Keeping inputs as low as possible, and getting the most out of the animals/land as you can are key
Do you really need to feed cake?
Do you need to lamb indoors?
Each lamb costs me £11.57 to rear up each year, this includes, fuel, rubber rings, worming, fly strike, etc etc, I add up everything down to the last 0.001 of a penny
So if a ewe has 1.8 lambs then 11.57 x 1.8 = £20.83 is put againts the cost of the ewe each year, plus the ewe costs me around £20 maybe (dont have time right now to look at my spreadsheet) so £40.83 per ewe per year to rear up 1.8 lambs.
This ewe prices includes flock replacements at 7%, two vet visits to the ewes and lambs per year (I budget for them but have yet to reach 2 vet visits per year) Hay over a certain amount of days per year, even £3 creep per lamb even though I dont creep them (incase of 6ft snow)
I budget for everything
I then budget that I will only get £75 for each lamb, in reality its more like £85-90 per lamb but anything above £75 is a bonus
It does not pay for me to sell boxed lamb at all, as after I take off my time, extra fuel, time off work, storage of the lamb for a little it doesnt pay
I just got a contract selling lamb straight to the butcher down the road
But I think budgeting for every single possible thing that you may need to buy even if you dont buy it and then add in the minimum possible price for lambs, and then if that doesnt work I think it could never work.
This year I budgeted for 4 kilos of hay per sheep per day from november through to april, however I only started feeding hay in december and stopped in march, also I got the hay at a much cheaper price this year than I budgeted for, so my spreadsheet is now smiling at me
Goodluck!!