Early Lambs at Kontiki Farm

For decades Jill Martin has been managing her flock to produce early lambs and take advantage of early season premiums. The system is flexible and fits well with the pasture growth pattern in the Manawatu, and is a reliable profit centre.

Jill Martin and her partner Nigel Lintott own 240ha in two blocks of flat to rolling land in the Cheltenham district, northern Manawatu, and lease another 60ha block. On these areas they run around 1500 breeding ewes and 50 nurse cows. Each year Jill also rears 1100 calves – 800 in the spring and 300 in the autumn – and sells the majority at 120 kg although some are grazed through to be sold as yearlings.   She also grows crops of red clover hay, producing around 4500 conventional bales in a good year. When there is surplus feed she finishes and trades lambs.

This mix of profit centres means Jill and Nigel are not dependent on a single product and so provides a buffer against fluctuating farm gate prices.   Their system matches feed supply closely to demand in typical years and provides some flexibility to cope with seasonal surpluses and deficits – the Manawatu is prone to summer droughts.

A particularly successful profit centre is the production of early lambs to take advantage of early season premiums, something that Jill has been doing all her farming life.

“Originally I came from Southland and down there we did what we considered to be early lambing, which was in the second week of August, because that’s where the money was and it gave us the opportunity to get into trade lambs later if we had the feed,” says Jill.

“When I came to the Manawatu in 1980 I was lambing at the beginning of July, but now it is May or June. We originally had one of the old Marks & Spencer’s contracts through AFFCO, there were only about six of us in this region that did early lambs.”

The ewe flock is all Romneys, and sires are mainly Dorset Down and some Polled Dorset. Jill puts the rams out in the first week of November on one block, and on 20^th December on another block. She has found it takes 17 days to get the ewes cycling and so the start of lambing is calculated from that point – the first ones around the beginning of May and the others start at the end of May and into June.

Jill shuts up paddocks in the autumn to conserve pasture, and likes to lamb the ewes on long grass that is “like cow paddocks”.

“Doing this reduces our carrying capacity a bit but we make up for that by not having the problems in a harsh drought or harsh winter. I always feed the ewes baleage in summer so if there is a drought it’s not a problem, and if there is any growth I can trade some lambs,” she says.

“For winter I try to have plenty of autumn saved pasture and I don’t feed baleage. On the odd occasion when feed was short I have put ewes and lambs out to graze for six weeks and that is just as economical as feeding supplements. If it gets really tight for feed you can always wean in early September.”

“Normally I leave lambs on mothers until 10^th November and wean any that are left then. The first draft is usually the first week of October and I draft every week from then on. I try not to kill a milk lamb under 20 kg, and the cut-off for liveweight is 44 kg.”

A difficult winter this year has meant that lambs are two weeks behind and a kilogram lighter – the first draft killed at 20.5 kg whereas last year’s first draft were 21.5kg two weeks earlier.

The earliest of the lambs go mostly to export except for those that are too heavy, which go to the local trade. The later lambs all go to the local trade. Any that are not up to weight by November are shorn, which Jill says is as good as a drench, and drafting resumes a few weeks later.

Generally Jill’s flock has a lambing % of 120 to 140%, which is a little lower than under conventional breeding management but lamb losses are lower. Jill is happy with the flock’s performance, believing that one and a quarter good lambs is far better for an early lambing regime than two poor ones.

“My view is that you need big boned sheep to get a good early lamb and the heavier lamb is when it is born the shorter the time taken to get it on the truck, so the heavier the lambs I can get born the better,” she says.

“I think I am better off than with a conventional breeding programme because I don’t inoculate for Campylobacter, and any ewe that aborts gets back in lamb again and so you have another chance for profit – those ewes will lamb three times in two years.”

“Drenching lambs for worms usually isn’t necessary until the end of September, depending on the season. If you dock them young enough you don’t have to drench at docking. The ewes are drenched at docking and sometimes we drench the older lambs but I also use a lot of multi-mineral salt blocks which I think are better than drenches.”

Despite the fact that lambing coincides with feeding autumn calves and feeding out for the older cattle the production of early lambs works well and profitably for Jill and she has no intention of changing.

“There is still money in it although in recent years there hasn’t been as much of a premium because of the availability of previous seasons’ hoggets,” she says.

“But you make up for it by getting your lambs and your works ewes away earlier and for better prices, and it gives you the flexibility to either make baleage or hay or graze other stock.”