally more demand on milk supply)
• lambs grow faster and develop their rumen function at an earlier age
• fast growing animals use less energy for maintenance and are more efficient
• lambs that have grown fast are better able to handle L3 gut parasites

So the importance of the "7cm rule" is all about the first 6 weeks. This is A pasture QUANTITY issue.
After that it is all about pasture quality and that depends on entry and exit heights.

I prefer to have late spring exit heights of 4 - 5 cms. However that depends on the legume content that should be as high as possible. After 6 weeks post lambing, it is no longer about ewe intakes, as she should have done her job, as lambs will then be benefiting more from pasture than milk.

I totally don't recommend the leader/follower system in late spring. Better to speed up the rotation, or put more stock into the rotation. The leader/follower system only works well in summer when pasture quality has deteriorated.
Spring is the easiest time to restore weight on ewes (they are 20% more efficient then) and growing lambs fast sets them up to handle the decline in pasture quality over summer.
Profitability comes from efficiency, working with natures seasons when sheep are most efficient is best financially and for (dare I say it) GHG emissions.

 

[Global ovine]

You will be familiar with the world renowned ''Clean Grazing System'' developed and demonstrated by SAC on there research farm near Edinburgh. Of course you will, otherwise you would call yourself Parochial Ovine rather than Global Ovine.

The demonstration over 5 successive years was visited by hundreds of farmers and advisers, including a large number from New Zealand. The results were widely reported in scientific and advisory publications and endless talks and TV coverage.

The trial involved Scotch Halfbred ewes mated to Suffolk rams, lambing in mid March to early April,and grazed on clean grass at 7 ewes/acre (17.5 ewes/ha).

Over five successive years, (and with lambs reared of 1.66/ewe) average daily gains to 77 days were 328gms, and overall gains to sale at 137 days were 271.6gms/day.

These were for a mixture of singles and twins, so the single lambs would have had a significant higher gain and twin lambs (obviously) would have had lower gains.

I will attempt to scan a page from an International conference organised by Will Haresign at the Nottingham Easter School which shows how the results were maintained over five years with variable rainfall.

You might regard the results as outdated, but the sheep involved were very similar to those today, and considering the difference in size and merit a of Scotch Halfbred ewes and Suffolk rams, then and now, there is no possibility that Romney lambs or Romney crossbred lambs could match that performance.

If you still claim that Romney twins can regularly achieve 300gms dail gains to 40Kg?, can you provide documented peer-reviewed evidence, If not, and in the immortal words of Mark Twain: ''whilst I grant your honesty I question your arithmetic''.

I have discussed these results with Will Haresign some 7 or 8 years ago when we spent a few hours together at Builth along with breeding for resistance and resilience to worms. He emphasised the trial design was demonstrating clean pasture systems and he thought those results would change with new pasture cultivars, which at the time High Sugar Ryegrasses were occupying his focus.

Since 1977 huge changes have taken place in NZ sheep farming. No longer is the emphasis on land development, but on genetics and grazing management. The Romneys of recent decades are very different in productivity to those of the 1970s. I have in the past threads quoted papers quantifying these changes from 1990. These are best summarised as 86% of lamb production gain per ewe over 15 years (industry means) in the attached read only document. In slide 8 the rate of gain is shown. Further slides show the contributing reasons and quantify those attributing reasons be they genetics or management. B+LNZGenetics geneticists stated at a breeders conference in either 2018 or 2019, that since 2005 the genetic trends for Number of Lambs Born, Lamb Growth and Survival have all increased leading to an expected doubling of productivity per year since 1990.
As chair and participant of one of NZ's largest benchmarking schemes (FM2000) analysis showed that by weaning, almost 40% of farms in 2007 achieved 300g/d in growth of twin lambs (minus the 4.5kgs birth weight standard and verified by subsequent killing data and liveweights of reared replacements). This data is not peer reviewed, as its purpose was for participant goal setting, not public consumption. NZ farmers wean at 10 - 12 weeks depending on pasture covers. Some of these farmers further demonstrated no "post weaning growth depression" proving pasture quality was paramount. The top performing farms were not dominated by a breed, but all dam breeds were Romney, or Romney derivative and most lambs sired by those breeds. The data set had 800,000 lamb records.
Today there are tools galore for pasture grazing management, which I encourage farmers where ever they farm to use, as the proven science makes such goals achievable. Principles are constant, regional differences dictate application.
In recent years, AgResearch (NZ's largest ag. science provider) has large programmes focusing on grazing management particularly into improving efficiency as it's so tied up with GHG emissions.

For further reading (some also getting a little dated eg. yr 2000 publications but heaps of references)visit:
beeflambnz.com/knowledge-hub/PDF/400-plus-guide
beeflambnz.com/knowledge-hub insert; "Guide to Feed Planning for Sheep Farmers" and "FeedSmart2" along with a lot of other publications on that page.

 

[egbert]

Aha rents tend to be lot lower than fbts are they not ?

Hilly, you've lost me.
I thought we were talking about whether one breed was more profitable than another.

3 of the larger properties around have lately been let on FBts, at much higher rents than the other AHAs on the estate.
Each of those blocks are being primarily grazed by swales/SBF, all are being run by fairly progressive farmers.
If I saw them using romneys, i would be asking further questions.
They're not, so i won't.

 

[egbert]

The 7cm of pasture height relates to when sheep enter the lambing paddocks, (or in the case of indoor lambing countries when let out soon after lambing). For outdoor lambing where the majority of ewes are having multiples, set stocking is the only option and adjusted to litter size. The minimum pasture height of 7cms was determined by researchers that had clever kit counting the number of bites ewes had to make to achieve the intake needed for lactation to be sufficient to grow twins at 300 g/day. On short pasture, ewes ran out of day trying to get enough to meet the demand of the lambs, hence the lamb's growth rates dropped off accordingly.
The outcomes of having spring grown pasture height over 7cm (3 inches) are;

• ewes reach milk demand peak earlier
• lactation peaks last longer (about bigger lambs putting proportionally more demand on milk supply)
• lambs grow faster and develop their rumen function at an earlier age
• fast growing animals use less energy for maintenance and are more efficient
• lambs that have grown fast are better able to handle L3 gut parasites

So the importance of the "7cm rule" is all about the first 6 weeks. This is A pasture QUANTITY issue.
After that it is all about pasture quality and that depends on entry and exit heights.

I prefer to have late spring exit heights of 4 - 5 cms. However that depends on the legume content that should be as high as possible. After 6 weeks post lambing, it is no longer about ewe intakes, as she should have done her job, as lambs will then be benefiting more from pasture than milk.

I totally don't recommend the leader/follower system in late spring. Better to speed up the rotation, or put more stock into the rotation. The leader/follower system only works well in summer when pasture quality has deteriorated.
Spring is the easiest time to restore weight on ewes (they are 20% more efficient then) and growing lambs fast sets them up to handle the decline in pasture quality over summer.
Profitability comes from efficiency, working with natures seasons when sheep are most efficient is best financially and for (dare I say it) GHG emissions.

A genuine question.
How does the 7cm pasture height business work when the seasons take matters out of my hands?

At the minute, I'm grazed tight almost everywhere. 5cm would be lush.
In about a month, (I surely hope) there'll be loads of keep, and keeping to 7cm could be feasible - if I were to dedicate a lot of time to fences and shepherding.
A few weeks after that, i'll have more grass than I could ever eat, which will then toughen off, die back, and serve the stock for autumn/winter fodder until/unless they need conserved grub.
(I've about 100 acres of hay land, 1400 unmowable, and common grazings on many thousands of acres of hill)

Hundreds of acres will be 20cm+ deep in grass by the end of summer, it can't realistically be topped, and gets burnt rotationally -if we get to it, and are feeling brave.
If I somehow managed to get it down to 7cm by late summer when it stops growing, come christmas - our winter- what would the poor beggars be living on?

As far as I can see, there'd be hill country all over the UK with much the same constraints on it.

 

[Agrivator]

A genuine question.
How does the 7cm pasture height business work when the seasons take matters out of my hands?

At the minute, I'm grazed tight almost everywhere. 5cm would be lush.
In about a month, (I surely hope) there'll be loads of keep, and keeping to 7cm could be feasible - if I were to dedicate a lot of time to fences and shepherding.
A few weeks after that, i'll have more grass than I could ever eat, which will then toughen off, die back, and serve the stock for autumn/winter fodder until/unless they need conserved grub.
(I've about 100 acres of hay land, 1400 unmowable, and common grazings on many thousands of acres of hill)

Hundreds of acres will be 20cm+ deep in grass by the end of summer, it can't realistically be topped, and gets burnt rotationally -if we get to it, and are feeling brave.
If I somehow managed to get it down to 7cm by late summer when it stops growing, come christmas - our winter- what would the poor beggars be living on?

As far as I can see, there'd be hill country all over the UK with much the same constraints on it.

The 7cm figure (roughly 3 inches) was a figure plucked out of thin air about 40 years ago. And as usually happens, that figure has been repeated ever since by researchers and advisers, simply sharing their ignorances, or to be kinder, their lack of practical experience.

A snapshot figure of grass length doesn't mean very much. A good cover can often indicate a poor intake, and conversely, a poor cover can indicate a high intake. And of course, general soil fertility and weather conditions affect sward recover during periods of sustained high grazing pressure.

I remember in a severe drought, when ewes with lambs were grazing grass to the bone, but where the lambs were still thriving, we used cages (3' x 3') thrown at random to measure grass growth on those small plots where sheep were unable to graze. It indicated that, at about 3am while we were still in our flea pits, the sheep were up early, grazing what had grown overnight.

Their DM intake of both ewes and lambs might have been less than ad lib, but the nutrient value of that DM was exceptionally high, and enough to maintain performance.

 

[neilo]

The 7cm figure (roughly 3 inches) was a figure plucked out of thin air about 40 years ago. And as usually happens, that figure has been repeated ever since by researchers and advisers, simply sharing their ignorances, or to be kinder, their lack of practical experience.

A snapshot figure of grass length doesn't mean very much. A good cover can often indicate a poor intake, and conversely, a poor cover can indicate a high intake. And of course, general soil fertility and weather conditions affect sward recover during periods of sustained high grazing pressure.

I remember in a severe drought, when ewes with lambs were grazing grass to the bone, but where the lambs were still thriving, we used cages (3' x 3') thrown at random to measure grass growth on those small plots where sheep were unable to graze. It indicated that, at about 3am while we were still in our flea pits, the sheep were up early, grazing what had grown overnight.

Their DM intake of both ewes and lambs might have been less than ad lib, but the nutrient value of that DM was exceptionally high, and enough to maintain performance.

Is the 7cm figure not just a simple way of referring to a cover of 2500 kg of DM/ha, not just a figure plucked out of thin air?

The problem with grazing to bare bones is that you kill out the most productive species over time and delay regrowth, reducing DM output.
My singles are on just that still, and due to move to higher covers in the next day or two. I know those paddocks won’t be ready to spray off for reseeding for several weeks, whereas the (twin) paddocks that have been maintained above 1500kg are starting to explode with growth.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

The 7cm figure (roughly 3 inches) was a figure plucked out of thin air about 40 years ago. And as usually happens, that figure has been repeated ever since by researchers and advisers, simply sharing their ignorances, or to be kinder, their lack of practical experience.

A snapshot figure of grass length doesn't mean very much. A good cover can often indicate a poor intake, and conversely, a poor cover can indicate a high intake. And of course, general soil fertility and weather conditions affect sward recover during periods of sustained high grazing pressure.

I remember in a severe drought, when ewes with lambs were grazing grass to the bone, but where the lambs were still thriving, we used cages (3' x 3') thrown at random to measure grass growth on those small plots where sheep were unable to graze. It indicated that, at about 3am while we were still in our flea pits, the sheep were up early, grazing what had grown overnight.

Their DM intake of both ewes and lambs might have been less than ad lib, but the nutrient value of that DM was exceptionally high, and enough to maintain performance.

It used to be said sheep did best grazing the grass that grew the night before.

 

[Agrivator]

Is the 7cm figure not just a simple way of referring to a cover of 2500 kg of DM/ha, not just a figure plucked out of thin air?

The problem with grazing to bare bones is that you kill out the most productive species over time and delay regrowth, reducing DM output.
My singles are on just that still, and due to move to higher covers in the next day or two. I know those paddocks won’t be ready to spray off for reseeding for several weeks, whereas the (twin) paddocks that have been maintained above 1500kg are starting to explode with growth.

Yes, but sward density is as important as sward height. And I agree that continuous high grazing pressure can result in sward deterioration.

But I keep forgetting. The Clean Grazing System, which many of us have been following for years, has a major long-term benefit on sward maintenance The variation from year to year between cattle and sheep, with a possible cut for hay or silage, has a major benefit on sward composition.

In the extreme, a good example is continuous horse grazing. It often results fairly soon in a sward composed of little but buttercups, ragwort and docks. But if you alternate annually between horses and cattle or horses and sheep, you can maintain the grass in a much more reasonable state.