Small Changes to try and improve our system, Weaning and crunching hoggets.
My Name is Alistair Bird and My wife Genna and I farm on ‘The Grange” near Oxford, North Canterbury, in the South Island of New Zealand.
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Your lambing percentage will be up the following year probably keep ewes till they are older
We mate hoggets, this year roughly 650 lambs docked out of 800 ewes so around 80%.
I'm not sure if it makes sense to do anymore, and it's a tough thing to judge. Very farm dependent I think.
We've got an advantage over you guys being from North Island in that we lamb earlier so also wean earlier, and while they're still off sync with the older girls at least they're weaned by Christmas and onto fresh grass.
They're still tough to finish and realise the return from having all those extra lambs though. We'll still be finishing them until at least June every year, which takes up a lot of space which could be better utilised particularly when the lamb price is low.
We had some success with using more Southdown rams to get a bit more meat on the hogget lambs. Majority are Perendale, which finish slow, but have very few issues at least.
I've considered only mating half the ewe lambs to a set weight or something, but we don't really have issues putting weight on them, the issue is really that it's just asking a lot from a young ewe to be mated, raise a lamb, and then be back in good shape in time to be mated as a two tooth. No matter how big they are they suffer a bit.
Interested in hearing how it goes for you guys and hope it works out anyway.
Never mated hoggets.To young. Should be able to mate your ewes earlier with the extra grass to get better money.When will you spray, dip etc for flies ??
Hi, have you noticed that the sheep that get fly strike for the first time also get fly strike the following year? Some breeds seem to attract flies more than other breeds. I tried breeding Texel sheep for their excellent meat and weight quality (still consider Texel hoggets the best tasting meat on the table!) but the breed does have huge heads which make lambing difficult. It’s a good thing that I kept my job off farm otherwise we would not get through the bad times. Cheers mate. Harera
Hey Alistair they were saying at the first two major sales for 2024 in Northern Victoria and Southern NSW lamb prices had big increases $$$$$$$. Be interesting to see if they jump across the Tasman. Thanks for the video Mate 👍
Did this year, not intentionally, 101%, not something we plan for but thats the neighbours ram lambs for you
Hi Alistair
We have mated ewe lambs the last few years. Has been a good tool to increase sheep numbers but has its drawbacks. They are always late lambs that we have to carry through to finish and then harder to get joining back in line with the main mobs and get a good percentage the next year. Once our numbers are up where we want them i think we will give it a miss. We are sw vic in aust.
I got no idea as a beef and dairy farmer in aus. But been listening to the head shepherd podcast from a consultant from your side of the ditch from nextgen agri, they rmtalk about all this sort of stuff. Gotta do what works best for your farm.
Great video . . . effective human fence . . . very interesting to hear the farming strategy . . . the fly strike seems nasty . . . all the elements of large herds . . . our old homestead flock was pretty easy to care for. Cheers.
Living in Oklahoma and we are at lows in the 20 degrees and Higgs in 40's. Then you are having high heat. We will be at 8 degrees on Monday. We get 90's and 100 degrees in July and August. You are so very close to 12k subscribers!
You will find youll get more lambs at the other end of it, yr ewes will be big and strong and last for more years❤
Absolutely another spectacular beautiful shooting filming footage and a very interesting video to watch and I really appreciate and enjoy watching your lifestyle documentary video channel .. TQ and best regards from Montreal QC Canada
Hi Alistair
great video we graze 12,000 lambs a year for spears we normally end up with a couple hundred ewe lambs lamb and we find we are pulling quite a chunk of them because they get the sholders out and can't go on the truck. the fly strike is a real pain this year again we are located up in Fairlie.
Could you consider mating a less fertile terminal ram to target more single lambs and will help with better conditions hoggets and better quality works and trade lambs which will both help with quality of sheep and still get some income from that flock of next year. And can still run with your idea of having the drys run up on the hill and untouched for the longer period of time
Good on ya for sharing so much with everyone
We are north Canterbury aswell and mate hoggets with good success 150% scanning
We sell all lambs apart from replacements in November so they have plenty of time to put condition on
However we are earlier and dont have as much hard hill country
Would the current store price cover the running of the hogget for the year?
Do mate the ewe lamb's and I am questioning it going forward output would be better mating same number of mature ewe but would put more pressure for feed in winter because of carry dry ewe lamb's purchasing 18 month old hoggets would help but to buy what I breed would cost 200-250 a head that's a big expense it's difficult, getting a lamb at a year old covers carrying cost of hoggets but farm output is down
Were not mating hoggs here have done it in the past but those hoggs need a real good place in winter spring and all summer to rear a lamb which is on your hands well into winter robbing feed off something else, we find now we have much better yearling ewes rearing better lambs with much higher rearing % although in UK our farm is similar to yours we have hill ground and some good flats the hill is great to keep those hoggs over summer poorer feed harder country and still better yearlings people can say more efficient lambing hoggs and its great on paper but there is a reason our fathers and grandfather's didn't tup hoggs
We mate 500 out of 900 hoggets and they scan about 110% about a month after the ewes and wean the lambs at the same time and the lambs just get mixed in with the lambs of the same size from the ewes, these lambs get killed over the winter. The dry hoggets join back up with the mated ones when the ram goes out as 2ths.
Is Scotland a lot of hill farms put ewe lambs away on to dairy ground for the winter to let them grow and you won’t tup them until the following year.
Would the combination of maggots and a crappy wool price mean it would be worth considering full shedding sheep?
I know you have the breeding where you want….but no maggots and no shearing must be tempting.
You can still use Suffolks as terminal sires.🐑
I haven't mated ewe lambs intentionality but have had plenty lamb over the time I been keeping sheep. I don't think I would do it on purpose purely because I would be using my best feed on my least productive sheep. When I could use cheep food to run to run them round to shearlings and have the most productive ewes or fattening lambs on the better ground.