Fencing

[roly]

Thanks for your reply, over here it is all netting for sheep but with it being such a large area over there do you think plaind wire electrified might be cheaper?

Also can you get your lambs sold alright over there? Is there a good demand for them?

Just now we are getting about £50.00 for a 40kg lamb.

Thank you,

Roland.

[cakadu]

You're probably doing somewhat better price wise than what we are over here. I haven't checked the prices for a while, but seems to me they were running in that 80 cent range for market lambs, which for us is about 120 lb or less.

Since the border closure, the lamb market has been in a mess. We had gone through a slump just before the border closure and were actually just starting to recover when the doors slammed shut because of the beef. Lamb should never have been caught in this, but here we sit with no place for the lamb to go really and not a huge domestic demand because we compete with offshore lamb that comes in from New Zealand and Australia.

The Americans liked a bigger carcass - probably 20 lbs (or more) heavier than what we like them here in Canada, so we had a lot of excess meat here that had to be moved, plus dealing with a larger carcass.

For me personally, we direct market our lamb, so our prices haven't been affected, but where we have been hurt is trying to get a processing date. Most places are booked into November, December and beyond, which does not bode well for a direct marketer. This will pass when things start to move again, but until then, it is a bit of a struggle and we are likely downsizing because we just simply cannot afford to feed all the mouths we have now.

As far as the fencing goes, if you have a well-grounded fence, then that should work just fine. You want it to be able to get their attention when they touch it. Generally we have about 5 wires, with the 1st, 3rd and 5th "hot" and the 2nd and 4th ground. Seems to work pretty good because I "tested" it myself one day. Took me a while to get up.

Good luck in your venture.