Sheep dairy

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
October lambers being grazed on cover crops, stubble crops etc? Aiming for each ewe to rear triplets??
Yes October lambs on cover crops.

For accelerated lambing a weaning percentage of 130% per lambing is more realistic. This would give an annualised weaning percentage of 260%.

With my once a year Shetland based composite flock I'm not looking for each ewe to rear triplets, only that those that do have triples can rear them off grazed forage alone.
 
When I was at Harper (mid '80's) they had a flock of Finn x Dorset that lambed every 8 months (ie 3 times in 2 years). It seemed a massively expensive system, involving sponging and even some AI. I'm sure that they will have thought about/ given a try to lambing the every 6 months. It never caught on for some reason.
Mind you at today's lamb prices it might be worth the cost and hassle.
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
When I was at Harper (mid '80's) they had a flock of Finn x Dorset that lambed every 8 months (ie 3 times in 2 years). It seemed a massively expensive system, involving sponging and even some AI. I'm sure that they will have thought about/ given a try to lambing the every 6 months. It never caught on for some reason.
Mind you at today's lamb prices it might be worth the cost and hassle.
I speak to an Australian over Facebook who has a dorper based shedding composite which lambs every 6 months.
 

andybk

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Mendips Somerset
Yep! And put a bit of shape in the dairy ewes
be wary of recorded ones , its not the recording as such just a lot were breeding for leanness and growth and IDF was put in (shh) they are very wary / wild sheep to handle , I think David Rossiter uses some NZ blood which is fine and prob more functional for what your looking for .if you can find stock from them , it might be worth ringing him see who buys his rams, there are a few big flocks of commercial ewes that supply waitrose contracts around
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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