All things Wooly!

Meal and that much grass!
Pays to be a ram at yours!
Haha. Ah no they did good work in fairness to them and had lost condition. They only get a handful of meal every so often nowadays which keeps them a bit quiet. They'll be off it soon enough. As regards the grass. It looks a lot better in the picture than real life.
 
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Good luck with it👍First week of march before there's any here. Waiting for the bad weather!
Mountain ewes scanned 1.4, probably a few to many twins but still it's a good complaint.
Thanks. So far they are good quality lambs. Not big, but heavy and equal sized. Feeding must have been good this year!
Only disaster is we recon we have Johnes disease in the flock. Found a few inexplicably thin ewes in the groups. We keep a close eye on condition, these have gone down insanely fast. Still eating but not gaining. All lambs aborted/born to die. Only 5 or 6 ewes so far though, thankfully.

We had a ram suddenly disolve and die a few months ago, long enough after tupping that he hadn't just over worked,
Is Johnes transmitted in semen?


That's a good number for a hill breed, I hear mixed reviews this year. Some done very well, others unde r par, and a couple of disasters they were so bad, though explained by over nutrition in one case!


Just had lamb chops from Lidl for dinner. Have to say were the nicest chops i had in a long long time. Finger licking tasty.
Lidl are very good. Lots say good things about their meat.
But their beef can have a lot of fat, saw one rib eye steak that was mostly fat! Haven't studied their lamb offering!
 
I tried to upload a video earlier but no matter how much I compressed it I failed.
Steady stream of lambs for last few days. Weather has taken a turn for the worse so shed space getting tight as we delay turnout.
 

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What breed are those lambs in the first picture? They have lovely markings.
Their mother is a Sufolk x.
And Dad is either a Primera, texel or Abermax.
Hard to know which tbh. Could be a texel throwing blue genes. But could just as easily be Primera!
 
What would happen if you lambed 3 times in a year?

As in one lot every 4 months. Or even 4 times a year?
Not the same ewes obviously, but say you had 1000, lamb groups of 3-400 ish. Use teasers to get a big group jigged up. Send in the real boys and keep an eye on raddle marks. Once a desired number is hit... Out they come.

Could it be done? Or would most breeds struggle to get in lamb out of season?

Thinking being it would spread risk in terms of weather, and allow for less inputs for the crappy winter lambing?
Might even allow for bigger numbers to be carried on the same area?

Be a lot of juggling, but with a decent EID system, why not?
 
What would happen if you lambed 3 times in a year?

As in one lot every 4 months. Or even 4 times a year?
Not the same ewes obviously, but say you had 1000, lamb groups of 3-400 ish. Use teasers to get a big group jigged up. Send in the real boys and keep an eye on raddle marks. Once a desired number is hit... Out they come.

Could it be done? Or would most breeds struggle to get in lamb out of season?

Thinking being it would spread risk in terms of weather, and allow for less inputs for the crappy winter lambing?
Might even allow for bigger numbers to be carried on the same area?

Be a lot of juggling, but with a decent EID system, why not?
There was a push here a good few years ago to do lambing 3 times in 2 years. The breed is important, Dorsets probably the best of breeds.

You're looking at a high input system as you can't allow ewes to drop in condition as they'll have to be able to go back in lamb again just 3 months after lambing. And lambs have to be weaned earlier as well so they need lots of creep feed to finish.

And recommended to just run one cycle of this in a ewes life cycle as it's a tough two years for them. You'd really need a pretty cheap source of concentrates for use over the cycle and a good fat lamb price and a good source of replacement ewes to have a chance of making it work.
 
There was a push here a good few years ago to do lambing 3 times in 2 years. The breed is important, Dorsets probably the best of breeds.

You're looking at a high input system as you can't allow ewes to drop in condition as they'll have to be able to go back in lamb again just 3 months after lambing. And lambs have to be weaned earlier as well so they need lots of creep feed to finish.

And recommended to just run one cycle of this in a ewes life cycle as it's a tough two years for them. You'd really need a pretty cheap source of concentrates for use over the cycle and a good fat lamb price and a good source of replacement ewes to have a chance of making it work.
No you missumderstand.
Ewe would still only lamb once in a calendar year.
But divide a big group into 3 lots. To lamb every 4 months. Or even lamb every 3 months.
Anything missing a cycle for say January lambing would fall into the May lambing and so on.
Using EID to identify who has missed two cycles then cull.
 
No you missumderstand.
Ewe would still only lamb once in a calendar year.
But divide a big group into 3 lots. To lamb every 4 months. Or even lamb every 3 months.
Anything missing a cycle for say January lambing would fall into the May lambing and so on.
Using EID to identify who has missed two cycles then cull.
Its an interesting idea but jesus once a year is enough for lambing, the thought of having to face into 3 different lambing periods but would make me plant the whole place😅
 
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