NSA Central Region farm walk

On Tuesday, over 50 attendees were kindly hosted by D E Tyler and Sons (Redhill Charolais), supported by Farm Vet Solutions and Manor Feeds. 

Jamie Wild took us on a tour of his lambing sheds and gave an overview how he uses teasers to maintain a tight lambing period with a consistent 120-150 ewes lambing a day, for the 2,200 mule ewes lambing over 20 days. We saw how the limited shed was maximised to house the ewes, with emphasis put on quick turnaround and high levels of precision organising the groups entering the shed. 

The sheep enterprise is part of a large scale arable operation, with the early lambing fitting with seasonal demands on labour, and using cover crops and beet tops. Lambs were finished in a 6 week period using creep supplied by Manor feeds, mostly in June helped by tight lambing and top Charolais ram genetics. This not only means that lambs are normally sold at the peak prices, but only leaves the ewes to manage over the everchanging summer period avoiding risks such as drought and barbers pole worm.

We then headed to Farm Vet Solutions for the two workshops. Jamie gave an insight into how he uses teasers in this early lambing flock. Splitting his flocks into four, teasing them all and staggering when teasers and rams are introduced. This spreads the peak lambing from across the groups to one large peak from day 1 to day 20. This avoids a quite build start, and high intensity lambing period in the middle of lambing that couldn’t be fitted in the sheds. This means that there is a constant 120 lambing a day. An early scan and low ewe to ram ratio ensures that there are few returns, or empties achieving 2% barren after the 20 day lambing period.

Becca Davenport from Farm Vet Solutions gave a post mortem demonstration and showed us what to look for. She highlighted the importance of conducting a post mortem to get an idea of what is going on farm, and how it is so valuable to help inform discussions with your vet. We started at the head and worked down highlighting the throat, lungs, heart, intestines, kidneys and liver as key areas to look for and signs that they are out the ordinary. 

The evening finished off with a lamb burger supplied by Farm Vet solutions and drinks from Manor Farm Feeds.