A North Yorkshire hill farm has benefited from participation in a sire evaluation scheme to improve growth rates and conformation in the Swaledale breed. Wendy Short finds out more.
Sheep farmer Mark Graham says that membership in a sire evaluation scheme has increased the potential for speeding up genetic progress, mainly by highlighting rams at the poorer end of flock performance.
Mr Graham farms in partnership with his brother-in-law, Ian Thompson, at Hunt House, Goathland.
The unit is made up of 2,023 hectares (5,000 acres) of rented heather moor, plus 81ha (200 acres) of owner-occupied in-bye land.
The farm was part of a three-year North Yorkshire Moors Swaledale Breeders Group (NYMSBG) project, which involved six flock keepers in the region and monitored the performance of named-sire lambs.
The trial has now concluded, but the group is hoping to carry on its work and is appealing for additional farmer members, to increase the accuracy of collected data and to continue the improvement of the breed's commercial traits.
The main flock at Hunt House comprises of a hefted flock of 1,400 Swaledale ewes, 300 of which go to the Cheviot tup.
The emphasis is on female pure-bred lines, with 300 draft ewes leaving the farm each year as three-crops.
Some 200 are sold through the local Ruswarp Mart, while the remainder go through the Middleton-in-Teesdale sale ring.
Surplus gimmer lambs are taken to Ruswarp, with a group marketed at the autumn sales in nearby Fadmoor. Eight Hunt House breeding rams were sold in 2019, selling to a top price of £2,200.
One breeding ram achieved a top price of £8,500 and took the reserve championship at the Middleton-in-Teesdale ram sale.
Hunt House contributed 100 ewes to the NYMSBG ram evaluation project, which supplied EID systems to members and was supported by AHDB Beef and Lamb.
Progress
One outstanding Hunt House ram has emerged to date. His lambs had higher birth weights compared with his peer group and finished over a shorter period, as well as coming out on top in the muscle and backfat scanning data.
More recently, four Swaledale shearling tups have been purchased and their progress will be monitored at Mr Graham's own expense, as part of the farm's ongoing breed improvement programme.
About 25-30 lambs per head will be required to maintain the accuracy of the results, he says.
"The figures for the best ram were only marginally above the others in the group, but these small increments add up to make a significant difference," says Mr Graham, a third generation sheep producer.
"Equally importantly, this ram has type and that is essential in our opinion. The right type of sire will produce lambs that will thrive in our farm situation and his female progeny will appeal to our buyers.
"Our concern is that if we simply identify tups with the best figures, they may not show these good breed type characteristics.
"Our aim is to use only those tups which perform above the breed average and to reject any poor
performing sires."
It is anticipated that steady progress in ram selection will be reflected across the flock and will filter down to lift the quality of the wethe lambs.
In addition, draft females will go on to produce the right stamp of North Country Mule, which is still highly popular as a cross breed.
The system should also help to improve the cull ewe value, he says.
"The time and money spent on the monitoring system should produce a return on investment in the future.
"However we feel that the next few years will be ‘make or break' for our hill sheep farm, due to a range of external financial pressures."
Scanning
One of the two tenanted areas of moorland is situated several miles from the farmstead and, therefore, gathering is kept to a minimum.
The females are brought in for scanning at the beginning of March, after which any triplet mothers are housed, alongside shearlings with twins.
The rest of the flock is turned back on to the moor for another month, before being moved to the in-bye land.
Farm facts
- The land sits at 700 feet above sea-level and is classified as severely disadvantaged area, with some areas categorised as Site of Special Scientific Interest.
- The ewes run on two separate moors and are out-wintered on heather, with their diet supplemented with concentrate feed.
- The farm's countryside stewardship scheme membership has expired and there have been problems with renewal, as well as delays to the finalisation of a new higher level stewardship scheme membership. These issues are causing serious cash flow problems for the business.
Project facts
- The North Yorkshire Moors Swaledale Breeders Group project aims to identify the best-performing Swaledale sires
- Group of six North Yorkshire Swaledale sheep breeders who collected data on growth rates, muscle and backfat scanning and abattoir grading
- Simplified recording system designed by members
- Data from 2,000-plus lambs analysed by Signet Breeding Services
- Project finished autumn 2019
- AHDB Beef and Lamb may continue its involvement, along with Newton Rigg College farm
Scanning averages 170 per cent and a figure of about 160 per cent lambs reared is achieved
in most years.
"A Swaledale ewe is one of the best mothers out of all of the sheep breeds, as long as she is looked after well," comments Mr Graham.
"Ideally we would like the shearlings to have singles, and they are kept on the moor until the day they are put to the tup, to avoid flushing.
"Despite this policy, we still have a high number which give birth to twins."
Weaning takes place on August 20 over a 10-day period and every effort is made to promote good health, including a clostridial/pasteurella vaccination programme and an OP dip to prevent sheep scab, as well as dosing with a selenium/cobalt drench.
The designated stores leave the farm in mid-September to go to a lowland finishing unit.
"We like to retain the store lambs for nearly a fortnight after weaning, as this is the time when they are at their most vulnerable," says Mr Graham.
"It is in our own interests that our stores go on to perform well at the next farm, as it will assure the buyer's future custom."
Finishing lamb project
One element of the North Yorkshire Moors Swaledale Breeders Group project was to follow a batch of store lambs that were sold from Mr Graham's farm and others to a specialist finishing unit.
The study was undertaken by independent sheep consultant Kate Phillips, whose main aim was to assess the finance and performance figures and find out which rams sired the fastest-growing lambs and those with the best carcase conformation.
A study of lamb finishing profitability showed Mr Graham that it was not cost-effective to finish Swaledale wether lambs at Hunt House and for the past three years he has sold 600 as stores to a lowland producer, who requires animals of 25kg plus.
On arrival, the lambs were turned out on grass for three-to-four weeks and split into groups according to size - the average weight on arrival was 33kgs.
They received ad-lib concentrate feed and transitioned to an oats/barley/soya mix and haylage, followed by a slow introduction to fodder beet.
Financial calculations showed feed costs per lamb sent by the farmer group at £23.71/head, although a transport logistics problem meant that their final journey was delayed by about a fortnight.
This factor affected the feed cost total and meant that a small percentage was over-finished.
The store wethers spent an average 169 days on farm and yielded a carcase weight of 21.7kgs.
However, Mrs Phillips notes that growth rates varied widely over the period.
"During October to January, the lambs grew at an average 34g/day, while from January to March the figure was 125g/day," said Mrs Phillips.
"The comparatively slow growth rates from arrival until early winter could be caused by a number of factors, including the stress associated with moving farms, the change of diet and their natural pattern of growth as daylight is decreased.
"The group may also have been affected by sub-clinical acidosis, due to the addition of cereals and fodder beet.
"Another interesting finding was that those lambs which were lighter on arrival grew more rapidly, compared with the heavier animals.
"This could call into question the finisher's decision to limit his intake to heavier lambs."
Analysis showed that the best-performing lambs tended to share the same sires.
One ram in particular produced lambs which were heavier at birth, despite having a comparatively high litter size.
Carcases
Lambs by the top rams also grew faster and took fewer days to finishing.
Their carcases were above average weights and they achieved good carcase grades, with a high percentage of lambs within the total group achieving O and R classifications.
"This project has shown that it may be more profitable to finish larger Swaledale lambs on-farm and send the lighter group to a finisher," concluded Mrs Phillips.
"It also highlighted the wide range of days to slaughter and the potential benefits of identifying and using only the best Swaledale rams on an upland unit."
