[Rosemary]

I would certainly buy like that if I could find a suitable local supplier down here. We do have a mill near by and they make their own feed which is cheaper than the country store but I would love to be able to get hold of Rosemary supplier at £2 a bag!

If you read my post properly, I said it was £2 a bag cheaper if you bought a tonne.

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Ah I see Rosemary. No I didn't read it properly. I thought it was bl@@dy good value.

[oor wullie]

Although buy direct from the farmer and you might get close to £2!
I just bought a 1/2 ton bag of bruised barley for £60 - that's equivalent £3 per 25kg bag or  £2.40 per 20kg bag.  I did have to pick it up myself and I know it is not a complete feed and you have to be careful feeding it.

Feed turnips can often be bought direct from a farmer for only a few (I would guess 20-30) pounds per ton.

[Foobar]

I've always wanted a pair of dungarees ...

[Buttermilk]

Once barley has been bruised, cracked or rolled it starts degrading so has a limited shelf life compared to the whole grain.  If it is going to take you several months to get through it then it is a false economy.

[Marches Farmer]

We buy a milled barley and wheat mix direct from the farm (makes up to 1/3 of the weight of feed for our senior pigs, depending on status) but it's milled weekly and we buy  only 10 bags at a time.

[Middleton Of Lonmay]

I do the same as Scots Dumpy

buy in 20 or 25 kilo bags. get a mixed pallet. we store our bags in the big half to fish bins there ace for keeping bags away from mice ect.
I never noticed they sold lick though. does everyone use mineral licks all year round?

[fiestyredhead331]

turn it on its head!!!

make more from your sheep rather than cutting costs?

We shear ourselves, not pretty but does the job, sell fleeces privately to enthusiastic spinners, buy feed direct from farmers in ton or 1/2 ton bags when we can and mill ourselves as we need it, usually a wheelie bin at a time.
We lamb later but thats down to weather conditions up here so grass should be coming through (except this year!!) in time.
We only use licks pre-lambing and for a few weeks post lambing

all meat is sold direct to local hotel and look how lovely they make my lamb chops look 

[Porterlauren]

Those chops look great!

However. . . . . at the end of the day, keeping any number of sheep beyond a small handful, means that direct sales is not necessarily a practical way of selling your lambs (as great as it is!).

Therefore they end up in market or going to an abattoir where the price is set. . . . . so it is only the cost of production that can be altered to increase profits.

[Marches Farmer]

Footvax your sheep - worth the cost and then some.  We did ours once in 2007, keep a closed flock anyway and haven't seen footrot or scald once since then.  The saving in shepherd's time, cost of foot spray or antibiotics and no check in growth due to being in pain or discomfort is topped by the happiness at not seeing any limping sheep in the field - can't put a price on that one.

[Remy]

[size=78%]I lamb in spring to keep feed costs down (and hard work) but it's swings and roundabouts - the prime lambs will be ready for market when the prices are at their lowest.  If you have lambs ready for market earlier in the year you will have the inconvenience of housing them over winter and extra feed [/size]costs[size=78%].[/size]

[size=78%]This year I kept a number of lambs over winter and sold them as hoggets in March - I got the best price I've ever had even from those who were marked as 'lacking flesh' (these were crosses from [/size]non-commercials such as Gotlands).  I'm doing the same with this year's lambs as the prices are currently the lowest Ive seen, it's hardly worth taking them in, but I am lucky to have a reasonable amount of grazing to sustain them.

[Coximus]

Choose breeds that thrive off grass and grass alone - its the cheapest feed.

Buy last years hay, - usually cheap in march april.

Paddock rotate to save the grass - maximise what you can produce yourself.

Remember the highest priced lamb in the market is not always the most profitable - a £60 lamb off grass alone from a breed such as easycare / Hebridean x's finished in under 12 months is still more profitable than the 70 lamb that was done in 4 months, but needed creep and its mother needed ewe nuts and feed in winter.

[SallyintNorth]

Remember the highest priced lamb in the market is not always the most profitable - a £60 lamb off grass alone from a breed such as easycare / Hebridean x's finished in under 12 months is still more profitable than the 70 lamb that was done in 4 months, but needed creep and its mother needed ewe nuts and feed in winter.

In general I agree with you - but it isn't always so.  It depends if the faster-finishing lamb can hit the market at its peak, and perhaps even without ever having needed any meds or other interventions.

Our best top-grading lambs finish in 12-14 weeks and should hit the market at a high point.  So a 42kg lamb, d/w 18-20kgs, should fetch £80+.  It'll have had no meds, and eaten a little cake - perhaps 1/4 to 1/2lb/head/day in the last few weeks; they don't really get on eating cake properly until around 8 weeks old.  Total costs per lamb maybe as much as £2.  Yes the mum will have been getting cake to keep her milk up early in the season; she may have eaten 1/2 to 1lb/head/day for the 14 weeks.  Maybe £5-10 costs on her depending on the year.  We don't cake much at all pre-lambing, just enough to keep them stable. 

All those weeks that the no-cake ewes and lambs are growing 'for free' on grass... you'll have costs for medications for ewe and lamb (wormers, flukicides, flystrike prevention, occasional antibiotics perhaps), shearing the ewe - and less grass to make hay, so more bought in for the winter.  And the longer the lambs live the more likely they are to die  , so you've losses too.

It's always a big picture in farming

[Porterlauren]

MF - You could probably achieve the same through harsh culling? But you are right. . . . limping lambs are not a nice sight!

Remy - That's what a lot of folk do, and you DO get a better price, but ultimately the biggest indicator to profit for most sheep farms is days to slaughter, a fast finishing lamb that gets away asap will increase over all profit (one reason is you can over winter more ewes).

Sally - With regard to your early lambs etc, it does depend on there being a price spike for the early spring trade, which this year didn't really happen. So your extra cash is on a 'hope' if that makes sense. . . . you are putting an input in, hoping there will be a greater out put. . . . however its not also the case. Also generally lambing earlier, means indoor lambing (for many) which adds an extra cost (i.e labour).

[SallyintNorth]

Sally - With regard to your early lambs etc, it does depend on there being a price spike for the early spring trade, which this year didn't really happen. So your extra cash is on a 'hope' if that makes sense. . . . you are putting an input in, hoping there will be a greater out put. . . . however its not also the case. Also generally lambing earlier, means indoor lambing (for many) which adds an extra cost (i.e labour).

We don't lamb indoors.

There was no spike of increased prices earlier this year, true - but prices fell away, as they usually do, from mid-July onwards.  So we still did better with the earlier lambs.

'Early' for us is end May/early June.  We lamb outdoors and we're in Cumbria

Even if there's no price benefit pre-July, we're still quids in due all the ongoing costs we avoid - meds and other treatments for lambs and their mums - and the use of that grass for other purposes, as I enumerated in my initial post. 

ETA I am not recommending this for everyone, just saying the oft-parroted 'less feed equals more profit' is a one-dimensional view of a multi-dimensional situation.  Also, BH has been doing this for nearly half a century - and his experience shows!