Early lambing is not for the faint-hearted apparently, but breaking even (just about) on mid-season lambs is not much fun either. Something had to give.

And so we are going to change from lambing in mid-March to lambing in early January. This is not the first time my brother and I will copy something our father was doing 30 years ago. As far as I remember, the idea he had was that the small flock of 60 ewes would be lambed and out cleaning off paddocks before the cows calved and needed the grass.

Similarly, our small flock will now have the run of the place before any tilling takes place or cattle need grazing ground.

We will have to creep-feed the lambs but part of the attraction of this plan is that they will all be sold and gone by April, freeing up time and grass for other enterprises.

Sponges

The process started in earnest last Sunday when we sponged the ewes. Inserting the sponges is fairly straightforward. I asked a few experts who do it themselves and each offered very practical advice. These experts are all on Twitter so do not let anyone tell you social media is all cranks, vegans and keyboard warriors (whatever that means).

There is a satisfying clunk-click when the applicator tube pushes through and finds its spot. The applicator handle is then pushed in gently, depositing the sponge.

Slowly remove the tube and handle, and all you are left with outside the ewe is four to five inches of a thin, white string. This will be used to remove the sponge 12 to 14 days later, at which stage each ewe will receive PMSG to help with conception.

Two Charollais-Texel cross rams, from local breeder Pat Whyte, added to the existing ram power, and they will join the ewes 32 hours after the sponges are taken out. Then we just sit back and wait for the lotto-like windfall next April!

If only that was the case.

There is obviously much more work involved with early lambs than mid-season lambs. But our thinking is that it will suit our situation better. Apart from having plenty of space outside, we have small numbers and enough housing for them. Lambing over the space of a few days compared with watching ewes for three to four weeks also suits the off-farm job as less holidays are used up.

No doubt it will be a busy time but it will hopefully be easier in the long-run to move into the shed and live with them for a few days rather than walking over and checking them several times a day for weeks on end.

Return

I had previously looked into lambing early and dismissed it as too risky and/or too much work. I am not sure now which eventually put me off the idea – probably both.

Lambing mid-season for small producers is also risky, however, and requires much work when you look at the returns from selling prime lamb for €4.50/kg.

Perhaps I will have a different view come next April but life is short and you have to try new things if what you are doing now is not working. On paper at least, our particular setup seems a reasonable fit for early lambing.

I cannot remember if our father was happy with his early lambing margins 30 years ago. And I have to smile at the thought of what he’d make of business-like terms such as “margins”. But come next April, we will have a better idea as to whether he was right – yet again – in his managing of the sheep enterprise on the farm.

Read more

Farmer Writes: backside has fallen out of sheep trade

Farmer Writes: margins as thin as the gable-end of a five euro note