[ChickenLiver George]

Suddenly thought I ought to visit the forum after a year or two    and ask you guys.


We've been approached by a known farmer who farms a few miles away whether we would 'rent' out our ground for overwintering approx 100 sheep  .


We have fifteen acres and adjoining neighbours can add two small fields to make 22 acres in total. I have been appointed 'spokesman'.


I walk round every morning with the dog so can do lookering and he says he will be up every day too. We have two water troughs and can leave a gate open in the field that has no water.


These are nice fields we take hay off. Can anyone help by enlightening me how much we could ask for the rent without offence but making it worth our while. I used to have a shepherd, now retired, who put 30 ewes on our 15 acres and he used to pitch up in the spring with a couple of lambs for the freezer.


What do you think?

[shygirl]

are you still going to be cutting hay in the summer?

[ChickenLiver George]

Yes we will, we've just taken off this year's crop - and await some gentle rain to get a little regrowth going.
George 

[SteveHants]

Depends where in the country you are.


My concerns would be the following: 22ac sounds a bit little for 100 sheep, I would come to a firm arrangement about when they leave so that you don't lose too much grass growth in the spring. It will, of course help improver your hay crop  the following year.


I have had grazings like that on the "I'll give you a lamb for the freezer" basis. Round here, the commercial rate would be 20p/head/week -so £20/week.

[VSS]

Round here wintering for ewe lambs is paid for on a per head basis. Going rate is somewhere around the £18 - £20 per head from October to March.
The person owning the land is generally responsible for day to day checking of the sheep (although if they need dosing or some such you would have to do that yourself) and you only pay for the live sheep that you take home at the end of the winter. That way the landowner has an incentive to check them regularly.

[Anke]

100 sheep on 22 acres over winter, sounds too many to me.... you will be feeding a lot of hay/haylage and probably some concentrates too...
 
what about worming/fluking and do they come vaccinated against pasteurella and the usual sheep diseases?

[Penninehillbilly]

The person owning the land is generally responsible for day to day checking of the sheep (although if they need dosing or some such you would have to do that yourself) and you only pay for the live sheep that you take home at the end of the winter. That way the landowner has an incentive to check them regularly.

Never heard that before, we rent land out for sheep, (11 month let) as far as I'm concerned, I don't know enough about sheep to be responsible for them. Obviously if I see a problem I would let him know, but they are his sheep, his responsibility, he does the feeding in winter. He's just paying for the grass and convenience of them being down off higher ground in bad weather.

[SteveHants]

The person owning the land is generally responsible for day to day checking of the sheep (although if they need dosing or some such you would have to do that yourself) and you only pay for the live sheep that you take home at the end of the winter. That way the landowner has an incentive to check them regularly.

Never heard that before, we rent land out for sheep, (11 month let) as far as I'm concerned, I don't know enough about sheep to be responsible for them. Obviously if I see a problem I would let him know, but they are his sheep, his responsibility, he does the feeding in winter. He's just paying for the grass and convenience of them being down off higher ground in bad weather.

Thats keep that isn't lookered - I'd call what VSS describes as being 'on tack'. You would pay less for winter keep you had to look yourself.

[Marches Farmer]

22 acres sounds too little to me too.  What type of sheep?  Down breeds eat less than the hill and mountain types, in my experience.  Around here grass keep is generally 1st April to 30th October, so the ground is rested over the winter.  If it snows who's to feed them and what?  Even with good weather we really only have a month of reasonable grass growth to go before the days shorten and growth slows. On the other hand if the grass gets too tall it'll die out at the bottom and won't have much grazing value.  If the sheep are pregnant you'll not want them grazing it down hard and neither will their owner as they'll ingest a lot of soil  which could inhibit the uptake of copper if your soil is high in iron and manganese and give rise to swayback lambs in susceptible breeds.