Farmers seek ideas on lamb profitability

The big turnout was a sign of a quiet optimism that lamb prices would remain high this coming season and a determination that somewhere in all the talk would be a nugget of vital, wallet-enriching information reports The Dom Post. Dr Sheppard brought the proceedings back to reality after the hula hoop ice-breaker with some harsh words for farmers who did not measure their stock's performance: those who did not pregnancy scan or weigh weaned lambs were "bloody idiots". For hill country farmers, the paramount measure of their success was the amount of lamb they weaned per hectare, he said. That was measured in kilograms of meat, not in lamb numbers. Yet many did not know this figure. The calculation was made by counting the number of weaned lambs, less those reserved for replacements. Multiply that by the average weaning weight and divide by the effective farm area. "That tells you how many kilograms of lamb you will have for sale at weaning time and you multiply that by the store value at the time." Research showed that each extra kilogram of weaning weight improved a farm's profit by 3 per cent to 4 per cent, and that each 5 per cent increase in lambing percentage increased income 4 per cent to 5 per cent if the weaning weight stayed the same. That was up to 140 per cent lambing; above that, too many small multiple lambs were born. Dr Sheppard produced charts showing optimal lamb weights per hectare from a range of lambing percentages: for example, 125 per cent lambing and a 70:30 sheep-to- cattle ratio would produce 188kg. Having this information would greatly help the decision of what to do after weaning: sell them, or keep them and add more weight. He showed another chart with his projection for store and schedule prices for lambs in mid- December. He was picking $2.67 a kg liveweight for a 30kg lamb, the equivalent of a schedule price of $90 for 16kg carcassweight. He expected prices to drop more sharply than last year, through till mid-February and rise to $2.67 again in March He gave several examples of the cost and profit of holding lambs over summer to hit the markets at various dates and of using pasture or crops to add weight. The margins ranged from a loss of $1.90 to $20 profit. "It's best to get those lambs off as fast as possible on a fast-as-possible growth rate. That should come as no surprise, but how do you know how fast you can grow them? You need to know what their weaning weight is. You need to be monitoring the growth rates." Crucial to profitability was more lambs on the ground: a farmer scanning 160 per cent loses $72,000 when 25 per cent of the lambs die.