Weaning 2021

Weaning at Tarata Hills is a little bit different to the conventional farming system. Due to the fact that we don’t tail our lambs, weaning is the first time we have contact with our sheep after lambing. We have found the most efficient way is to run everything through a conveyor belt where we scratch, drench and sex the lambs as well as mouth the ewes. Not only does this save us labour hours and put less stress on our stock but it turns out to be financially viable as well. It costs us about $1.35/lamb to wean while in a conventional system with tailing and weaning it can cost around $2.74/lamb.

Because we don’t tail, weaning is our key indicator of how well the lambing has gone for the season. Overall we were happy with how the breeding ewes came through as they had good visible condition, which can be put down to the mild winter we had and long growing season. We ended up retiring 74 ewes out of our flock due to age, performance or foot constitution, allowing us the luxury of bringing through a large two tooth mob for next year.

This season our lamb flock is looking sharp. They are molting at an impressive rate, many of which were completely bald before the New Year. The lambs averaged out at 31.2 kgs and were set stocked onto a clover/rye grass mixed pasture in order to get their growth off to a flying start.