A tradition of encouragement and autonomy has helped a Scottish Borders farmer maximise the worth of a talented inventory supervisor and save tens of 1000’s of kilos.

The sheep system at Overhowden, Oxton, close to Lauder, has maintained output whereas eradicating prices since Alex Robertson employed Joss Jones in 2018.

See additionally: How Borders flock is utilizing focused selective therapies

For a similar output of 1,550 Lambs, the farm has:

• Reduce 90-100t of ewe rolls out of the system
• Reduce 30t of creep from lamb ending
• Reduce at the very least 250 bales of silage for a similar flock measurement. About 600 bales are wanted every year.
• Reduce fertiliser use from 41t to 25t.

Regular change

After 5 years of shepherding at sheep stations in New Zealand, Mr Jones moved into the farmhouse at Overhowden as inventory supervisor.

Overhowden is 45min away from Paxton South Mains, close to Berwick, the place Mr Robertson has a 350ha (865-acre) arable and beef farm.

The route of change since his arrival has seen mature ewe measurement drop by 10-15kg, a transfer to out of doors lambing and a much less input-heavy system. However Mr Jones stresses he inherited a productive setup.

“The flock efficiency was good, with the Mule Ewes rearing greater than 180% and the crossed ewes producing high-value lambs,” he says.

“For the primary couple of years, I attempted so as to add to the system we already had. The problem with altering an excessive amount of directly might be you don’t know what works and what doesn’t.”

Commerce off

Whereas the ewes require much less cake, baled forage and fertiliser, the system has added in forage crops and an additional reduce (or two) of silage, which has elevated contractor prices.

As an alternative of 1 cumbersome mid-summer reduce, a reduce is taken in late Could/early June and a second in mid-July, with a chance reduce of fifty or so bales in late summer season.

In 2017, the sheep wanted £33,000 of cake, which had been decreased to £2,500 of soya in 25kg baggage in 2021. In in the present day’s cash, the whole financial savings are greater than £50,000.

“Nothing we’re doing is new, it’s simply new to us,” says Mr Robertson. “I largely go away Joss to it, however he is aware of we are able to discuss every time we have to.”

Mr Jones explains among the massive steps taken in altering the system:

1. Use the cattle as a grazing software after sheep

Beforehand, cattle grazed their very own fields and had been set stocked.

One of many first alterations was to make use of the cows as a grazing software behind the sheep, making an attempt to stay to a leader-follower system, giving sheep and lambs the decide of the grazing.

Now the farm runs 4 eight-paddock rotations at Overhowden. Ewes have two days to graze, and cows have two straight afterwards.

2. Develop infrastructure and scale back discipline measurement

A brand new 12m-wide, 1.25km laneway with a crushed stone base runs alongside a stone wall that leads west to the highest of the hill in the back of the farm.

This took three winters to construct and helps hyperlink the lengthy, skinny farm collectively. It’s used to collect ewes and cattle and rotate them around the farm.

Each discipline is now a most of about 6ha (15 acres). 5 bigger fields had been halved, with five-wire fences and posts each 10m aside.

Three-wire reels can be utilized to additional divide paddocks and drag troughs and static troughs have been added.

3. Change to smaller sheep breed that thrives off forage

The farm has switched from a heavier Scotch and Cheviot Mule (75kg) flock utilizing Suffolk and Texel terminal sires and retaining some Suffolk-crosses (85kg) to a self-replacing flock utilizing smaller Romney-cross (65kg) ewes.

About 100 five-year-old Romneys got here from David MacTaggart, Hallrule Farms, and rams are purchased from Excessive Nation Romneys, Herefordshire.

This has been executed to harness genetics primarily based on forage-only programs lambed open air.

4. Restrict demand on the grazing platform in late summer season

Lambs are actually weaned 30 days earlier, at 90 days, and 350 Suffolk crosses are transitioned on to 8ha (20 acres) of Redstart to assist end them, somewhat than utilizing concentrates.

Getting lambs away sooner permits extra of a wedge of grass to be constructed to take ewes by way of the winter cheaply.

Grass is measured with a rising plate meter in spring and autumn to evaluate farm covers. Common farm cowl of two,000kg/ha is the goal by mid-November. In 2022 1,980kg was achieved.

Grazing of winter wheat on the lowland farm at Paxton has completed lambs to about 45kg. Mr Robertson sees this as “free feed”. A trial of 78 2021-born lambs labored effectively and 200 have been wintered on wheat this 12 months.

5. Prolonged winter relaxation durations for paddocks

Lambing paddocks on the extra sheltered japanese aspect of the farm are given at the very least 100 days relaxation to keep away from overgrazing grass late within the 12 months and taking power out of the plant root reserves.

This follows a 75-day rotation the place sheep are unfold out and given ample good grass to assist prolificacy round tupping, having beforehand been mobbed up.

Raddle markers are modified each 5 days for the primary cycle (about 90% of ewes). The flock is then run as one mob and ewes are drafted 5 days earlier than lambing date.

This minimises the necessity for set stocking and leaves paddocks extra time to develop in spring.

The 75-day rotation ends in late January/early February when ewes are sheared (annually) after scanning and housed on silage for four-to-five weeks to relaxation the grass.

Raddle colors are topped up at this level. Straw comes from Paxton South Mains.

A month earlier than lambing, twin-bearing ewes go on to a sacrifice discipline and fed better-quality silage ad-lib.

They’re walked to a close-by robust grass discipline every day for a couple of hours to graze 2kg of contemporary grass for 28 days and again fenced on to about 2.5t of grass dry matter.

6. Give attention to timing to supply better-quality silage

The goal is to chop grass earlier than the heading date to supply silage of 11.5MJ/kg metabolisable power.

On this approach, silage and early spring grass present all of the power the ewes want, and soya might be fed at 100g for each lamb carried for the reducing variety of Suffolk cross ewes nonetheless lambed indoors.