Karl McDiarmid’s grandfather Jack began mating ewe lambs on the family’s Maniototo farm at Oturehua in 1969 and his dad Jim did the same. Since Karl and wife Ro took on management 10 years ago they’ve continued the practice. He’s mystified why more farmers don’t do it but suspects it’s because of some common myths.
Their main drivers for mating hoggets are cashflow and payback. Karl’s calculated that it costs about $200 to raise a hogget, so getting a lamb from it sooner rather than later is one way they get to earn their keep. It’s extra work but the income made easily covers the cost of an extra employee. And in difficult seasons that extra cash has been a game-changer. For 2014-15, a particularly dry year, $65,000 of farm income came from hogget wool and lambs.
“In some lean and dry years what we get from our hoggets can be the difference between breaking even and making a loss. When we do make a farm profit it’s usually due to the number of lambs from the hoggets,” Ro says.
This year 1200 hoggets selected from twin-lambing ewes were mated. They were lighter than ideal because of the dry conditions, with most in the 40-42kg weight range. Until now hoggets less than 40kg haven’t been mated but this year everything will go to the ram. Long term, Karl would like to increase the average mating weight to 45kg, but getting there will be dependent on feed and weather.
The hoggets are mated to either Perendale or Cheviot ram lambs at a 1:30 to 1:40 ratio.
“We’ve alternated between both in the past and haven’t noticed a great deal of difference,” Ro says.
Although the hoggets are expected to earn their keep by turning out a lamb, they don’t do so on an empty stomach. Feed and lots of it, from weaning until lambing, is the key to it all.
There is no feed budgeting, pasture measuring or hours of stock weighing to monitor feed supply and ewe lamb condition. That said, Karl does regularly weigh a sample of weaned ewe lambs over December and January to get a feel for how growth rates are going. But the over-riding philosophy is that if animal health is taken care of and plenty of quality feed is on offer the majority of the ewe lambs should perform, weather permitting.
Winter especially is a crunch time during which the goal is to provide ad-lib quality feed – failure to do so usually means an increase in hogget deaths at lambing. The death rate of hoggets is about 2% compared with less than 1% for the ewes. During winter the hoggets are grazed in mobs of 500-600 on swedes, kale and winter rape with supplements of lucerne hay.
