with thanks to Gerallt Francis, farming in partnership with parents, Huw and Alwena, Penllwyn, Llanfyllin, Montgomeryshire
Maximising output while controlling costs are Gerallt Francis’ primary objectives for a profitable sheep enterprise, and introducing the Highlander dam line from Innovis has been key to success.
“We’re doing everything we can to control inputs and we’re finding the Highlander is the way to go since the breed has been specifically bred and reared for forage-based systems enabling us to cut out virtually all concentrate, and being hardy and easy to manage, we’ve successfully introduced an outdoor lambing system,” he explains.
“We also chose the Highlander being a smaller more efficient ewe and to improve our scan from 155% to a targeted 175-180%; after four years we’re getting there, this year the flock scanned an average 170%. Furthermore, we’ve been able to close up the flock; we’ve a flock A with 300 ewes bred to the Highlander for replacements and the remainder – flock B crossed to the Abermax meat sire for finished lamb production.”
The Francis’ hill unit system evolves around rotational grazing. From early December for 10 weeks the flock thrives on turnips together with a few silage bales providing supplementary forage after which the ewes are reintroduced to rotational grazing for a month prior to lambing when they’re set stocked in paddocks.
Since Innovis breeds have been selected for narrow shoulders, the Highlanders easily lamb themselves, the lambs have that get up and go while their dams have plenty of milk and really look after their lambs.
Apart from ewes carrying triplets and the only ones to receive concentrate, the entire flock is lambed outdoors commencing 5 April and between 85% and 90% lamb within the first cycle with minimal intervention, Gerallt explains. “Since Innovis breeds have been selected for narrow shoulders, the Highlanders easily lamb themselves, the lambs have that get up and go while their dams have plenty of milk and really look after their lambs.
“We check the lambing paddocks three times a day, and while I could manage the job myself, I have daytime help since every lamb is recorded at birth, parentage linked and tagged twice. And if there are any ewes with issues such as mastitis then they get a notch and are eventually culled.
“Three weeks post lambing we mob up into groups of 250 ewes and lambs and introduce to a three-week rotational grazing system. We weigh at 56 days, target 23kg and wean at around 12 weeks when we make the first draw. We sell through the live ring at an average 22 weeks and 44kg with the majority off grass, red clover and herbal leys.
Penllwyn used to carry a traditional flock of Beulah ewes to breed Mules and to put to the Texel before transitioning to the Lleyn. “Unfortunately, the Lleyn didn’t scan high enough and wasn’t sufficiently hardy for outdoor lambing on our fairly exposed location suffering from a lack of natural shelter, reasons that prompted us to turn to Innovis. The company now has such a good choice of genetics to suit various systems and they’ve all been bred from large populations of commercially farmed sheep.
“The rams have real vigour; they’re lasting five seasons, we introduce one to 80 ewes and I wouldn’t lose any sleep putting one to 100 ewes, in comparison there’s no way I would chance that with the Texel, it was a case of one to 50 ewes,” he says.
“Having also invested in the Abermax meat ram 10 years ago, we knew these genetics did what they say on the tin and they are continually improving, with Innovis developing new traits and selection indexes. Meanwhile the Highlander is a specific NZ line for easy care traits that’s been adopted for the UK market by Innovis.”
He adds: “We have a lot of trust and confidence in the company to the extent, in the last two years we’ve bought rams early online. While it was a leap of faith buying without seeing, however we selected for EBVs – lambing ease, vigour and growth, and we’re very happy with what is delivered and what they’re going on to achieve.”
