Farmer Focus: High sheep scan and heifer sales keep us busy

What a result! We just scanned the ewes straight off the fell and our target is 150%, with a nice balance of twins and singles with very few triplets and very few barren. They scanned at 181%.

Barrens were half of last year’s tally, which was great, but triplets were up. And we scanned even more quads this year, with six sets.

About the author

Patrick Morris-Eyton

Livestock Farmer Focus writer

Patrick farms 650 Swaledales bred to New Zealand Highlander tups and 350 predominantly Aberfield ewes put to Primeras and Aberfields across 250ha plus common fell grazing with parents Robert and Rowena near Millom, West Cumbria. The farm runs a 250-head Holstein herd averaging 10,000 litres supplying Arla and a Hydro Power and building business, Beckside Construction.

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This alters the management drastically. With that many triplets and quads, instead of leaving the multiples inbye while the singles go to the fell, we might have to look at different nutrition requirements and possibly even housing to manage them effectively this year.

See also: 3 ways to capitalise on high sheep scanning percentage

It is against what we are trying to do, which is to minimise housing to control labour, straw cost and feeding.

We have now got the milking herd up to full numbers since the development happened, allowing us to start selling freshly calved heifers for the first time in 10 years.

We have decided to sell at Bentham Auction Mart, which is only a small sale, but with regular events and decent quality available for buyers.

We have sold four now; having had quite a lot of heifers calve recently it gave us plenty of choice.

Selection for selling is a tricky one because we don’t want to sell our best, but definitely don’t want to sell rubbish.

We picked out heifers that had good udders, were doing plenty of milk and were good, sound animals.

This seems to have paid off. The first sale was a show and sale, where we came away with first and third in the heifer class.

The heifer went on to be overall champion with a top price at £2,400, and the average for four was well over £2,000.

We have now been feeding our maize for three weeks. It’s the first year we have grown maize and we will absolutely be growing it again.

Milk yield jumped up two litres, with butterfat holding at 4.36% and protein 3.46%. The cows seem very settled on it and are eating 22kg a head a day (freshweight) of maize.