Waidale Romneys are one of four sheep studs run on Waidale Stud Farm. We presently run around 1050 ewes comprising of approximately:
500 stud Romney ewes
120 stud Lincolns ewes
140 stud Southdown ewes
130 stud South Suffolk ewes
another approx 150 ewes (majority romney) , which are mated to terminal sire normally
I feel the best way for someone to understand exactly what we do is to actually set out what we do and why. So here goes:
1. We only have stud ewes, so all the ewes are of course singularly mated, with all rams being put out around the 6th of April now.
We have been mating our ewe lambs since 2004. We have not done this in the past as realistically it is probably not economic for us to do so, given that we are generally wean in the vicinity of 150% or better, note this is a weaning percentage not scanning or dropped percentage.
I only mate our Romney and South Suffolk ewe lambs now, (n0 longer do I do the southdowns and never have I mated the lincolns as they are slow maturing, mating them as ewe lambs would be an absolute disaster).
I put out a South Suffolk ram or ram lamb normally with the South Suffolks and record their progeny. I put southdown ram lambs with the romneys, which I obviously do not tag. I put the rams out with the ewe lambs at the beginning of the second round of the main ewes, both lots are put out for basically one round, which is probably half a round too short, particularly for the Romneys, if we want most of them in lamb. However I don't want to lamb forever, so one round with the hoggets is long enough.
Personally I would love to see a trial on the production of a ewe mated as a hogget versus the production of a ewe mated as a 2th for the first time, over their lifetimes, as I would not be surprised if the ewe mated as a 2th for the first time produces considerably more over her lifetime. Massey have undertaken a study, but it is meaningless as it has a fundamental flawe in the way it determines its control mob, so its findings are a waste of time.
However a lot of our clients are doing it, so we are also are concentrating on hogget lambing. I note meat and wool claim hogget lambing gains as one their significant returns on the levy we pay, which is a joke, considering hogget mating was being done 30 years ago and stopped as it was uneconomic and for a lot of people it is still uneconomic. I for one feed my hoggets that lamb better than anything else on the place to ensure that they are ready to go back to the ram the next mating, and I also wean the hogget lambs at the same time as the rest of the ewes.
2. The main ewes are single mated for 17 - 25 days (a round to a round and a half), . After this, all the ewes are then mobbed up and terminal sire put out for a further 17 days ( a maximum of 2 and half rounds in total).
3. When the ewes are mobbed up at mating time into one mob (including the Two tooths) they are fed baleage and strip grazed through the winter. We sow 5-6ha of Triticala (doubletake) with a bit of Tama underneath.
We hope to feed 1050 ewes on 6ha immediately upon mobbing them up at tupping time for 6 weeks (back fenced every few days) before moving then on to grass. We then can graze the paddock 2 and half weeks at the end of August (during lambing), before taking 120 bales of baleage off it in the first week of November and then a further 60 bales of tama baleage off it in late December, before sowing it down in new grass in the autumn. Its not always as good as this, but not too far off.
Triticala is expensive to sow, but it truly does produce the feed, it does need to be backfenced every coupler days, and I would not graze it, if you can avoid it, when it is really wet, as you will wreck the crowns. It is great for us because at mating time with single mating, almost every paddock has ewes in it, which means that come the end of the first round, the ewes have eaten the paddocks out, the subsequent mobbing up and break feeding on triti enables us to conserve what growth we do get going into the winter, which we subsequently strip graze the ewes on.
4. Our Hoggets (about 250 ewe hoggets, and around250 ram hoggets are break fed from the 1st of June to the start of lambing on Winter feed, usual some annual grass combined with some sort of rape. Note none of our hoggets are grain fed, not even the very best buggers that we take to the Feilding and Christchurch ram fairs. All our ram hoggets have their socks taken off sometime between April and August.
5. We aim to shear all the ewes around late June. The scientific literature shows that shearing at this time assists with lamb survival, because of the size of the foetus and the fact the ewe has less wool. They do also grow a bit more wool, not enough to cover the extra cost of shearing. However we do it primarily for ease of management,However because we do twice year shear, we are conscious of the staple length of our wool.
6. In early July we triplet scan. As I have stated we normally wean 150% or better, which is our real focus, we have fluctuated with scanning figures from 165% to 185% across all breeds, and yet irrespective of the scan we WEAN 150% or better. This year, 2009, we should wean 165% I think. As a lot of farmers are now starting to realise scanning 200% is not very profitable, if you are losing 30 to 50% or even more of that scan in lamb deaths or a lot of farmers with a stack of multiples end up having to sell all their lambs as stores as they cant feed the mothers or the lambs well enough. There are farmers with composites and other crosses who scan well in excess of 200%, but only wean around 120, which is a helluva lot of dead lambs.
About a month before lambing the Twin bearing ewes are separated out and strip grazed separately. Triplet bearing ewes are pulled out at scanning and grazed separately.
7. Our Romney and Lincoln ram hoggets are shorn around the beginning of August by a great shearer, ME. The meat breeds beginning to mid October. Our ewe hoggets have normally been shorn in October, but the last two years I shear them myself around the same time as the ram hoggets (perhaps a little bit later), with a view to having our replacement 2ths fitting in with our twice a year shearing and because a lot of them are in lamb. All romney and lincoln hogget fleeces are weighed.
8. Ewes are given a five in one with selenium about two weeks before lambing. We used to bolus the ewes at the same time(last time about 6 years ago), I was then drenching perhaps once a year, depending on the season, around weaning time, as that would be when they were at the lowest, but now I don't drench them at all. . Quite clearly we need parasite management programmes given the drench resistance problems that is appearing around the country.
9. Lambing starts around 1 September. We lamb in scanning mobs of triplets, twins and singles and they are shepherded morning and night. We do this, not because of lambing problems (as I would lucky to lamb around 10 ewes on average) but to ensure that our pedigrees are as accurate as possible (I don’t care what anyone says, those who tag at tailing cannot and will not have the same accuracy in terms of pedigree as we do) It is that accuracy that provides us (that is you and I) with reliability as to the genetic potential of the rams we breed and sell. SIL breeding values are heavily dependent on accurate pedigrees, the more inaccurate they are , the more meaningless the breeding values are.
As soon as DNA testing gets to a point where it is very accurate (as I understand it presently is around 80, I did think 90%, but apparently 80 is more realistic) and of course economically affordable, we will continue to shepherd twice a day to ensure our genetics are as reliable as they can be. We would rather not shepherd because I firmly believe I would get a better weaning percentage by leaving them alone.
10. Our ewes lamb in their mobs, perhaps at the beginning around 15 ewes (the singles around 20) an acre to lamb, with those yet to lamb being shedded out to a new paddock when stacks have lambed. Our lambing, thanks to many years using teasers for several weeks before tupping, culling late lambs and late cycling ewes etc is thankfully very quick (around 85%of our ewes lamb in the first two weeks or less of lambing, which means that I am all over the place for a coupler weeks because of the tagging, but after that it is a relative breeze).
11. At tailing time, we put a ring on and cut off the tail, spray on something to hopefully stymie fly and thats it. I no longer B12 our lambs at weaning, if I am going to do it, I do it at weaning, I decide to do this after a vet gave presentation that B12 at tailing is generally a waste of time, if they need it, it is more likely to be at weaning time. I normally drench my lambs about 3 weeks before weaning, although this year (2009) I dont believe I will drench them, they seem to be doing alright.
12. Lambs are weaned early december and weighed shortly thereafter to obtain weaning weights. Almost all of our lambs are kept through for a second weighing, which we now undertake around the first week in February, at least 6 weeks after the first to ensure of the milking ability of the mother is removed and to ensure we are identifying the stock with the superior early growth rates. At this point we cull the lambs retaining principally those ewe lambs that we will require as 2ths, we will retain 10 - 15% more ram lambs then we intend to offer for sale in the next season. We eye muscle scan our ram lambs, (that we intend to winter), as soon as we can after the second weighing, but to date it has out been four weeks later. I believe the scanning is of assistance as an in flock comparison for clients, but not across flocks, as I believe differing growth patterns, feeding patterns, scanning operators, timing of scan etc quite simply make any across flock comparisons (i.e. breeder vs breeder) meaningless. There are now CT scans of live sheep, and yeild measurement at works which we intend to utilise to progress the genetic gains in terms of saleable meat yeild.
13. We try to get all our ewes shorn in December and if we are lucky the lambs as well, but often the lambs are shorn in January. After weaning the ewes, we used to mob them upand make them work very hard for around a month. We did this to provide us with a double check on the flock, to see if there are ewes that don’t have the necessary constitution, if they don’t handle it, they are culled. However now that we don't drench, we find that the ewes are put to through the biggest test constitution wise from the beginning of lambing through to weaning and through this period I note poor doers with the pocket and again cull those at weaning who are lacking in constitution. We place a lot of emphasis on the constitution of the ewes, as that is the only way we can ensure that our rams will do well in all varying terrains and climatic conditions.
Throughout the year any ewe that is finding it hard is recorded as such so that she will be culled at the appropriate time. I expect our ewes to milk and raise good lambs to good weights and be in reasonable order themselves at weaning time. If not they are culled. I expect this irrespective of their size, I say this because it is easy to simply make a claim that smaller ewes are more efficient, but sheep are like people, some bigger ones eat less than smaller ones and live on buggerall, they can be more efficient than a little bugger.
14. Teasers go out about four weeks or so before tupping, ewes generally get a pre tup oral mineral dose, that at least contains iodine, (given its importance to conception) about a fortnight before the rams go out, we give this dose to them again about 2 weeks before lambing, again primarily because of the iodine.. The 2ths are vaccinated against toxo, campo and salmonella, which is a pain, but as we are intensive, we have been affected by a bit of a abortion.
The above is basically what we do, it is somewhat intensive, but then we are specialist stud operation and only have 300 acres, if I had 10000 acres I too may do things differently. Our focus is on breeding rams that the market wants, which means that I don’t let death be the culler, I do it before that occurs. I am not trying to do it by using any marketing gimmicks, if you want to know something about what we do or what I think, just ask me, you will get a straight up answer, that I can guarantee!!!!
