Swapping to Outdoor Lambing

[Jonny_2]

Any one got any advice on swapping to outdoor lambing?

Currently lamb 165 ewes and 30 hogs inside along side a full time job. I take a weeks holiday and rely on my mother to check during the day but cant do this for ever. I started to swap onto Lleyn ewes 7 years ago and the majority are pure along with some texel and suff x. We have a wet farm so house from middle of January, something which i cant imagine never not doing. Half the ewes go to the Lleyn or Romtex and the other half a NZ Suffolk or Suffolk. Lambing time has been 10x better since we went onto Lleyns but still have to pull half the singes and a noticeable amount of twins have a leg back or breach. Wouldn't say ewes many ewes are fat. Twins are on 10me chopped bales and 450g of cake a day for last month till lambing. Other than help we also have a touch of watery mouth (despite trying very hard) and the bloody Lleyns are pinching lambs left right and centre. Currently have 3 twins having to be persuaded to take a lamb due to a ewe pinching whilst no one was around.

How would you make the next step to lamb them outside? My thoughts are to house them for 8 weeks on silage and turn out mid-march to lamb start of April but my biggest reservations would be the lambing difficulties we have at the moment. Most difficulties are with suffolk tups so i would defo get rid of these. Can anyone recommend a terminal sire for outdoors? i have 26 acre of sheltered grass land round my buildings so would this be enough for 165 ewes?

 

[d-wales]

Any one got any advice on swapping to outdoor lambing?

Currently lamb 165 ewes and 30 hogs inside along side a full time job. I take a weeks holiday and rely on my mother to check during the day but cant do this for ever. I started to swap onto Lleyn ewes 7 years ago and the majority are pure along with some texel and suff x. We have a wet farm so house from middle of January, something which i cant imagine never not doing. Half the ewes go to the Lleyn or Romtex and the other half a NZ Suffolk or Suffolk. Lambing time has been 10x better since we went onto Lleyns but still have to pull half the singes and a noticeable amount of twins have a leg back or breach. Wouldn't say ewes many ewes are fat. Twins are on 10me chopped bales and 450g of cake a day for last month till lambing. Other than help we also have a touch of watery mouth (despite trying very hard) and the bloody Lleyns are pinching lambs left right and centre. Currently have 3 twins having to be persuaded to take a lamb due to a ewe pinching whilst no one was around.

How would you make the next step to lamb them outside? My thoughts are to house them for 8 weeks on silage and turn out mid-march to lamb start of April but my biggest reservations would be the lambing difficulties we have at the moment. Most difficulties are with suffolk tups so i would defo get rid of these. Can anyone recommend a terminal sire for outdoors? i have 26 acre of sheltered grass land round my buildings so would this be enough for 165 ewes?

Ive currently got 180 ewes on 20 acres, mixture of singles and twins. No problem at all.

It obviously all depends on how much grass you have and how much access to water they have.

I started outdoor lambing a few years ago, by simply leaving them out during the night and gathering back to the shed in the morning, and sorting out what had lambed over night in the field.

Then I realised how easy it was and kept them out all the time.

If you had handling facilities near by, that would make it easy to catch any problems.

 

[S J H]

Any one got any advice on swapping to outdoor lambing?

Currently lamb 165 ewes and 30 hogs inside along side a full time job. I take a weeks holiday and rely on my mother to check during the day but cant do this for ever. I started to swap onto Lleyn ewes 7 years ago and the majority are pure along with some texel and suff x. We have a wet farm so house from middle of January, something which i cant imagine never not doing. Half the ewes go to the Lleyn or Romtex and the other half a NZ Suffolk or Suffolk. Lambing time has been 10x better since we went onto Lleyns but still have to pull half the singes and a noticeable amount of twins have a leg back or breach. Wouldn't say ewes many ewes are fat. Twins are on 10me chopped bales and 450g of cake a day for last month till lambing. Other than help we also have a touch of watery mouth (despite trying very hard) and the bloody Lleyns are pinching lambs left right and centre. Currently have 3 twins having to be persuaded to take a lamb due to a ewe pinching whilst no one was around.

How would you make the next step to lamb them outside? My thoughts are to house them for 8 weeks on silage and turn out mid-march to lamb start of April but my biggest reservations would be the lambing difficulties we have at the moment. Most difficulties are with suffolk tups so i would defo get rid of these. Can anyone recommend a terminal sire for outdoors? i have 26 acre of sheltered grass land round my buildings so would this be enough for 165 ewes?

That will be plenty of ground, I run mine at over double that, but I do move them away at a couple of days old, so by the second week of April, a lot will hopefully be gone. I think I have as many mis-motherings later on, when they have more room, as I do at the start.

I’m only using beltex or beltex x tups. They have the most vigour out of all I’ve tried, which I think is as important as ease of lambing. Tempted to try a lleyn to breed replacement next year.

 

[Big Ambitions]

Biggest tip would be put them out and leave them to it, run singles hard with no concs, twins 400g per day flat rate for the last 6 weeks and trips 600g per day again flat rate.
Once they’re lambing put out ewe and lamb blocks to avoid mismothering instead of concentrates.
Take a pair of binoculars, if somethings really struggling check the rest of the flock for 20/30 mins and come back. 9/10 times you’ll come back and the lambs will be out.
The main problem with indoor lambing is its far too convenient to intervene “just in case”, outdoor there’s no such option. You have to catch them up, which makes things hard and puts you off catching them when you don’t need to!
Also stock sparsely, max 5 hoggs per acre and max 8 ewes per acre, ideally less, a sheep’s worst enemy is another sheep (alongside its own shadow )

 

[Big Ambitions]

Biggest tip would be put them out and leave them to it, run singles hard with no concs, twins 400g per day flat rate for the last 6 weeks and trips 600g per day again flat rate.
Once they’re lambing put out ewe and lamb blocks to avoid mismothering instead of concentrates.
Take a pair of binoculars, if somethings really struggling check the rest of the flock for 20/30 mins and come back. 9/10 times you’ll come back and the lambs will be out.
The main problem with indoor lambing is its far too convenient to intervene “just in case”, outdoor there’s no such option. You have to catch them up, which makes things hard and puts you off catching them when you don’t need to!
Also stock sparsely, max 5 hoggs per acre and max 8 ewes per acre, ideally less, a sheep’s worst enemy is another sheep (alongside its own shadow )

Also to add, cull any problems, and I don’t just mean your usual “proper” issues, I mean if you’ve had to spend any time on her, catching her or she’s just been a pain in the arse for any reason, get rid of her, and her immediate progeny. Cull cull cull, if you want a real hands off flock then you have to be absolutely brutal

 

[It was already broken.]

You have to learn to be a sheep farmer, not a shepherd. I can only say that my system seems to work for me. Lamb mid April. NZ tups on crossbred ewes. Plenty of room. No concentrate only buckets. Number ewes so I can identify troublemakers and keep notes as I check three times a day. Stay in bed at night, leave alone. Tag each day so I know who belongs to who if something does not thrive. Cull anything that does not raise a lamb, no exceptions. After three seasons of this I touch less than one ewe per hundred at lambing.

 

[unlacedgecko]

You have to learn to be a sheep farmer, not a shepherd. I can only say that my system seems to work for me. Lamb mid April. NZ tups on crossbred ewes. Plenty of room. No concentrate only buckets. Number ewes so I can identify troublemakers and keep notes as I check three times a day. Stay in bed at night, leave alone. Tag each day so I know who belongs to who if something does not thrive. Cull anything that does not raise a lamb, no exceptions. After three seasons of this I touch less than one ewe per hundred at lambing.

Adaptive genetics - it's what the fans want.

 

[sheepdogtrail]

The main problem with indoor lambing is its far too convenient to intervene “just in case”, outdoor there’s no such option. You have to catch them up, which makes things hard and puts you off catching them when you don’t need to!

Wisdom. I agree with that.

 

[sheepdogtrail]

That will be plenty of ground, I run mine at over double that, but I do move them away at a couple of days old, so by the second week of April, a lot will hopefully be gone. I think I have as many mis-motherings later on, when they have more room, as I do at the start.

I’m only using beltex or beltex x tups. They have the most vigour out of all I’ve tried, which I think is as important as ease of lambing. Tempted to try a lleyn to breed replacement next year.

I find it is the brown fat that makes a difference for me this time of year when lambing on cold and wet paddocks. Look for ewes and rams with two copies of the brown fat gene.

 

[sheepdogtrail]

My maternail line is double copy brown fat. They are all Clun Forrest. My ewes routinely (last 15 years anyway) lamb outside on pasture with no supplements starting the third week of April. Temps are between 32F and 50F during that time. Pastures are wet. It is rare that I loose lambs to hypothermia. Add in the wind, hail, sleet and cold driving rain, I am really amazed on how well I built these genetics.

Regarding miss mothering (perhaps pinching...?) which I call Granny behavior, I find that it is best to set the stocking density where they will be enough really good food for each ewe and her lambs. About 4 meters squared/per ewe and lamb(s). For me, I have reduced the grannies via culling and better calculated stocking rates. It still happens, but maybe 1 or 2 ewes a year. If that.

I can see the lure of indoor lambing as everything is there that one could need. At least it should be. Some folks don't have any choice but to do it one way. That is fine. If it works for you, don't change.

But if you want to change, just keep remembering where you want to get to. It is possible some management changes will be needed. These can be hard lessons, but you should be able to exit it with enough knowledge so it will not happen again. For me, that is my daily goal. Learn something new. Do my job as a Shepard, but also leave the sunset with more knowledge than I did have at sunrise. There is so much to learn.

I am not sure 26 acres would be enough for ewes and lambs at 100 days. Think about that one. I need 150 days at least to finish my lambs on pasture. I have 40 acres of improved forage on irrigated ground. But I also don't wean until harvest. I harvest the lambs off their mums. It makes weaning easier for sure. Of course by that time for me, the mums have already kicked off the lambs. They still mother up at 8 months old if I need to stretch my harvest season.

Almost everything is going to be dependent on the amount and quality of the forage. The more, much better forage you have, the less time you will need to fuss with anyone. For me, I touch lambs less than 10 minutes in total from birth until harvest. That includes docking and tagging, vaccinations and knocking.

Do you have a good dog? You could use at least two of them if not three.

You can always just start with part of the ladies and see how it goes. Good luck.

 

[Tim W]

When i first started looking after sheep we did an indoor lambing ----i decided never again

After many years of watching people ''convert'' to outdoor lambing there are 2 things i see as important
1) The right sheep in the right condition lambing to the grass growth---(the right sheep will take a few years to get to)
2) Getting the shepherd to stop interfering (LEAVE THEM ALONE)

 

[toquark]

We run a fairly similar system around full time jobs. Lamb everything outdoors with mainly Easycare ewes, half bred pure and half put to a Suffolk tup.

I believe they’re much better outdoors, it’s cleaner and they’re less stressed in their natural environment. We flush and I take a fortnight off, but for the early birds/stragglers we walk through them first thing before work, again at around 3 then again before dark. We pull very few, mainly the singles to the Suffolk.

It works for me.

 

[S J H]

My maternail line is double copy brown fat. They are all Clun Forrest. My ewes routinely (last 15 years anyway) lamb outside on pasture with no supplements starting the third week of April. Temps are between 32F and 50F during that time. Pastures are wet. It is rare that I loose lambs to hypothermia. Add in the wind, hail, sleet and cold driving rain, I am really amazed on how well I built these genetics.

Regarding miss mothering (perhaps pinching...?) which I call Granny behavior, I find that it is best to set the stocking density where they will be enough really good food for each ewe and her lambs. About 4 meters squared/per ewe and lamb(s). For me, I have reduced the grannies via culling and better calculated stocking rates. It still happens, but maybe 1 or 2 ewes a year. If that.

I can see the lure of indoor lambing as everything is there that one could need. At least it should be. Some folks don't have any choice but to do it one way. That is fine. If it works for you, don't change.

But if you want to change, just keep remembering where you want to get to. It is possible some management changes will be needed. These can be hard lessons, but you should be able to exit it with enough knowledge so it will not happen again. For me, that is my daily goal. Learn something new. Do my job as a Shepard, but also leave the sunset with more knowledge than I did have at sunrise. There is so much to learn.

I am not sure 26 acres would be enough for ewes and lambs at 100 days. Think about that one. I need 150 days at least to finish my lambs on pasture. I have 40 acres of improved forage on irrigated ground. But I also don't wean until harvest. I harvest the lambs off their mums. It makes weaning easier for sure. Of course by that time for me, the mums have already kicked off the lambs. They still mother up at 8 months old if I need to stretch my harvest season.

Almost everything is going to be dependent on the amount and quality of the forage. The more, much better forage you have, the less time you will need to fuss with anyone. For me, I touch lambs less than 10 minutes in total from birth until harvest. That includes docking and tagging, vaccinations and knocking.

Do you have a good dog? You could use at least two of them if not three.

You can always just start with part of the ladies and see how it goes. Good luck.

The trouble is, you only need 1 or 2 to cock the job up

 

[unlacedgecko]

If you breed your own replacements and run a consistent system then those animals not suitable will fail to perform adequately. They can be easily identified and culled.

Those that do well can be retained and bred from. Just got to be consistent.

 

[pgk]

When i first started looking after sheep we did an indoor lambing ----i decided never again

After many years of watching people ''convert'' to outdoor lambing there are 2 things i see as important
1) The right sheep in the right condition lambing to the grass growth---(the right sheep will take a few years to get to)
2) Getting the shepherd to stop interfering (LEAVE THEM ALONE)

You also told me to buy a pair of field glasses which after a couple of years lambing outside without was a revelation.

 

[pgk]

If you breed your own replacements and run a consistent system then those animals not suitable will fail to perform adequately. They can be easily identified and culled.

Those that do well can be retained and bred from. Just got to be consistent.

And buy an ear notcher to identify ewes and offspring to cull.

 

[pgk]

We found lleyns were buggers for stealing lambs, outdoors issue was slightly reduced as long as stocking rate low. Last 2 days we have started lambing a bought in bunch of Highlanders bred out of Romney and Lleyns. Only 3 out of Lleyns and 2 are lamb stealers. Less issue with our shedders who seem to get away to a quiet place. Sire of the highlander's lambs is a Beltex, no issues lambing. We use homebred texels and chartex on bottom end of shedders and as long as no overfat singles they just get on with it.

 

[pgk]

Ps we also lamb texels and chartex outside, keep a closer eye on them as we have only had them 4 years and are still in the heavy culling Mode remove those who need assistance. Current homebred texel and his sons have longer narrower heads and shoulders than fashionable in pedigree circles but are very high index and throwing more unassisted lambs than previous texels we used.

 

[neilo]

The key with singles is to be as hard as hell on them from scanning and through lambing, IME. The hardest job is keeping condition off them, particularly if you move to a type of sheep that makes better use of forage.
Mine are currently on a cultivated beet field, scratched up after strip grazing to uncover bits of root. Due on April 1st, they’ll move onto bare grass fields a day or so beforehand, where the in-lamb hoggs will join them.
They’ll only see decent grass again once they’ve lambed.

Twins are just finishing off grazing some late drilled turnips, and will go onto better grass covers early next week.

Multiples (43) have been grazing a late reseed for the last 3 weeks. They have access to a Chrystalix block but have hardly touched it in that time and they’re all looking spot on. They’ll move into a 3ac sheltered field next week, with a bit better grass cover.

IME, once you have the maternal genetics right, managing ewe condition is key to a stress free lambing.
Sire breed has a bearing too of course, and is always a trade off between lambing ease and sale value, with Charollais and Beltex being a good middle ground IME, but Beltex are incredibly slow to market as a trade off.

 

[unlacedgecko]

The key with singles is to be as hard as hell on them from scanning and through lambing, IME. The hardest job is keeping condition off them, particularly if you move to a type of sheep that makes better use of forage.
Mine are currently on a cultivated beet field, scratched up after strip grazing to uncover bits of root. Due on April 1st, they’ll move onto bare grass fields a day or so beforehand, where the in-lamb hoggs will join them.
They’ll only see decent grass again once they’ve lambed.

Twins are just finishing off grazing some late drilled turnips, and will go onto better grass covers early next week.

Multiples (43) have been grazing a late reseed for the last 3 weeks. They have access to a Chrystalix block but have hardly touched it in that time and they’re all looking spot on. They’ll move into a 3ac sheltered field next week, with a bit better grass cover.

IME, once you have the maternal genetics right, managing ewe condition is key to a stress free lambing.
Sire breed has a bearing too of course, and is always a trade off between lambing ease and sale value, with Charollais and Beltex being a good middle ground IME, but Beltex are incredibly slow to market as a trade off.

You wouldn't by chance know anyone that breeds charollais and beltex would you?