ALAN WEST SHEEP TOPICS ALAN WEST Sheep farmer
Well, once they finally decided to get on with it, everything was done and lambed within 18 days, start to finish, at least with the Lleyn. Some cracking lambs and all delivered with remarkable ease; my ideal lambing would be one in which I didn’t have to assist any ewes, a target that was almost achieved this year, with just one mal-presentation, an old girl who had a partial prolapse, so I was keeping a close eye on her; popped out her first lamb no problem, then second water bag appeared with a tail, but with the problem quickly sorted she was tucked up in a mothering pen with a lovely pair of lambs in no time. Sadly the prolapse problem does mean that it will be her last season with us; she has served us well and has provided 11 very good lambs in her five lambings. This year’s crop of lambs have also, for me at least, seemed to be particularly robust when
LAMBING DONE, NOW WHERE IS THE GRASS?
they were born. With good birth weights, very active lambs and good milky ewes they have got away very quickly, with very few mortalities and, I can honestly say, none that was in any way avoidable. I suspect that the use, for a number of years, of Lleyn Gold has played a significant part and the criterion for selecting replacement ewes has really begun to show benefits. The system is based around the selection of good milky ewes and lambs with a high initial growth rate, as determined by eight week litter weights as a percentage of ewe weight at weaning; simple but very effective. With better weather towards the end of March, everything was back out onto grass in no time; for some of those born in the evening, they were mothered up overnight, tagged and tailed the next morning and back out within 12 hours or so. And they have really benefited. There is nothing quite like a decent bite of good grass for putting milk under ewes
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> Herdwick, not the most productive of sheep, but what they do they do cheaply, and they certainly produce bonny lambs
MAY 2021 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET
and they have responded by milking incredibly well. One rather strong, foolhardy and cheeky ram lamb just happened to walk up to have a close look at me the other morning, within arm’s reach, so I scooped him up and popped him on the scales; born as one of a pair at 5.5kg he weighed a good 16.5kg at exactly four weeks old, an average daily gain of 393gm (0.87 lbs), with his twin brother looking almost as good. The boss’s small Herdwick flock, following on about a week after the main flock finished, was even more obliging, with all of them lambing within seven days and not a single bit of assistance required, although for a hill breed the latter is just what one would expect, thus providing a nice tidy end to lambing. Strangely, out of six Herdwick ewes producing eight lambs (133% lambing, not bad) the good lady had seven ewe lambs and only one ram. In 50+ years of working with sheep I have never previously encountered such an extreme ewe to ram ratio, albeit with a small number. Unfortunately, with so many ewe lambs, I can foresee a dramatic expansion of the Herdwick flock in two years time. Being able to keep some paddocks clear of sheep for a little over four months from October until lambing has certainly paid off this year. The grass growth over that period has been sufficient to sustain the ewes right through lambing, and even now in mid-April they still have a decent wedge in front of them. I know that winter grass reputedly has limited feed value, but it has done the girls well so far this season. The problem is, where do we go from here? Grass growth, certainly on the few paddocks that were grazed further on into the winter, is remarkably slow to recover and the paddocks that have been grazed over lambing are not faring much better. This is not a problem that is limited to the South East, as communications with sheep keepers in other parts of the country have clearly indicated. Some areas are significantly worse off than we are. This is in spite of the fact that I have deliberately avoided grazing too hard, leaving a good grass cover when sheep have been moved on to fresh paddocks in order to encourage a more rapid recovery, sadly with little apparent effect, but we will see. The unseasonably warm spell that we experienced a couple of weeks ago was just what was needed to kick start this season’s grass growth. At the time all of the grass perked up and began to grow, but a subsequent run of colder weather has effectively once again brought things to a standstill. I hope that we are not going to suffer a repeat of the 2020 grass growing season; at the moment grass
