Achieving a hogget lambing of 150% is not beyond the realms of possibility for a group of southern farmers who are already seeing this figure in their hogget scanning results.
For the past six years, members of the Hogget 150 group have been trialling different management strategies with the aim of lifting productivity of their hoggets. This has resulted in improved efficiencies across their whole farm business.
Speaking at a recent B+LNZ Hogget 150 Comes to Canterbury field day, group members Geordie Eade and Pete Thomson outlined the group’s recipe for successfully lifting the reproductive performance of their hoggets.
The group
Starting off as a Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMMP) group in 2018, members of the Hogget 150 group farm in a range of environments across Southland and Otago. All run Romney Texel-based composites and mate between 500 and 3,000 hoggets every year.
Selection, shearing and the use of teasers
In early February, the majority of members select replacement ewe lambs from their twin and triplet mobs, sending the heavier singles for processing. They do however select the heavier multiple lambs,( a minimum of 35kgLW) and will also select on type and in some cases, dag score.
They have found shearing replacement lambs in mid-February helps drive growth rates, but they will also preferentially feed the bottom-end lambs.
Immediately after shearing they put teaser rams, or rams with a no-mate harness, out for around 60 days. This is around three times longer than the recommended 17 days.
They have all found ovulation rates increase significantly in the third and fourth cycle. Geordie tried going back to only using the teaser for 17 days but his scanning percentage fell by 20 percent.
Mating management
At the end of March, they cull any ewe lambs that are not between 42–43kgLW and by mid April, any ewe lambs not weighing a minimum of 45kg will also be culled. Most of the group is aiming to have their ewe lambs weighing at least 50kg at mating in May.
“Fifty kilograms is the magic weight,” says Pete.
A week before the ram goes out, they back off the feeding by running the ewe lambs behind a wire.
All members now use Dorper rams over their hoggets. While members have tried different breeds, they have found they have minimal lambing problem with the Dorpers. The resulting lambs are extremely hardy and aggressive feeders. They will drink off other ewes where necessary.
Driving winter growth rates- forage crops won’t work
All the group’s members winter their hoggets on grass-typically on daily shifts. Geordie says these lambs need to be growing at 120–140gms/day throughout winter- and this is surprisingly difficult to achieve.
“You’re not going to achieve these growth rates on swedes or brassicas.”
A trial carried out one winter found only one-third of the group’s members were achieving target growth rates of 120–140gms/day – although all assumed they were.
Some members have elected to winter their ewes on forage crops and keep their hoggets on grass to help keep them growing over winter. This is opposite of what they had traditionally been doing.
Dry hoggets are sold at scanning, although they are finding they have very few dry hoggets. Last year, out of 900 hoggets mated, Pete Thomson only had 46 dry hoggets (5%).
Lambing
In August most of the group’s members pre-lamb shear (using a cover-comb) or belly crutch their hoggets and the following month the hoggets are given a five-in-one vaccination and a long-acting drench. The latter being particularly important.
The twin-bearing hoggets are preferentially fed while the single-bearing hoggets are kept behind a wire in the lead-up to lambing.
Twin-bearing hoggets are set-stocked at lambing in well-sheltered paddocks. Geordie says shelter is important as hogget lambs tend to be around half a kilo lighter than the lambs from the mixed-age ewes.
Geordie Eade has found that thanks to the use of a teaser, 70 percent of his hoggets will lamb within the first 10 days of lambing, and all will have lambed by day 24.
Pasture management
To keep both the hoggets and their offspring growing over spring, it is critical to maintain pasture quality over October and November.
Geordie says cattle play an important role in all of the members’ farm systems to both maintain pasture quality and mop-up sheep-specific internal parasite larvae from the pasture.
Weaning
All the Hogget 150 members aim to wean the twin hogget lambs before Christmas and some will leave the single lambs on for a bit longer and sell these lambs prime at weaning.
Geordie says last year the average weaning weight of his twin hogget lambs was 28-29kg while the singles were sold prime and processed at17.1kgCW.
In January, the hoggets are Body Condition Scored and managed accordingly and where necessary, lighter hoggets are drenched. This ensures the two-tooths are going to the ram in optimal condition.
Impact on the farm system
All members have reduced ewe numbers to accommodate improved hogget productivity but the overall outcome has more lambs born across the whole flock.
It is, says Geordie and Pete, a much more efficient system as they are producing more lambs from fewer capital stock.
This has had a positive impact on the bottom line and last year, all Hogget 150 members made a profit in what was an economically challenging year for sheep and beef farmers.
Geordie doesn’t believe hogget lambing has any negative impacts on ewe longevity and he has nine and ten-year-old ewes in his flock.
“There is no impact on ewe longevity, but you do need to get it right.”
More information
- Resource book: Hogget performance (PDF, 5.3MB)