Author: ecollins63

Hay Making & Ram & Ewe Sales Under Way

Bearwood Lleyn Ram Lamb
Bearwood Lleyn Ram Lamb

What a difference a couple of months make. Back in May we had no grass and all the animals were in need of warm temperatures and sun. How they have all altered since the heatwave during July. The grass has grown and all animals are blooming.

Hay and good quality haylage has been made and stored to be fed this coming winter and lambs weaned from the ewes. Lambs ready to go for meat were sold through Hereford market and replacement ewe and ram lambs have been sorted.

Bearwood Blue Texel Ram Lamb
Bearwood Blue Texel Ram Lamb

July has been a busy month showing prospective purchasers round the Bearwood flock. More buyers are coming to the farm to buy their replacements; they like to see the sheep in their “working clothes” and look at the farming system to make sure it will compliment their system.

The upshot of this is that 16 yearling rams have already been sold and 100 ewe lambs reserved to go to a couple of breeders. Semen from Bearwood Trooper has also been purchased by a breeder that had used Trooper’s semen last year.

I also have visited a couple of flocks  to view

Bearwood Lleyn Ewe Lamb
Bearwood Lleyn Ewe Lamb

rams as I require 2 Lleyn stock rams this year. Registered Lleyn rams with good performance figures and the right bloodlines are difficult to find but I hope  to have both rams purchased within the next couple of weeks. I prefer to buy off the farm for the reasons mentioned above.

I hope to also purchase a few more Blue Texel ewes and a Blue Texel ram so my shopping spree has not finished yet! More details of my purchases will follow when the sales have been concluded.

The sale season is fast approaching. I  hope to go to Ross on Wye with ewe lambs in September and Welshpool in October. I am attending fewer sales this year due to the number of sheep I have sold off the farm.

Bearwood Blue Texel Ewe Lamb
Bearwood Blue Texel Ewe Lamb

I have purchase a new weigh crate designed by Martin Tompkins of Border Software and a True Test reader which reads the animals EID and records it’s weight. I am weighing more often now to get a better idea of live weight gain of lambs and mature weight of ewes. It is also useful to see which ewe is producing her own body weight in lamb meat when we weigh ewes and lambs at weaning.

 

 

Lambing Over

Lambing is almost over with just two ewes left to lamb. We were luckily not affected by the Schmallenberg virus and the weather, although cold was not too severe. We had snow but luckily a couple of inches and not a couple of feet like in some areas.

The ewes and lambs have survived well. I do not creep the lambs but I am still feeding concentrate to the ewes to help them produce milk until the grass grows.

The majority of Lleyns and Blue Texels lambed on their own in the lambing shed and ewes and lambs were put out onto grass within three days of being born. Even in the snow and rain lamb losses were minimal. Both breeds of sheep are excellent mothers and have plenty of milk.

The camera in the sheep shed that sends images to my computer was yet again a great asset. I lambed the ewes on my own and only get help when I transport ewes and lambs from the shed to the field.

The lambs will be drenched shortly with a wormer that covers Nematodirus and a multi vitamin.

We now need sunshine and warm weather to get the grass to grow and to help the lambs get a good start in life.

Lambing Well Under Way

Blue Texel Ewes And Lambs.
Blue Texel Ewes And Lambs.

Lambing is well under way and thank goodness all lambs born so far have been fit and healthy with no signs of the Schmallenberg virus being present.

In past years when feeding concentrate to ewes indoors I have used sheep rolls instead of  nuts and thrown them onto the straw for the ewes to eat. I find feeding sheep this way prevents pushing and shoving that occurs when trough feeding. The ewes also spend many hours during the day ferreting around in the straw for food, thereby not getting bored. The one problem I found when feeding rolls was that older and younger ewes had problems eating them and many ewes that had recently lambed were not interested in them. I was also hesitant to throw nuts onto the straw as I was worried that due to the size of the nut there would be a lot of wastage and this concerned me with the price of concentrate feed going up year on year. This year I made the decision to use sheep nuts and I have been very impressed with the results. All the feed is eaten up with very little wastage and the ewes are producing lots of milk.

Nearly all the Blue Texels have lambed. The majority have lambed on their own and the lambs have been up on their feet and sucking in no time. The ewes are very good mothers which makes my job much easier. One ewe had to have a caesarian as she had two big lambs inside her with one lamb twisted. There was not enough room to untwist the lamb and deliver it normally so the decision was made to get the lambs out by surgery.

The Lleyns are also lambing and again they lamb on their own and my main job is moving ewes and lambs to individual pens and weighing and tagging lambs for recording purposes. Like past years, I only have to assist  roughly 1 in a 100 ewes that lamb.

We have a thriving lamb bar at present. I only put 2 lambs on a ewe so a ewe that has three lambs has one spare. This lamb will be reared artificially using powdered milk.

The camera in the sheep shed has revolutionized lambing for me, especially at nights. I can scan the shed from my computer or smart phone and do not have to continually go out to the shed, thereby  disturbing the sheep. As an example, last night my alarm went off at 2am. I scanned the shed and saw that a few ewes had lambed, all the lambs were OK and with their mothers, so I reset the alarm for 5.30am so I could sort everything out before feeding. Now that we have been lambing for a couple of weeks, the lambing pens have thinned out so there is room for a ewe to find a space away from the others to lamb.

I try to turn ewes and lambs out onto grass as soon as possible after birth but I do make sure there is are forecast of 48 hours dry weather after turnout. The grass is not growing yet, however, I luckily have enough hay and silage to see me through.

Now I am waiting for warmer weather. It will not only make the grass grow but do me some good as well!

 

 

 

Things Calm Down As Ewes Go To The Tup

We have had a busy autumn selling breeding stock. Over 250 females and 30 rams have been sold privately or through Breed Society Sales. Many customers return to buy breeding animals off the farm and therefore it is important that I  have different bloodlines for them to choose from and that my records are accurate. Electronic identification and a good livestock management computer program is essential. I am fed up with taking bits of paper out to the field; which disintegrate and become unreadable, to answer customers questions on pedigree, performance figures, lambing history etc; that next year I will have a tablet computer with all the information to hand in one box.

The rams have been out with the ewes for the past month and ewe lambs are being tupped at the moment. The rams will be pulled out of the ewes next week and will be left in with the ewe lambs for another 16 days. 70% of the ewe lambs have gone to the ram already.

I have sold 90% of the fat lambs off grass. Usually I sell deadweight, however, in August/September when they should have graded at 40 – 44kg, they were that weight but did not have the flesh on them due to the wet summer. Consequently they have graded in the last 6 weeks at 45 – 55kgs. The deadweight only pays for carcases to 21kg deadweight (44kg live weight) and so I have been selling these lambs through the market. The higher weights mean I have been getting an acceptable price for the year and I have not had the extra cost of feeding expensive concentrate.

For the next couple of months I will be busy going around the grass fields repairing fences so that everything is ready for ewes and lambs next spring and catching up with paperwork during wet days.

Lleyn Ram and Blue Texel Females Purchased

I had a busy day at the NSA Ram Sale at Builth Wells yesterday.

I purchased a yearling Lleyn ram from Wynne Davies, Pwllheli. This ram has great length, good skin and a great head. He will be primarily used for breeding females.

I also purchased three Blue Texel ewes; two yearlings and one 3 year old. I now have 16 Blue Texel ewes and these are the foundation ewes of this new flock. The female bloodlines are strongly influenced by David Alexander’s Millside breeding, while the male bloodlines are from the breeding of Sue Andrews’s Miserden flock.

I have been impressed with my first Blue Texel lamb crop and this autumn I am putting a small number of Lleyn ewes to the Blue Texel tup to see what this cross will be like.

Sale Season Well Under Way

Lleyn Sheep Society Logo

The sale season is well under way. Yearling rams and ewe lambs have been sold at Lleyn Sheep Society Sales at Exeter, Ruthin and Ross on Wye so far with the yearling rams averaging £945.00.

Ewe lambs have been sold off the farm to start pedigree Lleyn Flocks in Sussex, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire and rams have gone to Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Sussex, Devon, Shropshire, Worcestershire and Cambridgeshire to name a few. Many customers are repeat customers with one person coming back for the 10th year.

I am selling ewe lambs and yearling rams on the 29th September at the Lleyn Sheep Society Sale at Welshpool. This will be my last sale of the season.

I am keeping all my Blue Texel ewe lambs to build up the flock and 2 ram lambs. One yearling ram, Millend Thunder Bold has been sold to Staffordshire and a couple of ram lambs are heading to commercial flocks in Herefordshire.

New Blue Texel Purchases

Blue Texel Yearling Ewes Purchased At Worcester
Blue Texel Yearling Ewes Purchased At Worcester

4 Blue Texel yearling ewes were purchased at the Blue Texel Sheep Society Sale at Worcester Livestock Market last Saturday. They come from the MAC flock of Heather McCurdie, Warwickshire. I bought a couple of yearling ewes from the same flock last year and they have done very well here at Bearwood during the past 12 months, lambing on their own and rearing their lambs off grass.

Kelpie Puppies Growing Fast

Kelpie Puppies at Bearwood
Kelpie Puppies at Bearwood

The Kelpie puppies are now 10 days old and growing fast. There are 5 black and tan boys and 2 fawn and 1 black and tan girls. Tirri is doing them well; they are strong and growing fast and their eyes are beginning to open. The pups will be ready to leave the farm by the middle of October so if you are interested please contact me. As both Tirri and Max are registered with the Kelpie Council of Australia, these puppies are eligible to be registered.