Farmer writes: using data to overcome our biases

We weighed the lambs last Saturday, when they were six to eight weeks of age, and I’m happy to report that their daily weight gain was an average of 283g/day across singles and doubles.

Now, you might say that this is nothing to get excited about, but for fellas like us starting off with some very plain ewes and not much grass, this is a most welcome result – all the more so when you consider we used a Llyen sire. He might be a very well-bred Llyen sire, but they’re not exactly known for their terminal disposition.

We used this maternal sire to build up our own flock and so were prepared to take a slight hit on the power of his lambs. As a result, the 283g/day was a welcome surprise.

Admittedly, we did feed the ewes 400g of concentrate for four weeks post-lambing but this was to make up for the lack of grass around the place more than anything else. The plan for next year is to get grass right and cut back concentrates to a week for mature ewes and two to three weeks for suckling hoggets.

Lambing

When I was in front of the laptop working out the above figure for weight gain, I also wrote up notes on the ewes themselves and how they got on during lambing. Thankfully, only a few needed assistance, and no doubt the easy-lambing trait of the Llyen played its part here. Most lambs were fairly vigorous, getting up and drinking themselves too. One ewe rejected a lamb – forgivable in the circumstances as she’s only a hogget, lambed outside on a wet night, and is doing a good job on rearing the other lamb she had.

All in all, lambing 2017 went well. To be honest, I had a different recollection of it in my mind: wet and muck, losing the first three lambs, getting due dates wrong, very little grass, and several other mistakes that stick out when I think back.

The sight of healthy, thriving lambs reminds you why you bother with it in the first place

However, when you write up the notes that you have scribbled on bits of paper, it’s only then the true picture emerges and the various half-memories are put in their place. The passage of a few weeks also helps, and the sight of healthy, thriving lambs reminds you why you bother with it in the first place.

Apologies for drifting back into the contemplation stuff, but as someone once said, our minds are full of biases but the data doesn’t lie.

Kieran Sullivan and his brother farm part-time in Co Waterford. You can follow him on Twitter: @kieran_sullivan

Read more

Farmer writes: expansion and other big questions

Sheep census: another jump as ewe numbers increase