Strategic Farm - a productive Sheep Flock?

Date: 19 February 2020

Speakers: Steven Lawson (Strategic Farmer), Lee-Anne Oliver (vet, Scott Mitchell Associates) and Sam Charlton (AHDB)

Update from South Farm, Northumberland Beef & Lamb Strategic Farm

• Key changes since joining the Farm Excellence Strategic Farm programme include implementing rotational grazing which has increased grass utilisation and reduced silage from November 2019

• Reduced lambs sold by 10 weeks

• Reduced lameness from 18% to below 2%

• FEC PAK utilised and Shearwell EID system in place

Take-home messages

• Improved forage utilisation

• Improved efficiencies which should result in increased productivity

• Valuable use of EID data to inform business decisions

Benefits of EID technology on farm

• Click here to see the presentation from Sam Charlton

Take-home messages

• Lamb growth to 8 weeks is critical and accounts for future lamb performance

• Light lambs (<%15 of target 8 week weight) increase mortality and costs to finish

• Good management of ewe body condition score (BCS) at tupping and scanning improve flock productivity

• Scanning management groups separately provides more detailed data and informs business decisions

• Only collect data which can later be used to inform business and flock management decisions 

Worm control in pre-lambing ewes

• Click here to see the presentation from Lee-Anne Oliver

Take-home messages

• Target worm control in ewes pre-lambing to reduce worm burden on pastures that will affect growing lambs later in the season

• Consult your vet to choose the correct worm treatment to tackle anthelmintic resistance building up on farm

• Consider the use of Faecal Egg Counts (FEC) to target worm treatments

Further information

• Improving ewe nutrition for better returns
• Flock notebook
• Worm control in sheep for better returns
• Parasite control guide 2020
• Understand your business costs with AHDB’s benchmarking tool Farmbench 
• Monitoring tools are available
• Sign up to market information and research newsletters
• Find out what’s going on at other Monitor Farms and Strategic Farms
• View all of AHDB events

The next event will focus on grassland management and is on Thursday 11 June 2020 at South Farm