Running Sheep On A Small Farm

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29744, 10 February 1962, Page 6

Running Sheep On A Small Farm

OUR attention has been drawn to a high level of sheep carrying and lamb production on a small farm in central Canterbury. The farm concerned is of about 190 acres. In the last year this has included about 12 acres still in stubble after a wheat crop in the 1960-61 season because it was too wet last year to do anything with the ground, so that there has recently been about 180 acres of effective grazing.

On this area about 1240 ewes were wintered last year and 1340 to 1350 lambs were tailed after the storms in September that considerably reduced the lamb crop. So far some 1150 lambs have been drafted prime off the property at an average of 35s a head.

The farm is on country with a clay base and in a wet season lies extremely wet. This was the case last winter when hay could only be fed out in racks and sheep had to plough through mud and slush, particularly where pastures had opened up after grass grub attack. The country has a good cropping potential and will produce a 70 bushel or better crop of wheat but the difficulty in a wet season is to sow the crop and get it to survive the wet conditions. It is because of this that the owner of this property, who desires to remain anonymous, has turned to sheep as a surer proposition on this sort of country. At first he saved small seeds and ran dry stock buying in up to 1500 store lambs in a season.

In the last three seasons ewes have been carried—the numbers being increased from 800 in the first season to 1030 in the second and 1240 or 1250 last season. The owner believes that the number could be increased still further provided he was prepared to do the extra work—-

he operates the place himself. The sheep are run completely on grass. The only supplementary feed they receive is hay. In the 196061 season 4000 bales of mainly meadow hay were saved and 2000 bales of this was fed to the ewes last winter.

The ewes are Romney cross bought in mainly as twotooths and are mated with Southdown and Dorset Down rams to begin lambing about September 1. Lambing does not start any earlier for fear that the country may be lying wet and cold. The aim is to do the ewes as well as possible at all times in the belief that if conditions should turn dry as has been the case this season they will be able to carry their lambs through to at least a light weight if not better. This season the two storms during September resulted in considerable losses at lambing but they were limited by bringing many lambs into shelter and the end result was a lambing percentage at tailing of about 108 per cent. In spite of the dry conditions—there has been little rain since September on the farm—the season seems to have been favourable for the lambs and up to about three weeks ago 1150 had been drafted to the works. The owner was prepared to draft at light weights as soon as the iambs were prime and killable and over the season to date sales have averaged 35s a head on the place. All lambs so far drafted have gone off the mothers. At the last drafting the remaining lambs were weaned and it is expected that the bulk of the 200 left will go to the works before

the end of the season. At shearing in late October the ewes clipped close to 101 b of wool a head.

Last spring seven to eight tons of superphosphate was spread on pastures but there has been little rain since to get any advantage from it. The practice has rather, however, been to topdress annually with seven to 10 tons of basic slag preferably in the autumn. All of the farm received about a ton of lime to the acre about six years ago. No cash crop was grown in the last season.