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Know How / Sheep / Assessing performance

Understanding your flock’s technical and financial performance is essential to make improvements and understand if your system is performing optimally.

We discuss how and why margins and costs should be calculated to analyse your business economically, on a cost of production, per ewe or per hectare basis.

Learn about the range of productivity metrics to for flock benchmarking and improvement, from scanning and rearing percentages to the cost of tups/kg of lamb sold and difficult figures like calculating mortality and maternal ability.

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Case studies

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ASSESSING PERFORMANCE

Working with nature improves Lakeland farm's profits

Switching from a high-input farming system to one based on minimal inputs and working with nature has improved profitability on a Cumbrian farm. First-time farmers Richard and Alison Maxwell, of…

ASSESSING PERFORMANCE

How 3 farmers are building resilience into their businesses

A strong desire to drive their farms forward and challenge their thinking led Josh Gay, Jonathan Hall and Richard Pattison to attend a three-day workshop for beef and sheep farmers…

BREEDING AND FERTILITY

How terminal sire stud is producing top 1% rams

Selecting high-index sheep in a challenging commercial system has resulted in sales of 100 terminal sire lambs a year with no hard feed for one Devon breeder. Peter Baber and…

LIVESTOCK

How an upland farm doubled its hill sheep index in three years

An upland farmer is increasing his income from lamb sales by performance recording his closed flock of Welsh Mountain ewes. In five years, the average weight of lamb produced a…

GRASSLAND MANAGEMENT

Brothers seek £73/ha profit lift with less output

Sheep are making way for suckler cows to minimise winter feed requirements and pay the mortgage on an organic grassland farm. The alteration is one of several Graham and Michael…

SHEEP

How RamCompare gives pedigree flock commercial edge

Sheep industry stalwart and farmer Charles Sercombe believes performance recording holds the key to unlocking the efficiency of the UK’s flock. “Agriculture is at a crossroads: whichever party is elected…

Practical advice

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SHEEP

Advice on buying replacement ewes for breeding

Most sheep farmers scrutinise rams before purchase, but how many pay the same attention to ewe replacements? They should – not only do they make up half of a flock’s…

SHEEP

Why and when farmers should weigh sheep

There is a whole heap of reasons to weigh sheep regularly. In fact, the benefits are four-fold: for health, nutrition, management, and genetic purposes, says Peter Stoker, marketing manager from…

SHEEP

3 ways to cut lamb worm risk at weaning

Sheep farmers trying to make the most of grass to counteract sky-high concentrate prices are advised to be vigilant for parasites in lambs post-weaning. Grazing grass can put lambs at…

SHEEP

How to get the most from a Defra sheep health and welfare review

Preparing flock performance figures for the new state-funded vet consultation will help sheep farmers get the most out of their Animal Health and Welfare Pathway visit. Animal health experts say…

GRASSLAND MANAGEMENT

How to budget and allocate rotational grazing for ewes

Preparing a grazing budget and assigning pasture on a rotational basis can significantly boost grass growth and a farm’s overall productivity. When managing a flock of ewes, these tools offer…

YOUNGSTOCK MANAGEMENT

How to troubleshoot poor lamb growth rates

Assessing lamb performance early on is essential to ensure steps can be put in place to maintain growth rates post-weaning. The AHDB Sheep Key Performance Indicators project found light lambs…

Insights

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ASSESSING PERFORMANCE

Carbon study shows scope for beef and sheep efficiency gains

First-year results of a major carbon footprinting study have shown a huge variation in greenhouse gas emissions from beef and sheep farms across the UK. The average carbon footprint of…

SHEEP

How reducing methane emissions is win-win for flock performance

Results from thousands of methane measurements from sheep flocks across Ireland have confirmed that genetics play a part in enteric fermentation. This means farmers can select for low emitters, reducing…

LIVESTOCK

The benefits of investing in a maternal ram

Advances in sheep production systems including flock identification, record-keeping, ultrasound scanning, handling systems and computing power have transformed our ability to use information to identify and breed from sheep with…

HEALTH AND WELFARE

Why health gains cut ruminant methane emissions by 10%

Three classic livestock benchmarking targets can help sheep and cattle farms raise technical performance and meet obligatory methane goals to battle climate change. Livestock policy leaders are urging farmers to…

SHEEP

Does the UK have too many sheep breeds?

Over the centuries a spectrum of breeds has evolved in Britain, from fast-growing, prolific lowland types to hardier, single-bearing ewes for the uplands. According to the National Sheep Association (NSA),…

SHEEP

Experiment shows potential for cell-grazing herbal leys

Cell-grazing promotes greater sward growth and weight of lambs weaned a hectare than continuous grazing. And cell-grazing herbal leys, or multispecies swards, has the potential to outperform less diverse ones.…

SHEEP

A buyer's guide to sheep management software

With the current uncertainty around Brexit’s impact on the sheep sector, who knows what the new year has in store. But one thing that is becoming increasingly apparent is the…

ASSESSING PERFORMANCE

5 new livestock gadgets for farming in 2020

From innovation to slightly improved design, engineers and inventors are constantly striving to produce the next big gadget in livestock farming.  Farmers Weekly has looked at the top products that…

LIVESTOCK

4 sheep recording methods compared: which one is best?

Carmarthenshire sheep farmer and Aberystwyth University graduate Huw Williams completed a HCC scholarship in 2015 looking at how extensive systems in New Zealand and Australia were recording parentage. Talking about…

SHEEP

Research shows value of monitoring ewe body condition

New research has shown just how valuable it is to record and monitor body condition in commercial ewe flocks and keep it consistent year-round.   Independent sheep consultant Lesley Stubbings…

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