Control costs by lambing to a schedule

Making sure 300 ewes lamb in just seven days might be considered putting yourself under pressure, but a Lancashire family is doing it twice.

The Roskells have sponged their entire 600-ewe flock to lamb in two seven-day periods in early January – a well-tried system they say ensures a high standard of lambing management as well as a high-value crop of prime spring lambs.

The family run their flock alongside an arable enterprise on fertile coastal land at Pilling on the west Lancashire coast. They’ve been sponging ewes for early lambing for almost 20 years and, despite the intense workload it imposes, Paul Roskell is convinced it is worthwhile.

“It’s not just about producing lambs for the premium, early-spring market. This system means we can focus labour over a short period and work to a strict health and management routine for every lamb born. We don’t leave the flock for one minute during each week of lambing; we’re with them night and day,” explains Mr Roskell.

The flock is a mixed bag of Mules, Suffolk crosses and Texel crosses put to a range of sires including Hampshire Down – a favourite for high fertility – Charollais and Suffolk.

Pilling Marsh – which runs out into Morecambe Bay – provides part of the flock’s year-round grazing needs. After worming in early July, the family gathers the ewes for sponging after which they are left to settle for 14 days before receiving a shot of PMSG serum to stimulate oestrus.

“It’s a morning’s job inserting sponges and we remove them on the morning of the 14th day. Ewes are then jabbed with PMSG. We’re always precise about the timing and tups are turned out exactly 48 hours after that,” says Mr Roskell who turned his tups out this year on 12 August.

Each group of 300 ewes is put into a 2ha (five-acre) field with 30 tups. Although tups aren’t raddled the ewes are scanned and batched according to fecundity results.

“We’re getting a 70% conception rate with a lambing percentage of 150% or slightly higher. We’d like the conception rates to be better, but when the weather is against you it can even be a bit lower. “On hot days tups don’t work at the same rate and when we were sponging for a lambing date just before Christmas we were turning them out at the end of July. A spell of hot weather can hit the work rate,” says Mr Roskell.

This year’s lambing date has been moved into early January to provide lambs to hit the 2011 Easter trade. “We used to aim for a mid-December lambing, but the conception rate had dipped, so hopefully this year’s slightly later lambing will see it improve.”

Single-bearing ewes are run on the marsh, but those carrying twins and triplets have better grazing. No supplementary feeding is offered until housing about three weeks before lambing, when ewes are fed hay and concentrates. Only ewes carrying multiples are fed concentrates – building up slowly to 1.1-1.3kg a head – and ewe groups are always kept to a maximum of 18.

Lambing-time – with the family covering each 24-hour period round-the-clock – sees colostrum stripped from every ewe to provide enough to stomach-tube every lamb born.

“It’s the most effective protection against watery mouth. And with so many lambs coming so fast it means you know every lamb has received the colostrum it needs.”

This coastal area didn’t avoid the heavy snowfalls last winter, but ewes were still turned-out with three and four-day-old lambs. Ewes with multiples remain on 0.9kg of concentrate a day for about a month after lambing and are held in fields with plenty of hedges for shelter. Creep feeders are put out for lambs after four weeks.

All lambs are sold straight off the ewes through Lancaster Auction Mart, aiming for a 40kg lamb at 14-weeks. I can be drawing the best single lambs at 10-12 weeks,” says Mr Roskell.

It’s a system that fits the arable calendar of this west Lancashire farm, but the Roskells are still firm believers in the advantages of targeting labour and lambing management over a tight period.

“It’s a high-cost system, but with lambs making £90 and over this year, it has certainly been worth it. Most lambs are gone by the middle of May so we can turn ewes away on to the salt-marsh and focus on the arable work.”