Attention to genetics and grass pays off in better sheep performance

Improving genetics and grass utilisation has resulted in an additional 115 ewe lambs achieving target tupping weights at Dinas Island Farm, adding a potential £7,000 to the value of next year’s lamb sales.

With flock expansion ongoing, the Perkins family has retained 600 Lleyn ewe lambs. They had expected to tup 400 of these but in fact 515 achieved the target tupping weight.

“We had held back an extra 200 with the intention of drawing them into the flock next year but they will be lambing a year earlier,” explained Neil, who farms with his wife, Lynda, and father, Roger.

“It will hopefully mean we will get an extra 115 lambs in the spring, adding about £7,000 to lamb sales with very little extra cost because we would have had to find somewhere for them to graze over the winter.”

Neil believes a combination of factors contributed to the strong growth rates. Rams with high growth rate EBVs were selected and rotational grazing has resulted in the production of high quality pasture.

The lambs were also given an additional dose of Tracesure trace element boluses at a cost of £1.10 per dose.

“We don’t graze the pasture so tight with rotational grazing so we thought the lambs might not be taking enough trace elements in through the soil. We usually bolus twice but we decided to give a third bolus this year,” said Neil.

By choosing to hold back 600 ewe lambs instead of the 400 replacements needed, the business has lost about £13,000 in fat lamb sales. But this will be offset by cull ewe sales and by improving the productivity of the flock.

“We will be able to cull ewes slightly earlier, selling them in prime cull condition,” said Roger.

“The more ewe lambs we have, the more selective we can be with culling out bad traits. This will leave us with a more productive flock.

“We would normally sell 250 cull ewes a year that have reached the end of their working days but this year we will be selling 50 extra ewes that we would normally have kept.

“This will bring in an additional income of around £2,500 and that helps towards the extra cost of keeping more ewe lambs.”

The family hopes that by using breeding to build up flock numbers, there might be an opportunity to take on more land; until then, the stocking rate is five ewes an acre.

One of the criteria for selecting cull ewes is foot health. Any ewe that has needed foot treatment three times is culled.

“We set it at that target and we feel we have got on top of feet issues now. As the number of cases decrease, the farm might cull after just two treatments.”

ABC system

No ewes that have had their feet treated are used for breeding ewe lamb replacements.

The flock is run in three groups – in an ABC system. The sheep in the A group have to be faultless because they produce the replacements for groups A and B.

In the B group there may be some ewes that have had one health treatment during their lifetime. The daughters from this group will only go into the C group, and all of the C group are crossed with a terminal sire for fat lamb production. There are currently 300 ewes in the A group, 700 in B and 800 in C.

“We are aiming to build the A group up to 500 ewes. We only need so many for breeding and in fact the best ewes for fat lamb production are those in the C group because, crossed to a terminal sire, they produce bigger carcass lambs. We want to improve to a position where the C group aren’t problem ewes,” said Neil.

He stressed the A flock is only considered as such at tupping and progeny recording. “We have mixed batches in each field throughout the year because we don’t want the A flock to be in that group because they are spoilt, they need to prove their value in normal flock conditions.”

As has been the pattern across the UK, average lamb finishing weights at Dinas Island Farm have been down – by 2kg/head. Neil believes the ewes never achieved full milk production because of the very cold spring when they were struggling to maintain themselves and feed their lambs.

Although some good individual weights have been achieved, the lambs whose growth was checked in the spring have under-performed. “I am convinced that if they don’t get a full blast of milk in the first six weeks of suckling they lose out on frame size,” said Neil.

Rather than accept an average store price of £50 in September, they have decided to retain 400 lambs on tack or to sell this month. The tack is costing 75p/head/week; including a £1/head transport cost, it will cost £9/head to finish each lamb.

“The last batch we sold went for £60 each so as long as we get more than £60 to cover our costs I will be happy but they should achieve a higher price,” said Neil. To date, 75% of this year’s lamb crop has been sold.

The mild, dry conditions have bought an additional three weeks of grazing, in contrast to last year when the wet autumn forced the Perkins to house and feed 1,200 lambs on 6 October, as well as house all the breeding ewes on 15 December. This season they hope to house on the same day as scanning, on 2 January. All the lambs will be sold off grass.

Taking on a new member of staff, Josh Banks, three months ago has allowed Neil and Roger to stand back slightly from the operational side of the business and start considering new business opportunities.

It has also allowed more time to focus on detail, including condition scoring the ewes on a more regular basis.

“The ewes were in far more even condition going to the tup, we hope that this is something that will follow through in the flock’s future performance,” said Roger.

Comprehensive data

Recording and evidence-based decision-making has enabled the Perkins’ to develop the business and they hope to take this a step further after securing a Farming Connect-funded project focusing on grass utilisation and flock performance.

A comprehensive range of data will be collected over the next 12 months and it will enable the Perkins’ to identify the strong and weak points in the business.

“It will give us a snapshot of what is happening in the fields and in the flock, it will give us a bigger picture,” said Neil. “We are hoping it will lead to us selling more lambs before weaning as these give the best margins.”

A sonic grass-measuring device fitted to a quad bike will be used for measuring the paddocks. There will be up to 100 paddocks to measure weekly next year, which would take a full day a week on foot compared to two hours on the quad bike.

In addition to the sheep flock, the Perkins currently have 80 autumn-born dairy heifer replacements and 20 Wagyu heifers and steers on the farm which they are rearing for Pembrokeshire dairy farmer Will Prichard. They also rear 200 spring-born heifers for him. “We are currently rearing 300 a year but we have the capacity for 600 so there may be opportunities there in the future,” said Neil.

The Wagyus have added a new interest to the business and so too will a new addition to the holiday accommodation business this spring.

In addition to the holiday cottages and campsite, the Perkins’ are planning to offer a “glamping” experience by investing in two shepherd’s huts.

This is part of a new business strategy to offer holiday visitors more of the farming experience. Lynda will also help more with marketing the holiday business through their websites www.dinasisland.co.uk and www.hendrefarm.co.uk.

“Cottage bookings have been up on last year but they are not as good as they were three or four years ago. We are looking at a change of emphasis, by marketing the farming experience,” said Roger.