The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Louise P on July 22, 2015, 07:33:39 pm
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Hi there, despite being a regular reader of TAS, this is my first actual post. So hello everyone and thanks for all your useful posts.
I am looking at buying some easy care sheep and just need some advice. I have 16 acres of ok pasture, not quite moorland but certainly not great. I run 4 belted galloway stores on it all year round and have let the rest out for grazing. I was thinking of getting say 12 ewes and a tup with a view to having them graze all year round without the need for bought in food etc. I don't intend baling any of it for winter,I just want to have the sheep and beef stores on it all year.
The last thing I want to do is overstock it but at the same time, I don't want fat ewes at lambing time.
My main aim is to produce quality beef and lamb for home consumption plus selling some to friends, whilst at the same time keeping the land looking ok.
Sorry for the long winded post. I guess I'm asking what people think of my plan and stocking rate, and for people's experiences of similar projects. Also, when would you buy your ewes? In the autumn pre tupping or in the spring with lambs at foot.
Also, given that the lamb will mainly be for eating, would you breed pure or use a terminal sire like a texel or charollais?
Does anyone else have easy care sheep on here? What are your lambing experiences? Have they lambed outdoors with no trouble? They just sound too good to be true :-)
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Exlana sheep http://www.provensheddingsheep.co.uk/exlana (http://www.provensheddingsheep.co.uk/exlana)
They are like an easy care expect for them being developed and heavily performance recorded by an enthusiastic group of people.
They are selected for good feet, no lambing difficulties (sheep that are handled for any problems are culled) and they thrive outside all year round with no forage or hay, even in the snow in winter, they should suit your system very well
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I can't say much re: stock density as I don't have cattle and have no idea what they need.
as for easycares:
well I got four ewes (not sure what you'd call them - full mouthed?) a couple of years ago. and with a borrowed easycare ram lamb they produced twins , twins and triplets (& one nothing); all produced good sized lambs, lambed fine and seem to be good mothers - only problem I had was one ewe (twins) got mastitis on one quarter though she recovered OK and all three raised their lambs fine.
This year: the 4 original ewes has twins twins & triplets & one nothing - again (though last years barren ewe produced the triplets this year) and four of the ewe lambs produced singles - all full sized, all good mums and without problems. Again they raised them fine by themselves, although I think if I get triplets next year I'll try harder to get one onto a bottle.
They lamb outdoors though I bring them in once they've lambed just to make sure everything's OK, to ring testicles and mark mum and lambs.
don't have to shear of course and I've not useed any flystrike prevention on them and so far ( :fc: ) no flystrike. I too don't make/store hay and just out-winter them and they seem to be fine with that - when they got a bit hungry they started on the brambles, and as they don't have wool they don't seem to get stuck.
I have had some persistent foot problems with them but since discussing with the vet and following his advice (don't mess with the feet - just inject with long-acting AB) - they do seem to be fine :fc: .
only other downside is they're hard to grab hold of - no wool, and if the weather gets very harsh I'd worry about their having enough cover to keep warm (although I'm down in a dip and have lots of trees/gorse/etc so they can always find somewhere sheltered in inclement weather and mine have been fine).
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The stocking ratio sounds fine but its really about how you manage it. The quality and productivity of the pasture will vary through the year as will the sheeps nutritional needs so sectioning it off and letting the sheep follow the cows is probably your best approach. combining the two types of livestock can result in an increase in productivity as well as reducing the worm burden.
personally though I wouldn't take them on with an expectation of not feeding through winter and in the run up to lambing. Although the sheep are marketed as easy care if your are not able to offer feed, observation and possibly intervention at lambing etc I wouldn't take them on. Sheep that shed their fleece can still suffer from flystrike and ones with good feet will still need them trimming from time to time. If we have a severe winter they will need shelter and a food source. The nutritional demands of a gestating lamb can still cause hypo glycemia or calcemia and sheep that are supposed to lamb outdoors unassisted can still prolapse or miss present.
Could you borrow a few for a few months to try it out and see just how easy (or not) it would be?
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Thanks everyone for your quick replies. I will look at the exlana as a real possibility. Ihave had a few sheep for a few years now just on the acre next to my house and have lambed them all successfully, I just like the idea of a more commercial type sheep which I can use to graze my own land instead of renting it out to other people. I can buy in feed if needed but the aim is to not need to. Thanks again all
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Hello!
I run a mixture of Easycare and Exlana, currently around 200. . . . but going up by another 100 ewes this year (a mixture of home bred and bought in).
Firstly I have to say that a good Easycare and a good Exlana are very very similar sheep. However as Keepers has pointed out, the Exlana are pretty much all performance recorded, whereas the Easycare have become very popular, and so there are a lot of people running them on systems which ultimately detract from their original purpose, and will breed out the desired traits of the breed.
So my advice would be, just make sure that you get your ewes / lambs / ram off someone who runs the same kind of system as you want to run.
As for the rest of your post. . . . . I would imagine that your 16 acres will happily feed a dozen ewes and a ram, as well as their lambs over summer. Without seeing the ground, it is hard to say exactly, but quite possibly you will find yourself understocked. We run all of our ewes and lambs with no additional feed at all (including hay) unless we have heavy snow! This year they have had nothing at all, not even the triplets!
As for trimming feet. . . .NO NO NO. All of the up to date research shows that it is counter productive. We never trim a foot here, just spray and jab if a problem and cull if a problem again.
We have had to assist the odd lambing. . . . . but something like 2 per 100 ewes.
Ours do not batt an eye lid at the harsh weather and the lambs are very vigerous born outside etc.
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Whatever sheep you keep you need to have a Plan B in place in case of prolonged snowfall or rainfall around lambing. You will need a store of feed and some shelter. Even if they are perfect mothers, have perfect feet and perfect udders and produce top quality triplets and quads on an intake of brambles and thistles and never, ever, get daggy backsides (yeah, right!) they will still get injuries and need vaccinating and gathering for various reasons.
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As you are trying to make thing simple why not buy store lambs to fatten on if you buy a mixture of some commercial breeds and also some primative wethers you could have a 12 month availability of lamb / hogget - no issues with lambing or sheep getting old - only down side - is yearly cost and most will be on the plate before needing clipped also. You can then adjust your numbers to suit grass availability
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Even if they are perfect mothers, have perfect feet and perfect udders and produce top quality triplets and quads on an intake of brambles and thistles and never, ever, get daggy backsides (yeah, right!)
Why yeah right? if sheep have been selected for non daggy behinds and culled for them over many many years, been selected for worm resistance and are never fed anything apart from the grass they can forage so not many sudden changes in diet, and also have short hair in the summer/autumn rather than wool, why would they get daggy backsides?
Also if sheep have been bred for loads of years with no shelter and no feed even when long periods of snowfall........ why undo what someone has bred for and produced by supplying shelter and a store of feed?
Doesnt make sense....
If you want to get sheep that need shelter and feed then just skip exlanas and go for a sheep breed which would like shelter and food ::) or go full out and treat the exlanas like they have been bred for :) :) :)
Good luck!
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You clearly weren't keeping sheep in this area in the Winter of 2012 when the rainfall was so heavy on already saturated ground that the fields ran like a river and lambs born one night drowned as they hit the ground. Or the late blizzard last year when the sheep were buried where they stood and even the cows inside the cowsheds suffocated because the snow was driven in so hard it filled up the shed. Depends whether you want to keep your stock alive or make a point .....
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You clearly weren't keeping sheep in this area in the Winter of 2012 when the rainfall was so heavy on already saturated ground that the fields ran like a river and lambs born one night drowned as they hit the ground. Or the late blizzard last year when the sheep were buried where they stood and even the cows inside the cowsheds suffocated because the snow was driven in so hard it filled up the shed. Depends whether you want to keep your stock alive or make a point .....
No I am not keeping stock in your area, that is probably pretty obvious, our milking cattle are outside from March through to November each year and our dry cows are outside all year round, calving outside
Judging by the fact stated by the OP, that she keeps cattle outside all year round.... she does not have the issue of cattle suffocating in sheds and animals dropping dead due to extreme weather
Also surely she would not have posted up wanting animals to live outside all year round if she had issues like these, hence my suggestions
If the OP's cattle are to survive outside all year around without dying off then its pretty safe to say hardy sheep that have been bred to would be able to thrive outside just as well :thumbsup:
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Be my stock easy or hard, Keepers, I would sleep easier in my bed if I knew they had shelter and a bit of grub if they needed it in rough weather!!
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If there are extreme weathers of animals dying like flies etc like described above that is a different story, but if you have no extreme weather, and many sheep, it isn't really feasible to supply sheep that are used to it with feed supplies and shelter,
imagine building shelter for a flock of 1,000 ewes to use in the winter if the weather turns :o or keeping enough feed for them all!
I know plenty people who run a large amount of ewes with no back up shelter and no feed whatsoever, so I am saying it is not necessary and is not needed with ewes that are bred for it in weather where people can keep animals outside all year around.
Of course yes there is the thing of supplying sheep with feed and shelter to help reassure and sleep better at night :)
I am just trying to state that it may not be needed if using a certain type of ewe which has been bred a certain way, surely this is a good thing, or at least highly interesting anyway :)
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But the OP was asking about 13 sheep ....
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I am looking at buying some easy care sheep... with a view to having them graze all year round without the need for bought in food etc... I'm asking what people think of my plan... and for people's experiences
Does anyone else have easy care sheep on here? What are your lambing experiences? Have they lambed outdoors with no trouble?
Given the above OP and that Keepers has these scabby donkey sheep - I don't think the responses were that silly were they?? Surely some valuable/interesting first hand feedback/opinion
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I run about 800 wool shedders at the moment----I have kept shedding sheep for over 25 years and performance recorded them for almost as long
My lambing intervention rate is about 0.2% on mature ewes and 1% on ewe lambs
All kept outdoors on forage only (no hay or silage)
I am in Wiltshire, farming nice lush valley land as well as 1000ft rough grazing on Salisbury Plain (military area)
I don't provide shelter and on the odd occasion when I get people complaining that ewes have nothing to eat (in snowy conditions) and I have put hay out they just sit on it or ignore it completely.....plenty of folk next door to me have to feed their animals through the winter and this is due to a different grass management system (I like to let animals eat grass where it stands---others like to cut , bale, store it as hay and then take it back out to the sheep )
In my conditions wool shedders do fine and in fact do better than many other local sheep ---but that is mainly down to recording & selection over many years for many traits
If you cull every animal with a daggy bum you will end up with animals that don't get daggy bums
If you want good wool shedders (or any other type of sheep) go to a farmer with a large flock who culls hard and uses performance recorded rams---
I better make it clear that my business is breeding and selling Exlana sheep so I may be biased :) but the proof as they say is in the pudding
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If the OP's cattle are to survive outside all year around without dying off then its pretty safe to say hardy sheep that have been bred to would be able to thrive outside just as well :thumbsup:
She's keeping Galloway stores outside all year round. That's a very different proposition to keeping pregnant or lactating cattle and their calves outside.
I don't think you can extrapolate from extremely hardy store cattle to pregnant ewes.
Whereabouts are you, Louise P? What's the climate like in your area?
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Been some interesting things written in the last few posts (and as I started writing this MR W appeared).
My first contention with what you've written Marches Farmer is the line "top quality triplets and quads". . . . . I didn't know there was such a thing. Anything above twins is a pain in the arse and usually results in some form of crap lamb. As for Daggy bums, i'm inclined to side with Keepers there. I've yet to see a saggy bum amongst any of my lambs this year. . . . FEC counted all of the groups last week. . . . . only had one with a high worm burden (only been wormed once with a white drench for nemo at about 6-8 weeks) and even in that group, there was not a single mucky bum. Genetics plays the biggest part I believe. Interestingly the groups that did not need worming have all been on leys with a large proportion of plantain. . . . . but thats another topic.
Apart from that I do agree you usually need a plan b. . . .. and whatever sheep you have they do require some shepherding and need getting in. But in general if you have the right sheep, then these are routine management tasks (and usually the more enjoyable ones) rather than re-active fire fighting!
With regard to feeding hard feed. Its this simple, I could not afford to run sheep if I needed to feed them hard feed. The maths just don't stack up. So they do not get fed. . . . . if they can't cope, they go. Luckily they seem to cope well. One thing I am working on, is better grassland management, so that they are getting fed as well as possible off grass!
Same goes for shelter. . . . I have the ability to house about 20 ewes in some kind of comfort, and probably 40 if crammed in. . . . . that's it. There is just no more room at the inn. As it is. . . . the only sheep that come inside, are bottle lambs, and the sick and dying.
There are people running shedding sheep in some very harsh and bleak places in Scotland and North Wales. . . . . in my honest opinion, they will cope as well as any other breed if bred for that environment. I.E I know a few folk who have replaced their hefted hill flocks of Welsh Mountain ewes with easy care ewes and seem to be doing just fine.
So having thought about it. . . . . . maybe there is no plan b! So if that's going to be the case, you've just got to work like hell to ensure that plan a is a bloody good one.
Luckily I know a man who breeds sheep that do what it says on the tin. :fc:
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Louise seems to be a bit busy so I'll add a bit of info.
She lives very close to me on the edge of the West Pennine Moors in South Lancashire. But she's in a fairly sheltered spot. Her land is on a hillside but its not moorland grazing; its quite good pasture. We do get a lot of rain but her land will readily drain. We sometimes get snow but nothing like MF gets, thank god.
She does have shelter too. She has a decent sized stable block that she has used so far to lamb her Ryelands in
( we have bought her Ryeland ewes off her) so if she needed to bring the sheep in she could.
I think she's more experienced with sheep than she made it sound. I know she's wanting to use her land better and move into a more commercial operation.
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Wow thanks everyone for your feedback. I've only just logged back on and looks like you've all been very busy in my absence :-) Like Kimbo says, I live in the North West, just off the west pennine moors. My land ishalf flat and half on a hill with plenty of natural shelter to be found if needed. We don't normally have extremes of weather but if we did I could house them next to the house if necessary.
I'm also able to feed them haylage if necessary but as I said earlier, I'm looking for an easier, low input system where I'm not stocked too heavily and for the main part, they don't need any special care. I'm not aiming to maximise profit. All I want to do is produce some nice meat to feed my family and friends and keep the land in good order.
Tim W do you know of anyone closer to mewho could sell me a few exlana's or would I have to come to Wiltshire for them?
Thanks again everyone for your input.
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Exlanas are sold by SIG Ltd www.sig.uk.com (http://www.sig.uk.com)
Our breeders are all based in the south west but there may be folk nearer you who have used our rams to improve their shedding sheep. I know people in the Scottish borders and also in Yorkshire (& probably others if I thought about it )
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My first contention with what you've written Marches Farmer is the line "top quality triplets and quads". . . . . I didn't know there was such a thing.
I was being ironic. My philosophy is generally along the lines of, "If you ever find the perfect sheep, shoot it and stuff it, for you'll never see another!"