FarmIT3000 by Bordersoftware. www.bordersoftware.com A really good software for managing sheep breeding. Made for the UK , so some features are country-specific in terms of regulation, but that doesn't stop you from using it for data recording and analysis.

I cannot export sheep from the UK. Sorry.

They prefer to have it whole or in large chunks at least. If you chop it up they tend to waste more. The machine is not designed for the job but it can do it in reasonable conditions.

@@innovativesheepbreeding4731 Thanks for the reply. That's helpful. I've considered using a bit of fodder beet in the past, but had reckoned they'd need it chopped.

On the Lleyn ewe lambs, we used ProlleyNZ rams. On the ProlleyNZ ewe lambs, we used a New Zealand Romtex ram (a cross between a N Z Texel and a N Z Romney). The N Z Suffolks were tupped by a N Z Texel.

Have a look on my website www.innovative-sheep-breeding.co.uk/ my contact details are there along with pages of information. It's a new website and still under development.

The sheep are fed TMR ad-lib so there is plenty of feed face for them. The rule of thumb is 6 inches per ewe but I find I can up to nearly 4 inches per ewe. You just have to keep feed in front of them. The pens are 15 foot wide and 40 foot deep. Hope that helps. The big disadvantage of TMR is machinery cost but there are saving on feed as you only use straights. The biggest key to cost saving is good conserved grass. Cut young and leafy do not go for bulk or let the grass head. You won't need much barley or wheat then, but you will need some extra protein and some minerals.

I keep the pen stocking density fairly low to start with but we can go up to 40 per pen or just over. The limit is the 15 foot of feed face. I put in soypass ( for protein) and milled barley in the tmr mix later in pregnancy along with a mineral pack. It works very well but is expensive when machinery and building are costed in.

You are either an animal rights activist or have no idea what you are talking about. These sheep are kept at the very highest standards.

@Dreamangel1967 you probably don’t even have a farm so how would u know how many sheep to put in a pen if you put them straight out the lambs might die

Yeah, you dont know what you're talking about.

That shed isnt even near capacity, please dont comment with accusations like this when you have zero idea what you're talking about.

Yes, there are. There are more details on my website including my telephone number.

performancelleyns.co.uk

These are not pure lleyns as there are no lleyns in New Zealand. They have bred a similar sheep in the Tefrom which is a stabilised composite of N Z Romney( hardiness, and thriftiness), N Z Texel( meatiness and carcase) and the East Friesian (milkiness and prolificacy). They are not far behind their mother at 4 months old! The beauty of using a visually similar but genetically very different sheep in the cross is little visual variation but a leap in performance as some of the hybrid vigour can be captured long term.

Hi. I don' have a plan as such for the shed as such. The shed is 100 ft wide and 165 ft long. The bays are 15 ft. The centre feed passage is 16 ft wide. I need all of 16 ft as I turn with a telescopic loader to get straw in and it only just works with that width and 4 wheel steer. You could use straw chopper/blowers but that is messy plus you need to buy one. The shed was originally built for cattle so the walls are 2 m which is unnecessarily high for sheep and a pain for getting rid of wastewater during lambing. I would say the width of the holding pens (approx 41 foot) is the max for tmr feeding, ie ratio of stock to feed face. However, I have had no problems but the food is nearly always in front of them. There are doors at the front which are only used for mass movement or headstock. There are small doors at the back of each pen which is used for ewes and lambs. All pens can hold ewes an I remove the front feed panels to convert main pens to mothering pens. I have 10 pens each side but only tend to use 9 as one is the way in from the holding pens. You must have a gate at the front of each set of mothering pens also If each holding pens abuts a line of mothering pens that works well, but that gives you a high ratio of mothering pens to holding pens, not a problem if you keep bring sheep int the shed or have a tight lambing period. You need close bars on the hurdles and higher than you would think, dung builds up and lambs climb on their mother's backs. If they get out its a lot of time wasted. If you need any further measurements let me know and I will dig deep or get a tape measure out. Regards Peregrine

@@innovativesheepbreeding4731 Hi Perigine, thankyou for the information, how often do you clean out straw/hay from the pens, do you do it weekly or on change over from lambing ewes from pen to pen. Also what are you using for feed ration, and do you grow your own feed or buy in and mix on farm, cheers Reid.

Thanks for your comments. I feed silage with a mineral pack plus milled barley and SoyPass (a protected soya product), the last two tweaked towards the start of lambing. TMR is very labour efficient but capital expensive and very healthy for the ewes. If the silage/ haylage is too dry it doesn't mix as well and tends to separate more. The silage doesn't need to be cattle dry matter levels thought. I use a tub mix which can handle round or square big bales but mostly use an Agbag, which if done right is better than clamp or bale.

@@innovativesheepbreeding4731 would you ever do a video on your mixing ration would be interested to see , also I know it sounds a bit rough but would one of those large paddle cement mixer on the back of tractor mix TMR up sufficiently do you think ? Just thinking outside the box of how to mix it without forking out for a kheena Many thank

I bet it would be difficult to pick out the same sheep 2 different times, so many sheep who look exactly the same. Unless you've sprayed numbers on their backs. Except the few black face sheep

Lleyns with white faces. New Zealand Suffolks with black faces.

@@innovativesheepbreeding4731 , I noticed how there are many different breeds of sheep. This is what I've learned about different types of sheep, correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. There are all white or white face and white wool (most common kind too, right?), there's white wool with black face, and both black face and black wool. Then some sheep are shorter, stocky, and rotund looking, and others are longer and slender. Some sheep have longer, more narrow faces than others. Some are white with black spots on their face. Then some are hair sheep. And then there's wild sheep like the big horned sheep and big horned Agari in Tibet is it? One thing that all of the different types of sheep have in common, the males are called rams, females are ewes, and the young are called lambs with every single breed of sheep, domestic and wild, right?