With weaning on sheep farms occurring right across the country, consideration during this time must be given to replacement ewe lambs.
In the last two years, many have looked to take advantage of strong lamb prices and move lambs on quicker, at lighter weights, and draft lambs as soon as possible to make the most of strong market returns.
In a sense, this worked well for producers, but a disadvantage is that some of the better-quality ewe lambs that would have made ideal replacements have slipped through the cracks and have been sold.
As the lamb trade has cooled off in the past three weeks, coinciding with weaning on many farms, it may be a good time to cast an eye over the ewe lambs are that on the farm and pick out the ones that are potentially going to be kept as replacements.
For those that have already earmarked ewe lambs as potential replacements already, there might still be some ewe lambs that have performed well up to weaning that weren’t initially considered and that could come into the reckoning as potential replacements.
For those that haven’t earmarked any potential replacement ewe lambs, now would be a good time, particularly if you are weaning or drafting for the first time, or while the majority of this year’s lamb crop is still on the farm.
In short, don’t leave it until later in the year, when some of the potentially best-quality replacements are already gone from the farm, to start picking out some ewe lambs as replacements.
Furthermore, always pick out more ewe lambs than you intend to keep. By keeping a larger pool to choose from, it will mean any lambs that haven’t performed well post-weaning can be moved off the farm and still leave behind a strong pick of lambs to choose from.
With the way the trade is now, cull ewes are in strong demand and are achieving good prices, so moving on any problem ewes earmarked for culling would likely make a decent return and free up grass on the farm for lambs.