[farmershort]

Well, in the end, the grass and the hay seems not enough. Some of the flock have started to noticeably lose condition, and obviously there's a couple of older ewes in there which are the primary indicators. I've opted for the most-mentioned solution on this thread (roughly) being sugar beet nuts. If their condition improves well, and they maintain it, then we will have an answer.

Soil test results may be back this week, and then we can start wrestling with options there.

[SallyintNorth]

I've only just seen this thread and have found it fascinating.

My fleece sheep, having been moved in October from the Cumbrian uplands to North Cornwall, seem to be doing fine so far, but I am wondering about minerals.  They have access to nibble the hedgerows, and do so, so hopefully are finding their own, but I might take some recently cut brash down to the tupped ewes and see what the reaction is.  If I can supply their needs with a bit less bramble and gorse getting hold of my precious fleece, I'll be happier! 

Have you looked into mineral powder, [member=7747]farmershort[/member]?  I used to use Paul Keable -PK Nutrition - up north but I've heard people sing the praises of Jonathan Guy, is it?  This

[Anke]

but I've heard people sing the praises of Jonathan Guy, is it?  This

Yes that's what I use for my goats, and have also used for my sheep in bad years.

[shep53]

Well, in the end, the grass and the hay seems not enough. Some of the flock have started to noticeably lose condition, and obviously there's a couple of older ewes in there which are the primary indicators. I've opted for the most-mentioned solution on this thread (roughly) being sugar beet nuts. If their condition improves well, and they maintain it, then we will have an answer.

Soil test results may be back this week, and then we can start wrestling with options there.

   IF your sheep are losing condition then a small amount of sugar beet won't help you need  to consider , is fluke the cause of weight loss , speak to your vet .    You need to hold the condition NOW or you may have serious problems at lambing.. when are they due to start lambing ?  what breed ? what ages ? what condition score ?

[farmershort]

Well, in the end, the grass and the hay seems not enough. Some of the flock have started to noticeably lose condition, and obviously there's a couple of older ewes in there which are the primary indicators. I've opted for the most-mentioned solution on this thread (roughly) being sugar beet nuts. If their condition improves well, and they maintain it, then we will have an answer.

Soil test results may be back this week, and then we can start wrestling with options there.

   IF your sheep are losing condition then a small amount of sugar beet won't help you need  to consider , is fluke the cause of weight loss , speak to your vet .    You need to hold the condition NOW or you may have serious problems at lambing.. when are they due to start lambing ?  what breed ? what ages ? what condition score ?

my goodness.... that was a very, erm, energetic post to read....

a bit of food will of course help condition IF the reason they are losing condition is that they are not getting enough of the right foods. We're going for a low input system here, and drenching, injecting, etc our way out of nothing will teach us nothing about our sheep. Step 1 - give a bit more feed, and monitor (bearing in mind that nothing is looking ill). Step 2 - if that works, great, if not, FEC with the Vet.

In answer some ofyour questions, there's a lot of shearlings in our flock, then a few 4yo, and one really old girl - she must be 12 now. Clearly the 12yo is the first indicator. We're not due to start lambing until the last week of March.

[landroverroy]

Hay should be more than enough to keep condition, unless it's rubbish.
My flock are due to lamb April but I've just had a fit broken mouthed ewe lamb a pair of good sized twins on nothing but grass. Obviously this was unplanned or I would have increased her ration.
But what I am saying is that if your hay is good and there is nothing else lacking or wrong with your sheep then they shouldn't be losing condition. Also, increasing the feed now won't put any more condition on a pregnant ewe. Any excess will just go into the lamb(s). Although, having said that I do agree that sugar beet nuts is a good form of supplementation.

Why would you say that "drenching, injecting etc our way out of nothing will teach us nothing"? If it saves the life of even one of your sheep or lambs it's surely taught you an awful lot about where you might possibly be going wrong.
Or do you just intend to go blindly on with your mantra of sustainability, even where it might possibly not be in the best interests of your stock?
 Please don't think I'm trying to tell you what to do - I'm just suggesting that sometimes you have to weigh up the benefits of your beliefs with the reality of how they fit in with your sheep. You may feel you won't learn anything by the use of drenches and injections, where they may turn out to be  indicated. I just hope you don't end up learning more from the PM results.

[farmershort]

We certainly are weighing up everything as we go... and we had 5 years of keeping sheep previous to us buying the smallholding... when we did it last time, we just blindly did what next door farmer suggested... this time we have more of a plan, but we know that this year a few things are against us. We certainly would never sacrifice the life on animal if it could be helped... well, apart from for eating of course!

We know our soil is probably low on certain nutrients, the girls have run out of grass now (not because of over stocking.. just because of various events in the first few months of us moving in).

For now I just want to see them through to lambing on a healthy minimum input. Next year we'll have the whole year to plan. We didn't get that this year.

[shep53]

While I understand your wanting to keep your sheep on a minimum input system , fluke unfortunately  (if you had them ) then its either treat with a flukicide or death  .    As landroverroy says good hay should allow them to maintain  or slightly loose condition in mid pregnancy , he's wrong about the extra feed , at the moment this will hold or slightly increase the ewes condition and  only in the last 6wks will it go into the lambs .       While my post may have seemed energetic its aim was for you to act now  , if your ewes loose too much condition then  many problems can occur  Abortion / Twin Lamb Disease /Small Lambs / Lack of Colostrum ,  IF you can see loss of condition then you may be surprised if you condition scored them .

[farmershort]

so, time to update this thread a little...

oh, and for the avoidance of doubt, I know this is a long thread, but many of the things that get posted on page 3 or 4 of a thread were already covered on pages 1 and 2... so please take the time to read the whole thing if you can - thanks.

We've had 2 soil samples back from the lab according to the agronomist service. The pH is pretty low on both fields... 5.3 on one, and 5.6 on the other. Not a surprise given the water sample testing I posted previously. The agronomist recommended 1 tonne per acre of lime to rectify. The first 2 things I raised with the agronomist on this point were 1) We want to make sure the lime is locally sourced... not imported because it's cheap, and 2) we want to understand how the pH change might effect our wildflower mix.

The last bit really stumped them... the general response was "well if you've got a corner of your land where you want to leave the grassland untouched for subsidy or whatever, then just don't lime that bit...". I was less than impressed, but it takes time to work on these relationships and extract the knowledge in a form that fits our plans. The only thing I can think of right now is that we perform an assessment of all of the species present during this coming season, and check the growing conditions for each of them with someone like the RHS. We'll be getting the hay analysed this year too.

One of the other things to come out of the tests was that our NPK levels seem to be fine for grazing land. This is what I'd hoped for, but had no idea how reasonable that hope was.

Other smaller factors were that the soil was slightly down on coper, and slightly down on sulphur. Apparently the low sulphur thing is a nationwide issue,  now that it doesn't come down in the rain as often (less dirty industry).

We have to wait for the full-spectrum survey on the biggest field to come back, and for the remaining broad spectrum samples. I suspect that *most* fields will show the same thing, as they've all reached a natural equilibrium after 50 years of almost total neglect.

Overall, pretty happy... We did make a mistake with our grazing allocation this year, which we're suffering through, but a bit of new hay and half a bag of sugar beet per day is keeping the ewes healthy and happy, so I think we've got off lightly there. If the results follow through to the hay crop, then we'll be looking good for our low-input system.

[Foobar]

[member=7747]farmershort[/member] .... you need to read some Newman Turner books.  Start with "Fertility Pastures".  Read that before you put anything on your grassland.

[Coximus]

Interesting,
A few thoughts;

Perhaps your agronomist did understand you - but the aims you have are so contrary to what is actually realistic in certain pointers - IE local "ness" that they may not be relavent.

Imported lime : Doesnt exist, its too low value (£8 a tonne last time for me) and its bulky and expensive to transport.
Geology and quarries - if their is no limestone in your area, you simply cant have local, and if their are no quarries the same! the lime industry is quarrying, their are no small quarries as the equiptment costs millions so they have to be huge, and are located where the minerals are.

And finally - the issue of wild flowers - its amazing how tranisent they are, Ive got neighbours who have been trying what you are, and they over graze one winter, under graze the next etc, and find that the varieties change year in year out, some years totally disapearing, and finally - sowing a mix is abit pointless as few mixes are location specific, they're all subsidy grabbing general purpose mixes. - YOur best bet is to try and have a minimal grazing approach from march - june to give the flowers a chance, and try  to delay hay cutting till after seed drop.............. OR the way its often done in SSSI sites now, harvest 3/4 but leave strips round the edge of the field and up the middle to allow seed to set and spread each year. Dont graze till after aug.

[farmershort]

Interesting,
A few thoughts;

Perhaps your agronomist did understand you - but the aims you have are so contrary to what is actually realistic in certain pointers - IE local "ness" that they may not be relavent.

Imported lime : Doesnt exist, its too low value (£8 a tonne last time for me) and its bulky and expensive to transport.
Geology and quarries - if their is no limestone in your area, you simply cant have local, and if their are no quarries the same! the lime industry is quarrying, their are no small quarries as the equiptment costs millions so they have to be huge, and are located where the minerals are.

And finally - the issue of wild flowers - its amazing how tranisent they are, Ive got neighbours who have been trying what you are, and they over graze one winter, under graze the next etc, and find that the varieties change year in year out, some years totally disapearing, and finally - sowing a mix is abit pointless as few mixes are location specific, they're all subsidy grabbing general purpose mixes. - YOur best bet is to try and have a minimal grazing approach from march - june to give the flowers a chance, and try  to delay hay cutting till after seed drop.............. OR the way its often done in SSSI sites now, harvest 3/4 but leave strips round the edge of the field and up the middle to allow seed to set and spread each year. Dont graze till after aug.

Thanks for th reply Coximus. Apologies - I should have clarified the lime point.... the agronomist confirmed that their 2 lime sources ARE local... so that is a box easily ticked.

We've got enough land to give us 2 sheep per acre on a year-round basis, when we're at maximum breeding ewe numbers (not including lambs, but there's plenty of grass in the summer down here in Devon. This should allow us to leave certain areas to grow long for flowering, certain areas to have a good seed-drop, and certain areas to be grazed down. Obviously there needs to be rotation in this too. There will be other animals to consider too, but nothing in type or number that will impact the per-acre consideration like the sheep.

My issue with the agronomist view was that they couldn't see a world outside of one driven by subsidy. I understand it, of course, but I had hope that when I stated "I'm more interested in conservation and self-sufficiency than subsidy and productivity", that they have another gear they could shift into to advise. I think we'll get there in the end, it's just going to take some time.

Thanks for that SSSI cutting tip - I'll look into that a little more. It may even be possible to "crop" seeds from one field, and scatter them on another. There have been quite a few old 1960's combine harvesters coming up for sale recently, and with our (currently) half-baked thoughts about growing a couple of acres of oats or barley, I've been keeping an eye out. £1500 seems to be around the going rate - which is not daft considering that few modern machines will get through our gateways. Anyway, that's a proper tangents...I just linked it with the idea of seed harvesting and spreading.... I'll look more into the SSSI stuff, and I bet someone has already either done it, or discounted it.

[member=24813]Foobar[/member] - thanks for the book tip, I'll head to amazon right now!

[Marches Farmer]

And finally - the issue of wild flowers - its amazing how tranisent they are, Ive got neighbours who have been trying what you are, and they over graze one winter, under graze the next etc, and find that the varieties change year in year out, some years totally disapearing, and finally - sowing a mix is abit pointless as few mixes are location specific, they're all subsidy grabbing general purpose mixes. - YOur best bet is to try and have a minimal grazing approach from march - june to give the flowers a chance, and try  to delay hay cutting till after seed drop.............. OR the way its often done in SSSI sites now, harvest 3/4 but leave strips round the edge of the field and up the middle to allow seed to set and spread each year. Dont graze till after aug.

We have ancient meadow and this in indeed the case.  Some years the fields are a carpet of Ladysmock, others the primroses make a carpet along the stream ....  Cutting hay after 25July and strewing hay from an established local meadow the day it's cut can help.

I, too, would recommend getting and keeping the sheep healthy above all else and twiddling about with the other considerations afterwards.

[Anke]

[member=24813]Foobar[/member] - thanks for the book tip, I'll head to amazon right now!

www.abebooks.co.uk is much more "local and sustainable"....

[SallyintNorth]

Harvesting wildflower seeds from one field and spreading on another nearby, to get the right mix of truly local plants, has been done a lot in the Pennines AONB by the 'Hay Time' project, and they have masses of info.  Here's some online, I expect they'll have more and will probably be happy to share if you ask.