sheep numbers on 40 acre farm

[will6910]

as title says how many breeding ewes and ewe lambs could a 40 acre farm hold ?

 

[topground]

Taking your question literally, depends how secure your fences are.

 

[will6910]

they stay in the fields there put mostly

 

[An Gof]

they stay in the fields there put mostly

Yes they might do but at what stocking density?

 

[will6910]

that's what I'm inquiring how many ewes to acre would be enough but not to much, want to make most use out of the land I have available

 

[sherg]

how high up are you, how old are the leys, how much fert do you want to spread, what are the soil indexes like, indoor or outdoor lambing, making forage or buying it in, finishing lambs or selling stores, what type of ewes do you plan on keeping, saying that if your an average farm with average inputs go for about 150 ewes or so

 

[will6910]

we're lowland really, try to reseed a field each year but are average field Is only 5 acres or so. we've only sown 2 ton of fertiliser this year including silage ground, can't remember the strength tho, we make try to make 50 or 60 bales of silage a year, we have plenty of farmer friends to away winter them all till new year and have enough facilities to house them before Christmas if needed, feed straw and enough meal to keep condition on them till closer to lambing then feed the silage, lamb indoor and turn out onto rested fields from previous October or so

 

[Mutch]

6 ewes an acre should be achievable with good grassland management

 

[Shetlandsheep]

The fences point is a good one, our 40 acres currently only has 50 ewes and lambs due to lack of fencing, there was none to speak of so we are gradually doing it. Have fenced about 10 acres so far including a corral and some with 7 foot mesh for lambing and a field shelter for lambing. The rest of the fields are just cropped for hay until we can fence them.

Once fenced I reckon 150 -200 easy and we are pretty exposed rough grazing, but these are small tough Shetlands and big tough Herdwicks, might be lower end for more commercial types.

 

[will6910]

type of sheep would be big factor, we have texel cross Lleyns and introducing belcare to keep maternal instinct for replacements and texel for good grading

 

[jade35]

Taking your question literally, depends how secure your fences are.

Blame the badgers if they get out. Neighbour rents out her few fields to a sheep farmer. Whenever they get out on our land he always blames the badgers for making holes in the fence.

 

[Shetlandsheep]

type of sheep would be big factor, we have texel cross Lleyns and introducing belcare to keep maternal instinct for replacements and texel for good grading

Does the Lleyn not take care of the maternal trait ?

 

[will6910]

yeah it does but sold only lleyn ram we had and dad has decided he wants to try belcare in hope it may make slightly meatier lambs

 

[Shetlandsheep]

Ah that makes complete sense )

 

[Frank-the-Wool]

5 ewes to the acre, with good clover leys you should not need much extra fertiliser.
Otherwise you end up paying to keep the extra ewe per acre!

 

[hindmaist]

5 acres of swedes and 35 acres of grass is the way to go.

 

[Johnny400]

Ive 40 acre block that i rent from my brother. Some summers it easily supports 200 ewes and lambs with taking one crop of silage off a third of it. This year i havent taken any silage, but do have 7 acres into kale and only 150 ewes and lambs and was struggling for grass for a good while.
Only you know your ground and just gradually build numbers up until it works.

 

[sherg]

Ive 40 acre block that i rent from my brother. Some summers it easily supports 200 ewes and lambs with taking one crop of silage off a third of it. This year i havent taken any silage, but do have 7 acres into kale and only 150 ewes and lambs and was struggling for grass for a good while.
Only you know your ground and just gradually build numbers up until it works.

+1 better off having less ewes doing better producing more lambs

 

[will6910]

for past 3 of 4 years after lambing are % is above 1.8 lambs per ewe and this year was closer to 1.9, not sure there's much more we could do to get more lambs per ewe, cause we've got the mesh for housing we've been able to house the tail end of lambs if not gone before closing il are fields for winter so feel that's another thing about increasing ewe numbers slightly

 

[Devil's advocate]

5 acres of swedes and 35 acres of grass is the way to go.

Depending on soil type & climate of course, also if weed seed in soil. But I agree other fodder crops such as fodder beet & fodder rape are available to suit different soils & climate.