ALAN WEST SHEEP TOPICS ALAN WEST Sheep farmer
> More Sahara than Kent
TRADE STILL HOLDING UP,
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BUT DRY WEATHER POSES A PROBLEM Being between standstills due to ram inspection at the end of June and the Kent County Show, the most convenient time to get some lambs away was last week to Ashford market. The Suffolk Lleyn crosses were already quite well finished and a further delay of two weeks or more, even with ever shrinking grass availability, would no doubt have pushed some of them over the top in terms of level of finish. I must admit that on arrival at Ashford, seeing a
full market plus the news of Monday’s prices falling back, I felt that things did not look too promising for the day, but, every so often it is good to be proved wrong. As things worked out, with it being the Eid Al Adha at the end of the week prices held up remarkably well, particularly for the pure Lleyn ram lambs (not up to spec as breeding rams), which as entire ram lambs often attract a bit of a discount but sold very well, with the Suffolk crosses just behind. With just a few lambs on board it seemed a
AUGUST 2022 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET
wasted opportunity not to include a couple of cull ewes in the load. Having avoided the temptation to increase ewe size, my Lleyn ewes are not the biggest of sheep, I have maintained the flock very much as the medium-sized sheep that they should be, with ewes averaging 63kg to 65kg at weaning; in spite of this they are quite capable of producing a decent pair of 40kg+ meat lambs by 12 to 14 weeks. I knew that both ewes had worked quite hard this season, each rearing a good pair of twins in spite of some questionable grass quality after the dry April; neither was carrying a huge amount of condition so expectations were rather modest. Realising more than £90 a head came as a very pleasant surprise. Although the lamb trade has come back a bit, it is in general still quite good. The decline of some 20% in the value of sterling since Brexit has bolstered our exports, with UK lamb representing very good value for continental buyers, particularly as European lamb production has fallen back by almost 4% over the past year. The combination of these factors, plus the quality reputation that British lamb enjoys on the continent, has resulted in the volume of lamb crossing the Channel now being, more or less, back to pre-Brexit levels, bolstered by a significant jump in trade during the
