How data management drives decision making for Romney flock

A pocket data management system combined with automated handling has improved workflow and decision making for sheep farmer Tom Hadley.

With a flock of Romneys, together with shearing and other sheep-related work that takes him off-farm three days a week, running a smooth and efficient operation with minimal labour is essential.

See also: Speakers at Sheep Event underline importance of using data

Tom and his wife, Liv, contract farm 237ha (585 acres) alongside owners Sue and Allan Everitt and Nick and Jen Denniston at Lower Sapey, on the Worcestershire-Herefordshire border.

In eight years, Tom has built the flock to 750 mature ewes on land that had been in continuous arable production for 50 years.

Grazing

Investment in reseeding in the past three years has improved productivity and resilience markedly.

Herbal leys, sown with Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier funding or Sustainable Farming Incentive payments, have been established across the farm, apart from a couple of steep fields.

“We had problems with low – or no – grass, but now we’re motoring,” he says.

Previously, he would have taken two or three cuts of silage; this year, he has all he needs from one cut taken in May from the new leys – and still has 120 round bales left over from last year.

Using data to take action

© MAG/Judith Tooth

Tom uses m to record all medical treatments, births, deaths, losses, problems, body condition score, weight gain and slaughter details.

For the past two years, however, rather than simply collecting information, he has been using it to take action.

“I was half-heartedly doing it, and that was taking time, so I thought I’d do it properly,” he explains.

He now uses weight and daily liveweight gain data to inform decisions about weaning, worming and grassland management.

During lambing, tagging is done daily for twins, so Tom knows what day they were born and who their mothers are, while singles are tagged in one hit.

When lambs are a month old, the flock is grouped into mobs of about 300 ewes, plus lambs, for rotational grazing.

Aiming for a 25-30-day rotation, he moves them to fresh grass every one to four days, depending on field size and grass growth.

Worm burden is monitored by taking faecal egg counts (FECs) at least monthly from each mob once lambs are a month old.

© MAG/Judith Tooth

Ewes have not been wormed for the past five years, but conditions this season look favourable for Haemonchus contortus (barber’s pole worm), says Tom, so he is also testing ewes.

All stock not kept as flock replacements or sold for breeding are finished off forage on-farm.

The first draw of finished lambs takes place at weaning, at 12-14 weeks, when he expects to send about 60 lambs – 6% – to the abattoir.

However, as the impact of reseeding continues to take effect on growth rates, Tom reckons this number will rise.

After weaning, lambs get priority, grazing fresh grass for the first day or two before ewes move in to clean up.

“I’m aiming for 250g/day growth [in lambs], so if that goes down to 180g or 190g, I’ll start to intervene.

“If it’s one lamb, that might mean worming; if it’s a whole mob, maybe they are not getting enough grass, or there’s a mineral issue,” he says.

Labour-saving automation

Tom has built two sheep handling facilities, one at either end of the farm.

He moves his mobile sheep handler (a Te Pari Racewell bought second-hand six years ago for £12,000) between them, depending on where the mobs of sheep are in their grazing rotation, so he can draft and weigh automatically.

Sheep are run through at least monthly, and fortnightly once lambs are being drawn for slaughter.

He sets the parameters for the handler so that, for example, lambs not gaining sufficient weight are pulled aside by the turn of a gate, or lambs wormed last time they were handled can be checked.

Or he might want to draw ewe lambs or single lambs or ewes for culling.

Lambs are selected for the abattoir on weight only, Tom reasoning they will be R-grade no matter what.

© MAG/Judith Tooth

“At that point, we’ve made enough money. And with selling deadweight, I know how much I’ll get for a 19-20kg carcass before the lamb leaves the farm.

“I get a text every Friday afternoon from ABP saying what they’ll be paying the following week and asking if I want to book lambs in. I can base my decision off the most recent weighing,” he says.

“I can see if they are not performing – but actually, they’re all flying. [This year,] average weight at four to six weeks [in twins] was 18.6kg; two years ago, I would have been happy with that at eight weeks old.

“However, if they were underperforming, I would run through a checklist of possible issues such as ewe health or grazing.”

Instant access

As each sheep passes through the handler, its data are read by an Agrident electronic tag reader and transferred via Bluetooth to a handheld device.

Tom has recently taken advantage of Shearwell’s cloud-based upgrade, so new data are uploaded to the cloud automatically once he is back indoors.

This means he can access all the data on his mobile phone immediately.

“This saves so much time and effort as all movements, deaths and so on are all here on my phone, in my pocket,” he says.

As well as avoiding the need to write an ear tag number on a piece of paper or using an additional ear tag to record a decision, the data management system allows actions to be marked no, low, medium or high priority.

© MAG/Judith Tooth

“I only use low or high. Culling would be high priority – for, say, lameness, prolapse or [assistance at] lambing.

“A low-priority issue on a ewe’s profile might be she’s only reared one lamb, so she’ll be moving to the B flock,” explains Tom.

His A flock, from which replacements are selected, comprises ewes that have reared only twins, have not had any foot treatment or assistance at lambing, and have remained in good body condition.

“I’m very hard on lameness so we don’t get foot-rot, [which means] we don’t get maggots,” he adds.

One improvement he would like to see is to be able to record the lambs’ age in days, rather than months, as currently, a 29-day-old lamb is shown as nought months old.

“And I guess one disadvantage [of the handler] is the setting-up time – but if you’re handling anyway for drenching, vaccinating and so on, it makes it all so simple,” he says.