[simone]

Hello,

We have a 1.5 acre field in need of mowing (previously owned by a rather round shetland pony who is currently on a strict diet of hay and no grass due to lami) fencing is suitable for sheep and we have a cph number and a local abattoir / butchers that deals with smallholders but we've never had sheep before.

I was thinking about getting 3 or 4 lambs (when weaned) for the freezer come autumn and then letting the pony graze it again over the winter.

We have available to buy here (from the end of next month) Shetlands, llyens, easy care mule lambs starting at £40 or available now is meat lambs from 20-80 depending on size - I'm not sure but i guess that must be hogget or mutton or there's bottle lambs but i suspect they would become pet lambs rather than freezer lambs.

Can anyone advise? how many we should get, which ones would be easy for first time owners and if my plan to keep them to the autumn is sensible or not?

[twizzel]

1.5 acres- what sort of grass? If it's horse sick ground that's had no fertiliser it won't keep as many lambs as a new ryegrass lay of the same size. For short term keep I'd steer away from Shetlands and primitive breeds as they normally need longer to finish. Lleyns might be ok... really you'd be better with terminal sired lambs as they should be finished by autumn (texel, charollais, suffolk or even Poll Dorset or some of the down breeds). Mutton is from ewes so can't be classed as lamb, normally from cull ewes that have reached the end of their breeding lives. You could always buy 3 or 4 lambs from the store pens at market and go from there- commercial farmers start to wean from June onwards.

[Backinwellies]

Where are you .... might be someone on here with a few spare sheep?

[Marches Farmer]

Read the Sheep Book for Smallholders by TimTyne - lots for you to think about there.  If your ground is like most of the pony paddocks around here it will be poached mud interspersed with docks, thistles and nettles

[simone]

thanks for the replies, we're on the Essex / Suffolk border, the field has only had the small round pony on it for about 8 months and it was topped last autumn, prior to that it was cut for hay every year, its not been fertilised - its not bare or poached - apart from by the gate, however its not been weeded for some time and does have the odd thistle.

Will look up the other breeds suggested.

The 2016 lambs - I can see that the ewes are kept for breeding but what do people do with the wethers?

[twizzel]

The 2016 lambs - I can see that the ewes are kept for breeding but what do people do with the wethers?

Either send to market as stores or fat or direct to slaughter. Not all ewe lambs are kept for breeding either

[simone]

aha - i just found an old post from Rosemary 'Store lambs are those that don't make slaughter weight before the winter so tend to come from hill / upland flocks and are sold at the huge lamb sales in the autumn.'
presumably some of those feed into the Easter spring lamb market.  I was confused because hogget / mutton isn't that easy to find so figured it wasn't popular.

I think its between the Llyens or Easycare that a local smallholder will be selling when weaned or as twizzel suggested seeing what's available at our local market in a few weeks, unless i spot any more local ads between now and then, 3-4 seems like a good number for what we want.

[farmers wife]

Store lambs go to market at any time that dont make the grade as 'fat'.  They are sold and bought by farmers who stuff the hell out of them for a quick turn around.  They may have contract for direct sell to abattoirs, There is no set time.  Some lamb in December we lamb in April. We can have fat and stores to go to market depending on the shed space and grass.


There is little profit in lamb and farmers need a quick turn around.  So the quicker you do it the more profitable it will be hence mutton and wethers are not seen on farms much.  A ewe that fails to be in lamb (at scan) could be classed as mutton.  Years ago they would of eaten mutton/wether so you could have year around meat.  Long before the stuffing of grain so they were on pasture so little overheads plus you would have a decent sized meat animal with lots of fat.


Mutton can be very fatty and cant be flashed fried hence with the farm costs makes it unfashionable.  If we kill onsite we can have mutton put in the freezer.


You cant go wrong with most breeds. Lleyns, wilts, easycare all good.  Remember small lambs will be small carcass.  How its reared is important there are intensive and extensive.  Organic/non.  We have always taken yearlings/hoggets to kill so take into account when they will be ready. 


Consider the time it will take to eat the grass.  Sheep eat so they can take a small area in a few days then it needs to rest to grow and let the manure to break down.  If you take a 3m lamb now then realistically you could kill at 6 - 8 months which takes you up to September.  Then as the temp is dropping the grass will slow up.   So you need enough grass from May to September 5 months. If you dont want to import endless hay and nuts (makes it expensive) Within this time you need fresh grass weekly so you could need to sub divide the field into strips.  Then the first field would be left to rest then 2, 3, 4, 5...dependant on the rainfall and weather the fields could recover quick.  All the nutrician in grass is in the middle of the sward so eating earth is not good for the animal or the grass.   Fields need 6 - 9 weeks to regrow and rid of manure. Also consider the rain fall and poaching.  What you cant do is drop 4 lambs on a field and leave them to it.


Best and most cost effective way to raise lambs for the table is on grass.

[simone]

Thankyou Farmers Wife for explaining the difference between store and fat.

'What you cant do is drop 4 lambs on a field and leave them to it. '
- uh oh, that's exactly what i had hoped to do, but i can see that its not the most efficient way - the more trashed the grass gets the more is wasted and the more need for hay and its not like i want to be poo picking up after sheep, ok now i need to be scouring ebay for some cheap temp fencing.

[heyhay1984]

You could solve your pony problem that way as well- if say you split into 6 quarter acre strips (depending on your field shape!) you could put your sheep on the first quarter, then when you move them down put the pony on the strip the sheep have just had. That way each section gets four turns in a row of being rested, your sheep get fresh grass, and your pony gets to go out and nibble once the initial effects of the diet have taken effect and the lami is under control. That's if it needs/wants to be out of course!

I've had to put our sheep behind some temporary, I used electric fence posts and a couple of strands of orange electro-wire at sheep height AND a run of white polytape along the top for the ponies' benefit. But I also used green plastic barrier mesh clicked onto the electric posts and held in place by the electric fence wire- just to give a visual barrier as well as the zap of the electric. The plastic stuff will snap the instant something even thinks about getting stuck in but seems to be backing up the electric wire well- we are (touch wood) over two weeks without escape using that system! And it's fairly cheap to set up apart from the fence energiser and battery but I think they're a useful investment for anyone with livestock to keep in the cupboard until needed.

[bj_cardiff]

I'd get the Lleyns as their pretty quiet compared to the primitive and hill breeds. I'd turn the 4 straight out onto the paddock and let them get on with it. They should clear the weeds and this time of year the grass should be growing faster an they can eat it.

Will the person selling the lambs be onhand if you run into problems? If they care about their stock they should be more than willing to offer advice. Might be worth asking them to take a look at your field

[Marches Farmer]

Depending on where you are in the country grass could be struggling by early Summer if we don't get much rain.  We had heavy rain here overnight but the 20cm deep cracks in the pasture haven't disappeared.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

There are a few websites you could haunt... Preloved, sellmylivestock.co.uk, farmingads. It may be also a good idea to sign up to smallholding groups and farming groups on FB, always good stuff on there, also if not sure when going to see them take someone with you who knows stuff about sheep, so they can tell you if they are good or not. Hope this helps. I haven't any for sale atm, I keep pure Lleyn sheep and since bettering the genetics they are growing very well, birth weights are good and I am hoping they should be going to slaughter beggining of september, all reared off grass. If you like, although I may be too far from you, you could contact me July-August and I could see what I can do. We should be selling off some ewes with lambs at foot soon as well, although not sure how many...