The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: highhorse on April 12, 2014, 01:18:29 pm
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hi
im looking for some advice, suggestions, business ideas!
my hubby and i are taking on a 20 acre smllholding with large barn ( about 162 square meters).
basically we want to turn it ito a business and i would dedicate myself full time to it. just not sure ich way to turn to make a small crust......sheep/lambs or calves? rearing, breeding, selling?
bit stumped o the best path to follow, an ideas anyone???? :eyelashes:
thanks in advance!!
x :thumbsup:
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Making any real profit off sheep on that scale would be tough. Certainly in terms of being able to live off it. Paying for itself, maybe, but not enough to retire on!
In general at that level, your easiest way to generate funds are probably to add value to what you have, so selling lamb direct to the consumer, processing the fleece, maybe trying some rare breeds etc.
Obviously you will generate cash by just breeding, rearing and selling lambs, but the running costs of a small flock, negate the amount of profit that can really be made.
Standard sheep operations work on a bigger scale - i.e on the place I work, they lamb maybe 600 ewes, probably generating something like 1000 lambs. . . . which is their yearly profit margin, to pay for all of the other outlays across the farm.
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I'd be inclined to start with a few young weaned store calves; buy your first pair already weaned so you can learn about handling them and growing them on. Aim to sell them at somewhere between 12 and 18 months, again as stores, to someone who will finish them.
If you enjoyed doing that, then the next time you could start with younger calves not yet weaned, and have the fun (and mess, expense and work) of feeding them milk and weaning them.
In both cases I would be looking for beef calves out of dairy cows. If you have a local dairy farm you may be able to buy direct. Otherwise there will be animals like this being sold on a weekly basis at your local mart.
If all that works out, then you could look at adding some sheep into the mix. They'll help keep down the parasites - each species eats and thereby terminates the eggs of the worms that affect the other species - and will keep the grass tidy over winter if you have the cattle indoors.
Sheepwise, on that scale, I'd say you definitely want to be looking at direct marketing the meat.
What fun to have a blank canvas!
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You haven't said where you are but that will make a lot of difference to answers, as will type of land your 20 acres are....
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Whatever you do, if its for an income, you've got to make it make more than the storage fee for parking people's caravans in the barn.
Its a small area for extensive farming but have you thought about chickens or something like that? Not saying its a nice thing to do, but you asked for ideas.
I heard someone did snail farming in a spare bedroom so farming does not have to take much space. ... then there's mushroom farming, perhaps the more exotic ones that need warm humid dark boxes like insulated lorry containers. Highly skilled stuff but I guess that's the point if you want to be full time on it.
Oh ... and keep sheep in the fields.
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Where abouts in the country are you. If it is a horsey area, liveries are the way to bring in a decent income.
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Also would help to know what you already know about or have experience of and are interested in. Both will make the work easier. Hard to make money if you are not really interested in what you are looking after or starting from no knowledge as we all make those foolish mistakes at the beginning.
Funny but the only thing I have kept that made me a profit (even on a small scale) was quail. Easy to hatch and raise. Females start laying about 8 weeks old and the eggs sell for a premium and the males ready for dispatch and eating about the same time and are also a gourmet product. However I have never cared for more stupid animals (and I have and love ducks!). The fact that a sneeze can cause them to die of fright and yet they will fight each other to the death I found a bit tedious!
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Interesting that Beeducked, I was about to say that pedigree 'old-fashioned' chickens, and possibly other poultry, would earn me far more on my land than sheep ever will. Particularly if you live close enough to the wealthy 'would like some pretty additions to the orchard' brigade.
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I would think that livestock isn't the way to go, maybe a few small scale rare beasties but just as a side line.
How about growing willow for fuel or using your land for wormeries - they may sound odd ideas if you haven't come across such things before - companies advertise for grower for these - probably try google, I think the money is quite good. Vineyard? Garden Centre? A friend of ours made a good business out of growing lillies?
Depends on the quality / location / orientation of your land too. It's worth the time having a good think and investigation into what's in demand rather than half attempts at things that's never going to make you more than pocket money. May be worth having a word with your planning department - a knowledgeable officer may know of a demand in the area that isn't being met (planners aren't always the enemy!) and could give you a long term aim perhaps.
20 acres is quite a lot, many of use would give our right arm for that much, good luck!
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I wouldn't mind 20 acres of home ground and a barn, you could lamb your hoggs on it, maybe.
If I were you (and not everyone thinks like me... ;D ) I would use it as your base and rent in another hundred acres or so to start off with. I would say to make a decent go at a living from sheep, you want at least 300 head.
The do something more lucrative with the barn, you can keep the sheep out all year.
(This may work better depending on where you are in the country, it is easier to find grazing in some places than others)
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wow thanks everyone, some food for thought there.....
to answer a few questions,
we are in scotland
the 20 acres are a mixture of good level grass and rougher/hill land ( about half half)
ive had sheep, pigs and chickens before but not on a big scale
have experience of horse but am reluctant to enter the livery world...
someone mentioned rare breeds, do you mean breed and sell the youngstock?
with regards to producing and selling direct, im not sure about the rules? do you mean sell direct to butchers or the folks wo would actually be eating them?
im not worried about huge profits (though i wouldnt be upset by them, haha) but it will need to wipe its face and a bit more besides.
really have to choose a few things soon and set about researching them. its all very exciting but a bit daunting too!!
;) xx
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With regard to selling the end product, you will do far better selling to the consumer (that eats it) rather than the butcher, as the butcher will usually try for a low price, so they can make maximum profit on it. However, if you can build up a clientele of people who want to buy locally produced, happy meat etc, then you can do ok from that, and maybe selling some young stock, and then doing something with the fleeces etc.
But to be very honest you will struggle to make a viable income off a 20 acres sheep farm.
Things like holiday lets, camping, yurt holidays, course fishing lake, etc etc will make you far more per acre I would think. That kind of thing a long with the other bits and bobs might do ok for you.
But to live off 20 acres of sheep, would be a struggle.
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most farms round here are 60 acres and its a well known fact that's its not big enough to make a living from on the normal farming sense so you will have to think carefully and sell to the end consumer, cut out the middle man.
if you have your heart set on sheep then do as Steve says.
a smaller scale needs a high value end product. whatever that may be.
goodluck
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hi guys
thanks for all the suggestions, i actually dont mind whether its sheep, calves, alpacas or some variety of bird! i just know that we areextremely lucky to have found such a place which can potentially offer me an my children a good lifestyle whilst paying fr itself. im just stuck as to what to do and wondered if there were any viable/profitabe alternatives to intensive style farming which is so far looking the only method that would yield any income.
we are going to grow veg and try to be as self sufficient as possible but in reality we also need to make a bit of money ( even just a few thousand a year). it also really needs to be agriculture as planners are not sympathetic to horses.
anyone any experience of calf rearing? have also considered alpacas but been told the market for them is unpredictable?
x
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Don't forget to factor in the euqipment, vetmeds and handling facilities you'll need. Are you planning to make your own hay? You'll need to buy in bedding, too. Are you near a tourist area? If there aren't any interesting places to visit within about a dozen miles you'll be hard-pressed to get campers, etc.
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sokel reared calves for the first time not so long ago - why not drop him a PM and ask him to drop by and share his experience.
I'm lucky, in that BH is a lifelong beef farmer, so I have loads of expertise on tap. And as we're a running farm, I can use all the buildings, equipment, cake, forage, bedding etc, that's already here. So whilst I am very happy to share my experience, I am not starting from the same place you would be.
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Where is are your potential customers? Do you have a good road frontage for a small shop, or a nearby town that you could try to sell to? Where is the nearest Waitrose?
I think a diverse holding can be easier to make a business out of for a smallholder. The kind of person who will pay a premium rate for half of a rare-breed pig will also usually be willing to pay for a whole lamb or eighth of a cow. If you specialise to just sheep, then you have the benefit of only needing one set of equipment and medicines, but you'll need to find five times as many customers as hardly anyone buys more than one lamb a year!
The butcher we use has a similar acreage to you and rents a little extra grazing as required. he breeds and rears sheep, cattle and pigs. He takes one trailer full to the abattoir every week, collects and then butchers the meat in a small building on his farm. The 'shop' then opens every Friday and Saturday selling whatever has been done that week, usually pork and either lamb or beef. He's on the edge of a village and has an active email list for people to let people know what is available. Seems to be working for him!
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Where abouts in the country are you. If it is a horsey area, liveries are the way to bring in a decent income.
Don't even go there a lot of horse people are a pain in the butt and the horses will trash your ground if the weathers bad, believe me i know ::)
Mandy :pig:
ps before all you horsey people rant i said a lot not ALL! :-J
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If they'll pay handsomely to trash your land though, it's not all bad :-J .
Seriously though, the key to making livery work is having the right facilities and a population base nearby.
A place near us offers liveries, but are a 10 mile round trip from the nearest town. So, to attract customers, they've had to price cheaper than all the nearer places, hence are not now making the profits they had anticipated.
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Not sure why I'm commenting cos we're rubbish at making it pay. I do know people who make a better fist of it than we do and it seems that key is direct selling to customers, and finding a way of "adding value". We have always struggled to get that premium for rare breed (pork and lamb) usually because we sell in the wrong places. mostly friends and family buy our meat, not because they were after outdoor reared, rare breed etc. etc. but because they know someone who produces meat and they expect to get it cheaper. those I know who make it pay better, either work as hard on selling it as raising it, farmers markets, food fairs etc. etc. and have established a brand identity, or process it on site, sausages, shepherds pies etc. A good friend of mine makes some kind of living from 40 acres and as well as direct selling Dexter beef, Wilts Horn lamb (and a range of associated products) and doing the rounds of markets etc. raises chickens for a regular income. We get stuck in that place between wanting to raise animals in a way that pleases us and is our hobby and making it "wipe its face". we'd be better off if we sold all the stock and just grew and sold hay- but for us that's not the point.
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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!!
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ps before all you horsey people rant i said a lot not ALL! :-J
ALL...
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ps before all you horsey people rant i said a lot not ALL! :-J
ALL...
Totally agree with you, we have over 60 horses on our farm, they are a doddle to look after, but along with the horses come 60 owners!!!! I have learned to be very hard, very thick skinned and lay down the rules and boundaries.
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Where abouts in the country are you. If it is a horsey area, liveries are the way to bring in a decent income.
Don't even go there a lot of horse people are a pain in the butt and the horses will trash your ground if the weathers bad, believe me i know ::)
Mandy :pig:
ps before all you horsey people rant i said a lot not ALL! :-J
Yee ha chance to knock the horsey people. When we rent a bit of grazing for our sheep we thinkourselves llucky if there's a fence. A few years ago my sister in law approached us re putting her special neddy up at ours. The list of demands became so extensive that I could only but ask if she'd like me to ride him too. At which point she went elsewhere. Currently she's on her 3rd livery in less than 2 years. Apologies for any offence :innocent:
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LG, if you are costing replacements at 7%, does that mean you expect all your ewes to last 14 years???
We work on 3-4 crops as an average per ewe. We mostly don't breed them as hoggs, so we need to keep or buy replacements at 20%-25%. You may get more in smallholding scenario but I can't imagine anyone achieving 13 crops per ewe as an average! Not even Herdwicks!
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LG that's really helpful :thumbsup:
sally - do you mean you sell your ewes as 5/6 yr olds? are they sold as culls/mutton or something else?
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Use the sheep as a cover for a subterrainean cannabis farm. :thumbsup:
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Sally I cost at replacing 7% of my current flock every year at my current flock size and average age, I currently have mostly young sheep so obviously if my cull rate was 20% then I would have to be sending away fit and healthy ewes
However I have a few shetland ewes that are 6-8 and are rearing singles and twins and are still fit and healthy with good udders and good teeth and they get no special treatment.
As my current flock consists of only 20 something then replacing 2 this year after replacing none last year seems about right :thinking:
I didnt replace any last year but this year I have two on my list already due to feet and udders
As my flock grows my replacement percentage will probly also grow, this year I will have 30-32 ewes going to the tup and then my flock replacement will grow to 10%
Also if I only kept them for 3-4 lambings then that means my 2 year old charmoise ewe would already be on the list!!!!! and my two 4 year old charmoise would have gone long ago!!!!
Im pretty sure the average shetland can breed longer than 3-4 crops...
However nope my average isnt 13 crops as I havnt been in sheep that long (I would have been ten when I bought my first that means :eyelashes: )
I will let you know when I have been in sheep that long :)
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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!!
Thats pretty good going - I reckon on a Terminal x fat lamb costing me approx £15-20 to produce (depending on when it is sent), but that does include all my insurances/fuel/depreciation etc on the Land Rover. I usually budget for getting £50/lamb and lambing at 150%, when in reality I have never ducked much below £70, even in late summer when I start to wean/sell, and lamb at about 175% (lambs reared - this is mostly because ewe lambs mated only get to keep one lamb).
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Thats pretty good going - I reckon on a Terminal x fat lamb costing me approx £15-20 to produce (depending on when it is sent), but that does include all my insurances/fuel/depreciation etc on the Land Rover. I usually budget for getting £50/lamb and lambing at 150%, when in reality I have never ducked much below £70, even in late summer when I start to wean/sell, and lamb at about 175% (lambs reared - this is mostly because ewe lambs mated only get to keep one lamb).
Thanks steve
I really have been through all of my costings, I dont have insurance so I suppose thats off the list and my car isnt worth anything anyway so I have not put depreciation, and I suppose the biggest cost saver is that I have 25 acres of summer grazing and 80 acres of winter grazing and I dont pay rent for any of it apart from 4 acres, however I have made two different spreadsheets and in one of them I am paying full grazing rent for the year just incase.
I only worm the lambs once a year and I only flystrike once, some of ewes have never been wormed (I bought them from a farm which breeds for worm resistance and doesn't worm) and the rest are only wormed once a year.
Nothing gets fed and my hay prices are really really low as I buy off a farmer who is burning the hay anyway as its not good enough to sell, stocking densities are very low and I struggle with keeping the grass down and then I also get good money for the wool
So everything adds up :)
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Actually a nearish neighbour does that - it's like a franchise, producing eggs for an egg company - the hens need a certain amount of acreage to be legally 'free range' and a big shed to keep them in, she runs everything and is paid by the company. She said that the hens don't use anything like the acreage they have to have but you couldn't have any other livestock or your own domestic hens or poultry for fear of diseases, has to be exclusively for the hens.
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Actually a nearish neighbour does that - it's like a franchise, producing eggs for an egg company - the hens need a certain amount of acreage to be legally 'free range' and a big shed to keep them in, she runs everything and is paid by the company. She said that the hens don't use anything like the acreage they have to have but you couldn't have any other livestock or your own domestic hens or poultry for fear of diseases, has to be exclusively for the hens.
that's sounds good business. where would you look for a franchise like that? and where would you get the training etc?
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enjoyed reading this thread :thumbsup: love to rent some more land but it seems to be like gold dust round my area
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hmmm good point shygirl - don't think the lady in question did it before although they have been smallholders for quite a few years and not sure how she went about it - I expect you could enquire to a big egg company (name on an egg box?). She did mention that she has to employ people to work for her, it is literally thousands of hens she has. I haven't seen her for ages I'm afraid or I would ask her. Ask about I'd say!
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John Bowler is the main one for eggs (65,000 min, that's a 1 person operation)
I am aware of other companies that do the same for
Broiler eggs 10,000 a week minimum (1 person operation)
Broilers
Pigs 450 penned is a 1 person operation
Cattle 200 I'm told is a single person
If your interested I know of a 60k bird housing unit for sale, pens, nests, feeders, auto drinks, conveyors, floor mats (it's in Devon)
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I'm not sure how a single person could run a 200 cow beef unit? That's a hell of a lot of work for one person if it includes everything- feeding, bedding down in winter, crop production etc etc.
If I had 20 acres I'd probably have a few commercial type sheep on the 10 productive acres and aim to sell lamb butchered to friends/family, maybe run alongside some beef stores- a neighbour does this and buys in spring to kill the autumn next year, then has a winter off which works well. I would go more for pure beef though rather than crossed with dairy cows. You're never going to get rich and you need to think about where hay/straw etc will come from but it might make a small profit and keep your freezer full- I would aim to be more self sufficient than making it a working farm, at 20 acres it's too small to do that.
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I'm not sure how a single person could run a 200 cow beef unit? That's a hell of a lot of work for one person if it includes everything- feeding, bedding down in winter, crop production etc etc. ...
Seems fair if one man can run 3000 sheep on an outdoor system (contractors at shearing etc though).
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2 people run/work on the family dairy unit which is milking 180 cows plus looking after heifers, youngstock plus tractor work, feeding TMR using feeder wagon, taking out the slurry etc
Beef is considerably less time consuming than dairy is so 200 beef is easily run by one person with a JCB and a tractor with maybe 1extra person helping during silage season etc
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Yeah day to day you could probably manage especially if they winter out but tb testing, worming, fluking, calving etc plus silage season, harvest etc would all take more than 1 man. My OH has 30 beef cows and it's normally a 2 man job to do them every day through winter- not because of the amount of work involved but they are not as docile as dairy cows and we don't tend to do anything with them on our own, tb testing you need minimum of 3 people plus vet, difficult calving 2 or 3 people, worming/fluke 3 people etc so whilst 1 man could run the day to day farm you'd always need help with anything else.
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Depends on the handling systems, smaller farms and smallholsers often need more man power than a bigger farm with an eid tag run auto cattle crush that allows 1 person to move and handle all the cattle, closing the crush without actually having to keep running up and down
And it holds thier heads for you so you can worm and fluke etc :thumbsup:
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Funny isn't it really
If you looked at farming as a business no one would ever do it
Buy land on finance, machinery, stock
You couldn't make enough to even pay for the land
We would love to farm properly a few years back we were applying for tenant farms, that's the only way we could have made it work for us.
We've committed now for the next 15 years so when we finally retire we will then play.
We would support one of our children if they wanted to farm, that would be great.
Going back to the original question how to make money from sheep ?
Become an auctioneer, A butcher, A haulier, best of all a vet :roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim:
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Hi
I would recommend rearing calves, calves cost a lot more when you sell them. You could buy in some cows in calf, some pedigree cows and possibly rear the calves for the show ring. Sheep require a lot of work and you don't get a very good price for them. Hope this helps.
Thanks
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Four aids to making money from farming sheep:
1. Single Farm Payment.
2. Inheriting land / completing your mortgage payments / being wealthy in the first place.
3. Reduce animal welfare considerations.
4. Move to a developing country with a good grazing climate and subsistence farming practices, buy lots of land and import good stock, establish a monopoly, employ armed guards, etc etc. Oh yes, we did that in Africa some time back
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Aye someone once told me the only way that you would get into real profitable farming in this country, is to win the lottery first . . . . . and if you had done that, farming would be a stupid way to lose your money.
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Where abouts in the country are you. If it is a horsey area, liveries are the way to bring in a decent income.
Don't even go there a lot of horse people are a pain in the butt and the horses will trash your ground if the weathers bad, believe me i know ::)
Mandy :pig:
ps before all you horsey people rant i said a lot not ALL! :-J
+1 from me! :)
Following the winter's wetness, I've been busy salvaging the paddocks where our own horses have been turned out. If the last winter is a sign of the future, I'm going to need to consider radical change in order to conserve the paddocks from the damage caused this year!
On the subject of livery, while it can be thought of as 'easy money' - especially DIY livery, be warned!
Do not even consider it unless you have a well drafted contract covering everything in minute detail, and be prepared to assert you're authority about who actually owns the land.
We rented out some land on a DIY basis and over time the 'tenants' decided they would gradually 'increase' the size of that rented by conveniently switching off the power unit to the electric fence, and allowing their steeds to wander through onto fresh ground.
We have to take a very stern approach and sometimes inconveniently, visit daily to ensure they abide by the terms and conditions of the contract, together with the 'reminders' regarding poo picking, litter, fence checks, etc, etc.
My neighbour has exactly the same problems - on a larger scale, but has successfully evicted the self elected 'livery yard manager' who it was found ran the roost using bullying tactics to other yard users, together with thieving tack and feed, and raiding a barn for hay which she sold on! :o
So, consider carefully all the options available before considering opening the door to the possibility of offering livery.
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Four aids to making money from farming sheep:
1. Single Farm Payment.
2. Inheriting land / completing your mortgage payments / being wealthy in the first place.
3. Reduce animal welfare considerations.
4. Move to a developing country with a good grazing climate and subsistence farming practices, buy lots of land and import good stock, establish a monopoly, employ armed guards, etc etc. Oh yes, we did that in Africa some time back
1. I Don't get that
2. Er, no, I don't even own my house.
3. Depends on what you mean - I don't believe that outdoor lambing in spring does this, nor does having a decent culling policy. I believe my animals are just as well looked after as the next persons.
4. I'm in England
And yet, I make a living from sheep.
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And yet, I make a living from sheep.
Sounds great - How ?!? :)
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Economy of scale I would guess?
I know some lads who run 7000 + ewes. . . . . and hardly own an acre.
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And yet, I make a living from sheep.
Sounds great - How ?!? :)
If I explained how again, I'd be in even more danger of sounding like a broken record..... :P
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And yet, I make a living from sheep.
Sounds great - How ?!? :)
If I explained how again, I'd be in even more danger of sounding like a broken record..... :P
Give the poor man a link to one of your previous explanations, Steve. Womble's coming new to sheep and I'm sure he'd get a lot out of reading up on your approach.
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Four aids to making money from farming sheep:
1. Single Farm Payment.
2. Inheriting land / completing your mortgage payments / being wealthy in the first place.
3. Reduce animal welfare considerations.
4. Move to a developing country with a good grazing climate and subsistence farming practices, buy lots of land and import good stock, establish a monopoly, employ armed guards, etc etc. Oh yes, we did that in Africa some time back
I dont receive single farm payment (any farmer who relies on single farm payment to make profit is not doing well IMO incase it is revoked etc)
I am not wealthy and I dont own my own house or land and what is a mortgage payment? :eyelashes:
Reducing animal welfare considerations????? not sure what to say about this..... Im not sure how a reduction on animal welfare causing a reduction on animal output/production would save money....
Umm I live in england and have sowly built up my massive flock of 20 something over the last few years by only keeping the very best and selling the rest, I dont have armed guards...(but I wouldnt say no :eyelashes: )
I hope you can figure out a way to keep sheep with profit :) it is easyer done than a few people make out, basically keep the best and east the rest :thumbsup:
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Give the poor man a link to one of your previous explanations, Steve. Womble's coming new to sheep and I'm sure he'd get a lot out of reading up on your approach.
Yes, just trying to learn!
I hope what you're doing is more profitable for you than the road we've started down. When our neighbour saw our new Manx Loaghtans, he asked if we'd be having a leg each for Christmas! ;D
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Tim's 4 aids to making a profit from sheep farming :)
1) Approach it as a business
2) Concentrate on profit---kg lamb sold
3) Get rid of any unprofitable traits (wool/lameness/poor mothering ability--and at the same time increase welfare implications)
4) Put as much time into marketing/research/planning as you put into your sheep
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Give the poor man a link to one of your previous explanations, Steve. Womble's coming new to sheep and I'm sure he'd get a lot out of reading up on your approach.
Yes, just trying to learn!
I hope what you're doing is more profitable for you than the road we've started down. When our neighbour saw our new Manx Loaghtans, he asked if we'd be having a leg each for Christmas! ;D
Tim has explained it more concisely than me, but I will do my best:
Firstly, you need enough sheep. I think that in order to pay the bills (ie take home something approaching the national average wage), you wouldn't want less than 300 sheep, more if possible. Rent grazing and don't overstock, its better to understock and have an abundance of grass because if you are going to be profitable you won't be buying concentrates, your sheep will be eating grass. It is hard to find your first block of grazing, but persevere, once you have one or two good lots, and build up your reputation, people will come looking for you.
Then, you need the right sheep. Buy sheep from people doing what you want to do, preferably on harder ground. I like woolshedders, because I can never see wool making money, but the Romney boys assure me it does. Choose breeders that cull for everything - you want a healthy happy flock that you don't need to keep poking. Plenty are now breeding for worm resistance (On my main block, I think I have wormed my ewes once in the last two years) and worm to FECs - dont waste money buying wormer when you don't have to.
Cull ruthlessly - you are natural selection. A problematic ewe is losing you money and also, its genetics are going to have a negative effect on the welfare of your flock. Anything that has a genetic component should be culled for. Cull ewes make decent money, so you aren't losing that much. Think of it like this: your crop of replacement lambs are vying for a place in the flock, allow them the chance to prove themselves by culling poor-performing ewes.
You will by necessity be lambing outside, so your supplier of maternal sheep needs to be doing that too. It became very apparent to me very quickly that to sell breeding stock you need to build up a reputation and that aint going to happen overnight, so to start with this aim is foolish - it will happen in time (this also goes for pedigree sheep, it doesn't matter WHO you bought them off, you trade on your reputation). Therefore, the logical solution for me was to produce fat lambs as the meat buyers tend to care less about who you are and look more at the lambs in the pen (if you are on upland you might want to produce stores instead). Therefore I would be breeding my own replacements and slaughter lambs, so I would need a terminal sire. Terminal sire producers must think like you and have an interest in genetics. It is no good buying a top pedigree suffolk and trying to lamb his big-headed, dopey offspring outside. Do your research, you have plenty of choices of terminal sire (NZ Suffolk/Texel, Some UK ones (Baber), Meatlinc, some Charolais..) Find out what the buyers like if you will be selling at market.
Focus on the bottom line - turnover is vanity. Know your cost of production, make decisions based on sound business logic rather than sentiment. I like to record the performance of my ewes so I know how much money each has made me. Remember your margin - it is better to sell a lamb that has cost you £15 to produce for £60 than one that has cost you £60 to produce for £90, even though the £90 lamb might top the market and make you feel good about yourself.
I hope this is enough information to be going on with....
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Steve mate . . . . I think I love you already.
Take heed folks . . . . that man just described the difference between sheep 'keeping' and sheep 'farming'.
:thumbsup:
The thing is, it's easy enough to run a small holding, you don't need much prior skill, you can learn as you go and your mistakes rarely affect your real life. Productivity is often way down the list, after lifestyle, enjoyment and sentiment.
But to run a farming operation like that . . . . you've got to know your stuff.
P.S This is Porterlaurens uglier other half :innocent:
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Another one of those great threads that goes in all sorts of fascinating directions. I think Porterlaurens (OH) last post distinguishing between sheep keeping and sheep farming has hit the nail on the head for me . As much as I might think otherwise I am too sentimental about my stock to make those important economic decisions that would increase the chance of actually making money from them. Having said that, both Tim and even more so Steve write so clearly about smallholding as a business that I cant help but feel inspired to take that step onwards and do it for real.
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The thing is, what steve describes isn't small holding, it's farming commercially.
With most small holdings, they tend to seek a niche product, from what I've seen anyway.
With farming in its true commercial sense, its all about efficiency and economies of scale.
But there is a real blurry, grey area where the two meet. And sometimes that works and sometimes its a problem, i.e with someone trying to run a large scale operation with a small holding mentality, or someone trying to run a small holding with a commercial approach.
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best of all a vet?? This person does have a serious sense of humour!! :thumbsup: (you were joking right?)
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The thing is, what steve describes isn't small holding, it's farming commercially.
With most small holdings, they tend to seek a niche product, from what I've seen anyway.
With farming in its true commercial sense, its all about efficiency and economies of scale.
But there is a real blurry, grey area where the two meet. And sometimes that works and sometimes its a problem, i.e with someone trying to run a large scale operation with a small holding mentality, or someone trying to run a small holding with a commercial approach.
I started off with 15 wilts horn ewes and a ram - I had fully intended to produce on a small scale for farmer's markets etc, my background was in running a small trout farm who had a smokery etc and who made enough to keep the boss and his farm manager (me) in wages. The key was still margin and this was achieved in that case by adding value. I never did explore that option with my sheep in the end, but I don't doubt it could be done, mostly because I like not standing on markets all weekend, but also because I was quickly offered 130ac grazing to occupy my time.
I ran my small flock along the same lines as my commercial one - mostly becauseI was employed at the time and couldn't afford to be messing about, I needed sheep that got on with the job.
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steve and tim talk a lot of sense, like reading there views :thumbsup:
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Really appreciated Steve and Tim's input too. Inspiring examples!
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I'll probably get shot down for this, but on 20 acres you can not really earn enough from sheep and gather a hay crop.
In your shoes I'd keep a few sheep, say 10 and sell any surplus hay and build either kennels or cattery and bred pedigree cats/ dogs.
Much more money in 'pets' than farm livestock.
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The thing is, what steve describes isn't small holding, it's farming commercially.
With most small holdings, they tend to seek a niche product, from what I've seen anyway.
With farming in its true commercial sense, its all about efficiency and economies of scale.
But there is a real blurry, grey area where the two meet. And sometimes that works and sometimes its a problem, i.e with someone trying to run a large scale operation with a small holding mentality, or someone trying to run a small holding with a commercial approach.
I started off with 15 wilts horn ewes and a ram - I had fully intended to produce on a small scale for farmer's markets etc, my background was in running a small trout farm who had a smokery etc and who made enough to keep the boss and his farm manager (me) in wages. The key was still margin and this was achieved in that case by adding value. I never did explore that option with my sheep in the end, but I don't doubt it could be done, mostly because I like not standing on markets all weekend, but also because I was quickly offered 130ac grazing to occupy my time.
I ran my small flock along the same lines as my commercial one - mostly becauseI was employed at the time and couldn't afford to be messing about, I needed sheep that got on with the job.
You talk a lot of sense steve. The things I was trying to get at. . . . is when looking to make it a profitable business, emotion doesn't really come into it (apart from the obvious positive feeling you get from it going well and being in a line of work you enjoy), which does go a long way.
But as some one wiser than me once said. A bad dog eats just as much as a good one.
And the same goes for sheep.
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Thanks for posting that Steve. What you're doing is a long way from what we're aiming for, but there's still food for thought there. Much appreciated :thumbsup: .
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Indeed they do talk a lot of sense imo. In particular about keeping an eye on costs and having the right sheep to suit your plans. I live near both and have been able to visit their sheep and pick their brains. I have a small flock but work full time and on my rented land there are no buildings, the same principles apply just on a smaller scale.
I have learned to be less sentimental about the sheep and whilst I have my favourites, if they make life difficult (especially at lambing) then they will be culled, not something I relish but am aware it is the best for the flock and me in the long run.
I also have a local butcher who supplies my village shop with local meat and although he loves his rare breed pigs and chickens he often reminds me that if you are selling meat you need to make sure that it is what your customers want, not necessarily what you think they should have. Taking this on board with my pigs I have switched from pure rare breeds to rare breed crosses; the pigs still look as my customers like (spotty) but the meat also looks like they expect (not too much fat) and tastes better than the supermarket pork.
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If you need a full time wage put up a pair of Endurance E3201's and then run a pair of dexter cows with Aberdeen angus cross calves at foot and 10 bucket trained Native breed ewes. Money+beef+lamb=Happy!