[Tim W]

Farmers do buy pet lambs - we sell a few each year to three or four local farmers.  Many farmers put in a shepherdess system to minimise the work of rearing their own orphans, so then they may as well rear some more as well to make the thing pay.  And some farmers have adopters and will happily twin on any extra lambs if they have single-bearers.

It's a fallacy to say there's no money in rearing them - if you get good commercial types, from a farmer who you know will have given them a good start, then you will be looking at £70-£90 for them once they're fat.  If you have the system in place anyway, then there's room for some profit if you're buying them at £15-£20. Some farmers keep a Jersey or two for the milk for the lambs to reduce the costs of rearing them even further.

Plus at the start of lambing, farmers are often in need of a lamb or two for a bereaved ewe, and haven't yet got a stock of their own.

So no, not just smallholders, Womble! 
[/quote]

Probably no profit if you are paying yourself a wage ---unless you are rearing 150 + to justify the capitol outlay for a shepherdess system when it just might become viable

Bringing in lambs to foster onto your ewes is another great way to buy in disease  , but there are plenty who do it

Mine go at £20+ each at 24/48 hrs old and I seem to get rid of them easy enough

[Ladygrey]

I have bought cade lambs before for various reasons, two years running, both years at £10 per lamb

I made profit from mine as I weaned them very early straight onto clover grass.

however I wont ever be buying them again as now I have too many of my own to be thinking about and dont have the time/need/patience for them any more

[Herdygirl]

But there is something to be said for an orphan lamb who climbs onto your knee for a cuddle when his tummy is full 

[SallyintNorth]

Probably no profit if you are paying yourself a wage

Well, that would matter if you were paying a hand to do the work, I guess, but most farmers (doing their own work) don't do their sums that way.  If they did, I doubt many would stay in business!

Equally, you'd make no money buying in stores in the summer if you 'charged' them for the grass they ate before you sold them fat in the New Year.  But if you didn't buy the stores, nothing would eat that grass and it would likely be wasted as it already wasn't silage and you clearly didn't have enough of your own sheep for the grass you had spare that year

Check my tag line

[Tim W]

Seen your tag line but that doesn't help if you can't make a profit!

Any businessman/farmer who doesn't pay themselves is only fooling 1 person and for those of us without farmers dole or a spouse subsidising the farm it is essential to get paid a decent rate. I put in £15/hr for my time and get it
It will be a hard learning curve when the farmers dole gets withdrawn ----

[trish.farm]

Seen your tag line but that doesn't help if you can't make a profit!

Any businessman/farmer who doesn't pay themselves is only fooling 1 person and for those of us without farmers dole or a spouse subsidising the farm it is essential to get paid a decent rate. I put in £15/hr for my time and get it
It will be a hard learning curve when the farmers dole gets withdrawn ----

I wish I could put £15/hr for my time!!  I dont even get £15/hr for the self employed farmwork I do!!  I look at my lambs as a savings account.  The money goes into my sheep all year and I get a lump sum back in the autumn.  Depending on the year i have had, interest rate of "sheep bank" is either good or rubbish!  Currently 50p over the minimum wage per hour for self employed farm work, so £15 would be a miracle!!!

[Tim W]

I record my time on farm work and input it at £15 into the accounts, most years I make a small 'company ' profit on top of this
I charge £12 or £15 for contract labour on other peoples farms---if they want my dog or equipment or management input the price rises accordingly

[shygirl]

Seen your tag line but that doesn't help if you can't make a profit!

Any businessman/farmer who doesn't pay themselves is only fooling 1 person and for those of us without farmers dole or a spouse subsidising the farm it is essential to get paid a decent rate. I put in £15/hr for my time and get it
It will be a hard learning curve when the farmers dole gets withdrawn ----

what is farmers dole - and where can I get it? 

[ballingall]

Farming is a business, but a lot of people look on it as a way of life. Personally I don't know ANY farmer who pays himself £15/hr. Do you get overtime as well? 


I am happy to buy Cade lambs, and I would probably pay up to £30 for them. But if I was paying £30 I would want some damn good lambs. The last ones I got I paid £10 each. For me it's a cheap source of my favourite meat, because we have the spare milk anyway, so the only cost is the initial outlay, plus slaughter and butchery costs.


Beth

[SallyintNorth]

I'm happy for you that you can make £15/hr, TimW, if that's the way you like to run things and measure things and it suits you.

Longstanding farmers will have different ways of looking at things that suit them, their lifestyles and families, and their heritage.  If you own your farm and have no borrowings, you are free to look at outgoings and income in a different light.

One thing's for sure, no-one would stay in farming if they weren't happy with the lifestyle and how / what it pays - it's too much hard work to do it if you don't love it!

'Farmer's dole' is a rather misleading and perjorative way of putting it, I think.  I am no great fan of SFP and other subsidies, but the truth is that increasingly, in order to get the payments the land has to be farmed in a certain way - and the payments are the compensation to the farmer for income lost by so doing.  The theory is that if the public want the landscape managed in a certain way, and it's not as profitable to farm it that way, then there has to be some compensation to the landowner/farmer to enable them to comply with the public's wishes.  Sometimes the impositions are too deleterious and the farmer will not take up that scheme - we haven't taken up the Uplands scheme as it would stop us being able to grow our own hay.  (It's a very badly-designed scheme, they want us to make hay but the rules would have meant we could hardly ever do so!)

I could go on but we're getting away from the topic...

In short, monetary 'profit' is not the be all and end all.  Sustainability and the land management associated with it is ultimately more important, and as owners of most of the land we farm we are in the happy position of being able to make our decisions based on outcomes important to us and our farm. 

[trish.farm]

I am glad you mentioned "farmers Dole" Sally.  I refrained from an outburst last night! 

We have a 300 acre farm of which only about 50 acres is cropable land.  The rest is woodland, watermeadows, sandy poor grazing etc.  We are in the ELS and HLS scheme, yes we get a yearly payment but boy, do we have to work for it.  I certainly would not call it dole money Tim!!!  There are huge restrictions on what you can do, when you have to do it, what you cant do, the list goes on and on.  My partner who owns the family farm is serious about his conservation and has been in schemes for the last 20 plus years.  our farm is a haven for wildlife and wild flowers etc but it is definitly a way of life, not a money making career!!  In comparison, 10 miles away where the chalk downs start, huge arable farms are making serious incomes, but do they look as pretty as our farm? Do they attract and hold wildlife, birdlife and flowers etc? We work incredibly hard for a very low income but have kept a comparitively small family farm, in its 4 generation, breaking even and kind to the environment.   

[twizzel]

In comparison, 10 miles away where the chalk downs start, huge arable farms are making serious incomes, but do they look as pretty as our farm? Do they attract and hold wildlife, birdlife and flowers etc? We work incredibly hard for a very low income but have kept a comparitively small family farm, in its 4 generation, breaking even and kind to the environment.

Yes but without meaning to be rude, having a pretty farm with lots of birds and wildlife doesn't earn money, and with supermarkets/wholesalers demanding low prices every scrap of land has to be viable and worked accordingly. My partner's farm is 160 acres, we do have woodland but those 160 acres are all productive land either in grass corn or rented out for potatoes followed by cauli or bulbs. Whilst farming is a way of life the sums also have to add up and if they don't then what is the point? 

[trish.farm]

oh dont get me wrong, all the viable pieces of land are used.  Cattle graze the watermeadows in the summer, 120 acres of woodland are in a felling and coppice rotation, all bits of HLS ground are winter grazed.  Prime bits of ground are cropped for maize or spring barley and we have 50 acres for horse paddocks.  I was just trying to point out the being in a conservation project and getting grants is not "Farm Dole"! 

[Tim W]

Farmers dole is what I refer to the SFP as---money for old rope. (Environmental schemes are a slightly different thing---so hold fire there for a moment  )
SFP is paid to all landowners /farmers (depending on your classification and having entitlements) subject to a few basic rules that actually ought to be law. This SFP is being reduced year on year until eventually I suppose it will disappear ---and this has to be a good thing? In a global market why should I (taxpayer ) pay a business to be in  competition with businesses in another part of the world? What value do I get for this?
It is said that it suppresses the cost of food---which I contest as I can buy food from another part of the world at a cheaper rate
It is said that it keeps land in the ownership of smaller family units and it probably does help this but it also encourages large land owners to get bigger
It puts a false value on land ---both in capital and rental terms
It stifles enterprise and makes it harder for new blood to get into farming
And as any subsidy is bound to it lets poor business models perpetuate

Environmental schemes are a bit different and have some benefits to the taxpayer (who funds them) but I am not sure that we get good value for money in many cases

--much of my rented land is in environmental schemes so I depend on them (and indirectly on SFP which must subsidise my rents to a degree)

But I do question if subsidies give value for money and even if they achieve what they set out to do

Anyway this is a bit off topic so I apologise for that ----I will no doubt have orphans available in a month or so 

[BALLOCH]

a dorset female orphan made £140 at dingwall today it did have a good bum and its mum had died recently so had a good start and maybe wouldn't take to bottle,2 week old dorsets made £30 each