SELECTING the right lambing time was the engine room behind easier sheep management, Western Australian farm management consultant Andrew Ritchie says.
At Meat and Livestock Australia’s ‘Making More Money from Sheep - It’s Ewe Time’ forum at Naracoorte recently, Mr Ritchie urged analysis of a farm’s system, livestock management and sheep choice.
“Because we want quality and not quantity we choose our time of lambing so we can get the most lambs on the ground for the least amount of effort.
“We’re not worried about the money later I want the yield now,” he said.
“The other way to do it is of course to match it with the environment and everywhere I go I reckon you could do a survey and find 50 per cent of the people say ‘I am lambing at this time because my stock agent said I’ll get more money if I do that’.
“Environment is king.”
He told producers to access the free pasturesfromspace. csiro.au website to match ewe and lamb energy needs with pasture growth in their area.
“You can get it for your own farm for $400.”
Mr Ritchie said benchmarking to “test how good you are” was “the gold” of farming.
“You are running a business, not a family.
“You don’t have a right to farm, you have an obligation to make your family money.”
Wool and lamb yield per hectare were the priorities in Western Australia sheep operations that found it difficult to get premiums for dusty, high-vegetable matter, February-shorn wool or tender spring-shorn clips.
“Our solution was to chuck the quality thing out and go for yield,” Mr Ritchie said.
“That is principal number one for us – yield is king.
“When you go home think about every aspect of your business and your business objectives - tell yourself where yield fits in your program,” he said.
“Once you can get yield on the ground then you can coddle it along to get some quality – but without the yield you’re buggered.”
Mr Ritchie said he did not “sell” lambing percentage.
“I sell lambs per ewe per hectare - this is the language of production.”
Farmers had to ask whether they wanted to run more sheep for higher production with the same labour or run and produce the same with less labour, he said.
He urged producers to spend money to save time to generate efficiencies.
“Value the time that you are spending: it is money, it is your relationship, which is just as important as your money.
“If you are not careful you will have no time and no money and no relationship.
“We like to think we value a dollar and we value time as a cost, but to get to that point we needed to identify our constraints.”
Mr Ritchie encouraged producers to cost themselves and think of their time working on the farm as a variable cost.
“Only then will you think am I more or less productive.”
He suggested producers adapt their sheep-handling system to multi-task at every muster: crutch, mules, fly treatments, drench, all at once.
His clients run ewes in large mobs, get contractors to crutch 5000 sheep a day and use fodder crops to feed lambs in paddocks for 4-5 months, stocked at 50-60/hectare.
“That means less work and the ewes get the rest of the farm to start reinvesting in next year.”
Sheep work in sheds, covered yards, dual purpose sheds, shared auto drafting units were other innovations that made sheep work easier and convenient. Easy care plain-bodied sheep save time in fly treatments and crutching.
“Focus on the 20pc of issues that make 80pc of the dough,” Mr Ritchie said.
“This industry is littered with the empty cartridges of spent silver bullets.”
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