The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: sweet_lfa on October 06, 2014, 08:45:23 am
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As title really! Please could someone give me a figure for the going rate on tack sheep? Also how many sheep for 8 acres? Thanks :)
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Hi,
What is a TACK sheep?
David
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We get 50p per head per week. Or at least we're supposed to.
I don't think the farmer can count :roflanim: .
The how many depends on too many different factors to even have a guess at though!
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Thank you Womble. Oh that's low :( Not sure if you're getting paid too much or not enough by your farmer, but judging by the ROFL smiley I'm guessing he gives you too much!
Carey Boy, sorry if my grammar has offended. By tack sheep I meant sheep on tack.
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TBH, I think we're underpaid rather than overpaid. However, the reality is that keeping our neighbours friendly towards us is far more important than the money. We also get to take fallen trees from his land for firewood, so that's another reason to keep him sweet!
I'd be interested to hear what others are paid / paying though!
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Carey Boy, sorry if my grammar has offended. By tack sheep I meant sheep on tack.
I don't think it was your grammar, I think it was a genuine question - it is one of those things where there is a huge variation in the regional description.
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Last year I paid 25p per head per week.
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We were told by a local farmer to not accept less than 70p a head, which seems a lot compared to what you guys are suggesting. I put an "advert" on a Facebook group earlier and two people have already contacted me wanting the land. Might ask the previous owners of the land what they used to charge ;)
Thanks everyone! :thumbsup:
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Tack sheep, work in a few different ways.
If I put them on tack on your land, and it's fenced, has water, and you do all of the checks daily. Then it's 50p per head per week, and that's for good grazing or roots. With that, it's also your obligation to feed hay etc if we get bad snow, and they can't feed on the grass.
If it's crappy grazing, or I have to do all of the checks, etc I wouldn't be wanting to much more than 25-35 pence per head, per week.
For eight acres, if it's good grass, I would probably put something like 15-25 sheep on it for six weeks, let it rest, return etc.
It's not huge money, unless you have a good bit of land, and a good number of sheep in.
You may be better off renting it to someone on a different basis, i.e if it was well fenced, had water, i'd probably pay you up to £70 an acre or so, for the year. If it was handy, i'd probably give you £700, and top it, harrow it etc. If it was a bit of a pain, i'd be looking to give you more like £550.
But i'll tell you this for free, you will get more money from horse folk. . . . . . . but they will ruin your land, which will cost you a lot to fix. Or you take less cash from a sheep man, and in turn, they will improve (if done correctly) the land no end.
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Tack sheep, work in a few different ways.
If I put them on tack on your land, and it's fenced, has water, and you do all of the checks daily. Then it's 50p per head per week, and that's for good grazing or roots. With that, it's also your obligation to feed hay etc if we get bad snow, and they can't feed on the grass.
If it's crappy grazing, or I have to do all of the checks, etc I wouldn't be wanting to much more than 25-35 pence per head, per week.
For eight acres, if it's good grass, I would probably put something like 15-25 sheep on it for six weeks, let it rest, return etc.
It's not huge money, unless you have a good bit of land, and a good number of sheep in.
You may be better off renting it to someone on a different basis, i.e if it was well fenced, had water, i'd probably pay you up to £70 an acre or so, for the year. If it was handy, i'd probably give you £700, and top it, harrow it etc. If it was a bit of a pain, i'd be looking to give you more like £550.
But i'll tell you this for free, you will get more money from horse folk. . . . . . . but they will ruin your land, which will cost you a lot to fix. Or you take less cash from a sheep man, and in turn, they will improve (if done correctly) the land no end.
I'm horsey and my horses aren't allowed anywhere near the land!!! :o It is very good quality grazing, we had two cuts of small bale haylage off it over the summer which will pay our mortgage on it :) The sheep are going to be on it to improve the quality for when the spring grass starts coming through and for keeping the hedges tidy. It is well fenced into four paddocks each with its own water supply. We're certainly not doing it to make money, it's more to look after the land. I just wanted to know if there was a standard(ish) rate which people charge :) Thanks anyway.
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I'm on 20p, but I do check etc.
Although round here there aren't many people who can just bung 100 sheep on to eat the grass for a bit, and as a consequence of that I often don't pay anything.
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25p but mostly its free as the dairy farmers want it eaten down
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Supply and demand plus maybe more important how nice is your tack shepherd? Do the sheep get taken away when agreed and does he pay on time?
Here I get 280 acres free (have to fence and check etc), 120 acres I pay 15p/wk /head that's fenced and looked at a bit----other places I pay 25p
But some of this is HLS land and the owner has to keep it lightly grazed (so he has his money already)
Go nearer to Wales and you will pay 50/70p ---not sure how you make a living at that rate though?
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50p a week each around here.
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Its a done deal @ 70p a head per week :sheep: Sheep owner is responsible for all checks and supplying additional feed if necessary (if it snows). :thumbsup:
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But i'll tell you this for free, you will get more money from horse folk. . . . . . . but they will ruin your land, which will cost you a lot to fix. Or you take less cash from a sheep man, and in turn, they will improve (if done correctly) the land no end.
I find this usual myth extremely galling. ::)
If you put too many animals of any type on too little land, it will get ruined. Most horse owers will take whatever they can get and most field owners are too greedy so allow too many on. This, combined with the fact that horse owners as a rule know little about land management and horses are fussy grazers who eat in patches, makes fields look ragged. If you put cattle on the same area of land over winter, they would poach it as much as horses if not more. If you tend the fields as well as you would/should with other stock, keep them off badly drained areas in winter, top and rotate grazing, there is no problem. I have 8 horses on 15 acres with a small flock of sheep and geese, who eat the stuff the horses leave, take a crop of hay each year and my land is never ruined or poached.
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You said it yourself . . . . most horse owners know little about land management.
I get plenty of ex horse grazing to sort out. Never been offered any to sort out after sheep.
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Indeed! But using your figures, if I was the landowner, having to mind someone else's sheep all winter and feeding hay when it snowed, for a maximum of £12.50 a week, or have horses, I'd rather have three or four horses for a minimum £10 per week per head with no requirement to look after them and have to top, harrow and even possibly re-sow in patches as I went along. The price difference is only justifiable if you do that.
I'd even go as far as try to educate the horse owners so they could help....
As I say, people try to put too many horses on land and then don't help the owners to keep the land in good order. Apart from ignorance, not many horse owners have the equipment to care for land so have to rely on contractors who mostly spurn small acerages and deride horse owners.
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In my experience, horse owners will be given a plot of land and will then buy as many bloody horses as they can squeeze on it....and then it will poach in winter and.....
The landowner gives it to sheep man for nothing to sort out.
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In my experience, the landowner charges per head at a rate far inflated above that for any other animal, allows far too many horses per acre to maximise profit, to the detriment of the land and the horses, sits aroud moaning about the mess and still doesn't expect to have to do anything at all for his easy money.
He even then expects a sheep farmer to sort it out for him for free afterwards! :dunce:
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Our neighbour us upped our rent to five hundred for the year from three even though we only settled on the latter a few months before. We still havent fixed the shed, well, what's left of it.