At the moment I have a full time employment, apart from that I have a small pest controle (rats and rabbits) enterprise which I’ve been building and growing since 2013 and which does provide a parttime income at a imho modest €32,50 an hour. Which is also what I aim to achieve with my farming enterprise.
I’ve been farming Geese, sheep, chickens in varying degrees in the last decade. I manage Some woodland, sell a little firewood every year, grow some mushrooms etc.
In the past 4-5 years I’ve been investing what comes out of the pest control enterprise into my farming enterprise to grow in it and make it more professional.
My context concerning sheep is, that the land I graze is free. I do not own it, no taxes and also no rent. Sometimes I get payed to graze land. But as plentiful as the land is, quality is rather poor.
Renting improved pasture is next to impossible, buying Agricultural land is next to impossible (€100k per hectare if available).
The land I can use is unimproved pasture, some improvements can be made (clovers etc) but it will never be dairycow quality grass.
Sometimes the land is fenced and in some cases I have to put up electric nets. All this takes place in and around a 250k inhabitant city, lots of roads, railways, lots of opiniated treehuggers that keep an eye on what you are doing.
I am very interested in being as efficient as I can be. I demand this of my livestock and myself. Discussing and reading about kg meat produced per ha and the breeding to get the most efficient ewe is something I enjoy contemplating about.
However, since my enterprise has grown, the amount of land I have acces to has grown, there are still only 7 days in a week. Which leads me to conclude that in my case the KG of meat produced per FTE is more relevant than per Hectare.
At the moment I run shedders, lamb them every 6-8 months, feed them a little pellets few weeks before and after lambing. Sheep are outside all year, no hay feeding costs at the moment, very little medical costs, no barn, outside lambing. Very low capital input enterprise. I cull heavily for worms, feet, udders. Due to th excellerated breeding I get 200% lambs weaned per ewe. However I do wonder if with such low quality pastures excellerated breeding is the way forward. If I’d be able to able to better meet their nutritional needs I see no problem getting these sheep to 300%.
I’ve been selecting for a somewhat smaller ewe in the past years which means my ewes are in the 45-60 kg range. Sometimes I feel I need a breed or type with a bigger appitite.
What would you do? How would you run a sheep enterprise like this with this specific context?
I’ve been farming Geese, sheep, chickens in varying degrees in the last decade. I manage Some woodland, sell a little firewood every year, grow some mushrooms etc.
In the past 4-5 years I’ve been investing what comes out of the pest control enterprise into my farming enterprise to grow in it and make it more professional.
My context concerning sheep is, that the land I graze is free. I do not own it, no taxes and also no rent. Sometimes I get payed to graze land. But as plentiful as the land is, quality is rather poor.
Renting improved pasture is next to impossible, buying Agricultural land is next to impossible (€100k per hectare if available).
The land I can use is unimproved pasture, some improvements can be made (clovers etc) but it will never be dairycow quality grass.
Sometimes the land is fenced and in some cases I have to put up electric nets. All this takes place in and around a 250k inhabitant city, lots of roads, railways, lots of opiniated treehuggers that keep an eye on what you are doing.
I am very interested in being as efficient as I can be. I demand this of my livestock and myself. Discussing and reading about kg meat produced per ha and the breeding to get the most efficient ewe is something I enjoy contemplating about.
However, since my enterprise has grown, the amount of land I have acces to has grown, there are still only 7 days in a week. Which leads me to conclude that in my case the KG of meat produced per FTE is more relevant than per Hectare.
At the moment I run shedders, lamb them every 6-8 months, feed them a little pellets few weeks before and after lambing. Sheep are outside all year, no hay feeding costs at the moment, very little medical costs, no barn, outside lambing. Very low capital input enterprise. I cull heavily for worms, feet, udders. Due to th excellerated breeding I get 200% lambs weaned per ewe. However I do wonder if with such low quality pastures excellerated breeding is the way forward. If I’d be able to able to better meet their nutritional needs I see no problem getting these sheep to 300%.
I’ve been selecting for a somewhat smaller ewe in the past years which means my ewes are in the 45-60 kg range. Sometimes I feel I need a breed or type with a bigger appitite.
What would you do? How would you run a sheep enterprise like this with this specific context?
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