Lamb and ewe prices are good news
Good grass growth means the lambs are doing particularly well this year.
We killed about 440 lambs off their mothers before Christmas and this week we’ve taken another 600 out in a weaning draft.
That means about 1000 lambs have already been killed at an average 17kg carcass weight compared with 500 at the same time last year.
That’s the most lambs we’ve killed this early in the season for a few years and that’s mainly due to good grass growth over the past few months.
Lamb prices appear to be holding up well too.
Our early lambs were worth an extra $10 a head above last year and we managed to kill twice as many.
The schedule has now eased which means our recent lambs to be killed were on a par price-wise with last year’s.
We started weaning on Sunday which meant an early start for the boss and his staff (me included).
I enjoy weaning so it’s never a chore.
However, the first day proved to be a challenge as the ewes and lambs came in soaked from the rain which persisted all day.
The morning tea, consisting mainly of sausage rolls, went down a treat when it finally rolled around.
We had to allow for a bit of extra weight in the wet lambs and make the cut off weight a bit higher than usual.
However, the wet conditions meant we were free of dust in the yards.
We initially wean the ewes and lambs and then run the ram lambs back around again – sorting them into big, mediums and smalls.
The big ones get weighed and I was pleasantly surprised to see some as heavy as 50kg.
Some of those big boys had missed getting weighed before Christmas and had piled it on over the past few weeks.
We’ve even noticed a lot less tail-enders – or rats and mice as they are also called – this year.
The current practice is to wean on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday and drench, vaccinate and crutch the lambs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
This year we even managed to put the ewes and lambs through the yard without the dogs, much to their disgust.
Over the next few weeks we will get rid of any ewes with poor or broken mouths and bad udders.
Mutton prices have never been so good.
Old ewes that would have once made $30 are now fetching $120 to $170 a head at the yards because of strong export demand.
Crazy to think they are worth more than our premium quality lambs.
Lamb shearing is coming up later this month and while it hardly pays to shear them the lambs always seem grow better without their woolly jackets.