The agriculture industry is probably one of the most modern and progressive industries in the world in terms of scientific and technological advances. Some people who are not privy to the inner workings of a farm may not appreciate this. Admittedly Michael does approach the computer with a ‘where do you put the diesel in this’ attitude and certainly is not going to be found on social media sites, but he is in my eyes a very forward thinking farmer. Running a pedigree sheep farm involves a lot of record keeping and paper work which is laborious and time consuming and data can easily be forgotten or lost in the rush of lambing. In order to streamline his operation Michael decided to invest in a farming software package from TGM Software Solutions ltd. The software package is specifically geared for sheep management, although there is a cattle one too, and comes with a hand held tag reader which is like a mini computer and can record all the information the farmer may require such as nutrition, weights, matings, births etc. Michael will be combining the tag reader with his electronic weigh scales to record the lamb’s weights via Bluetooth and then transfer the data to the computer. Using this system he will be able to compile and analyse data which can be then be used to improve the quality of his flock.

How it works

Lambs are tagged at birth and then weighed. The next time they are weighed is at the 40 day old mark and then again at weaning. The lamb’s weight at 40 days is the best indicator of a ewe’s ability to rear her lambs as up until that point lambs are mostly dependent on her for nutrition. Post 40 day lambs become more independent of their mother, eating grass as larger part of their diet. So by analysing the results we should be able to see the underperforming ewe’s and use the data to remove the bottom 10% of the ewes each year and thus improve the overall flock year on year. This system is proven through science to work and farmers can make great improvements in their flock in a few short years. Michael is always interested in progressing and exploring new ideas albeit tempered with a cautious mind! Our farm has never had a good sheep handling facility and this is a big step up for us. As we are recording all the pedigree information anyway we felt that this would help to increase our efficiency although if we had a commercial flock we may not be interested in this type of investment.

Seeing results

I was excited to hear that 18 out of the last 20 ewes to be rescanned were in lamb, 10 with twins and 8 with a single lamb. These were from the batch 160 ewes that ran with the twin gene ram, I’m sure he is delighted with a 158 in lamb strike rate! As these last 20 ewes would be lambing into May Michael sold them, and in a stroke of luck brought 10 very good Lleyn ewes which have already started lambing. So our lambing is underway and Michael’s computer literacy has increased tenfold with the new recording system swinging into action.