Sheep

[malleefarmer]

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[malleefarmer]

pics didnt come out the best.

700 wether lamb 1 yr old more to left of screen.

Average weight 42 kg weight required 45 kg

buyer weighed every one and took 302.

some of the 50 kg plus sheep he rejected fat score 1.5 have to be fat score 2.

plus about 70 were around 54plus kg but had dropped there lambs teeth and adult teeth would come through in afew weeks but cant be classed as lamb price drops from $7 per kilo to $4.80 betcha they still sell it as lamb.

thats price on farm carcase weight over hooks

so will continue feeding remaining 400 and hopefully another 200 will go in a few weeks but other 200 will just carry through till next year.

The 700 were running on 510 acres so lightened the load by 300 pasture might kick on with some forecast rain.

should make sense to sheepwheat and grass anyways

[Sheepwheat]

Always really like your posts and pictures. And commentary. Thanks.

[grassfarmer]

Your terminology is confusing me Mallee - the prices you quote are deadweight prices but I assume the weights you quote are liveweight? What are these 45kg "lambs" hanging - a 20kg carcass?
Very different to the meat sheep i'm used to.

[farmaholic]

I fell asleep counting.....

Is it necessary for the buyer to be that ****en picky?

42 versus 45, is 3 Kg("average") or 6.6% too light a big deal?

Sounds like selling grain....always something wrong.

If you had to scale them more often that sounds like a lot of handling....but taking a 31.5% price discount for too heavy seems extreme. Is their concern pregnant females....mature enough to breed. Heifers seem to suffer price discounts to steers...is it all yeild? I don't know the first thing about sheep!

The flock could never be that uniform that none will fall outside the ideal weight..,sounds tricky to manage. What's the smallest lots you would consider shipping? Sounds like this marketing is done at the farm(or station??????).

[Sheepwheat]

Grass, lamb dresses right at 50 to 55%.

Mallee, on the 42 kg lambs, won’t the buyer take them at a bit higher price? Maybe it is different here, where it is a sellers market? Selling lambs in western 🇨🇦, is as simple as waiting by the phone pretty much. Buyers are always so short of lamb here...so we buy Aussie and New Zealand lamb to fill in.

Farma, the big discount comes when the lambs turn a year. They tell by the teeth. You can end up with cull sheep prices vs. Lamb price if you have slow growers.

Sure looks like 🇦🇺 has the issue of variable carcasses well in hand. Fat score etc. is not something we do here so far. If it breathes, walks, and says baaaahhh, buyers take lambs. Hopefully not to our detriment, but so long as we keep importing 60% of the lamb we consume, it might not matter so much?

Getting a couple weeks from weaning here. Pay day should be oct. nov.

[sawfly1]

Love the fall asleep . Hilarious.

[malleefarmer]

Your terminology is confusing me Mallee - the prices you quote are deadweight prices but I assume the weights you quote are liveweight? What are these 45kg "lambs" hanging - a 20kg carcass?
Very different to the meat sheep i'm used to.

correct when i get prices and weights through will post for interest

[grassfarmer]

This is a good example of the sheep we ran with the focus on meat production rather than wool. This would be around July 1st as ewe is freshly shorn, twin lambs would be born around April 1st. We would typically have 75%+ lambs sold fat before the rams went out again (@November 1st) - very few made it to a year old. Most in our market would sell 18kg lambs (generally headed to France) we preferred selling them at 20-22kg with a bit more fat for the Belgian market.